Alabama & Georgia

About Hidden Heritage, my LDS romance novel. It came back with a rejection letter. That's simply part of the writer's life. I'll look at it again, and make improvements, and try another one. I'll have it ready to print out and send by the time we get home.

Monday: Mostly a travel day, arriving in Alabama! I’m always surprised when I look at the map and see how far we have come. We are ahead of our flexible schedule, which is a good thing. We visited the Stone River Civil War battlefield along the way. So many lives lost on both sides.

We also visited the Ave Maria Grotto. A priest named Brother Joseph, created miniature religious sites and a few buildings of historical interest out of shells, junk, marbles, and items people donated. It was a life time of meticulous work and was amazing to see.

Tuesday: Today we visited what is now a historical landmark, but was once a 24-7 operational steel mill. It was amazing as I thought that family members never trod where we were walking among the now silent machinery. It’s the only one in the USA that hasn’t been torn down.

After that we went to a beautiful camp ground amongst trees. We walked along the creek for almost an hour. I never get tired of looking at greenery. They also had some historic cabins that have been saved and moved to the property. They are actually rental properties now. It’s interesting to see these antique houses with air conditioning units attached.

Wednesday: We took a side trip to see the covered bridge at Kymulga, AL on our way to Wal-Mart at Oxford, AL. It’s the oldest city in the USA that’s still around. Of course it was far from what would become the 13 Colonies at the time.

Thursday: We took the Talladega Scenic Drive in the Chia Mountains near Oxford, AL to the highest peak in Alabama on our way to Georgia. It’s all of 2,400 feet. It was gorgeous as all of the forests have been. It’s in the Talladega Forrest.

Georgia! We arrived in our campground in the early afternoon. It includes two lovely small lakes, and more forest.

Friday: A slow down day. After a relatively short drive, we attended the temple then came to the campground for an afternoon off.

 Saturday: Our biggest day, and the reason we took Friday afternoon off (that and laundry). We went to Stone Mountain. At the highest it’s 1,686 feet (513 m) above the surrounding area, and at the lowest part, 825 feet (251.5 m) and extends 9 miles (14 km) underground.  We took the tram up to the highest point, and after looking around, hiked down to ground level 1.3 miles (2.09 km). It was then a 2 mile (3.2 km) back to the main attraction.  While there we also took a train ride, saw the museum, and more. We also wondered at the workmanship it took to create the Confederate Memorial carved out of the mountain of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and “Stonewall” Jackson. It covers 3 acres (12,000 m²). In comparison, Mt. Rushmore is 60 feet (18.3 m) high, and the Sphinx is 66 feet (20 m) high. The highlight of the day was the laser show on the face of the mountain.  It was almost an hour of lights and fireworks. This is the only place we’re going to repeat going to. We went there over twenty years ago when we tented it across the country with 7 of our 8 children. Wish I could have taken pictures of the laser show, but our camera battery was dead. I don’t know if they would have come out well anyway.