Last full day. Southern Exposure. Stone Mountain, GA. We have two full days at Stone Mountain and parts of 2 more days. Most of the Stone Mountain attraction is for kids. Even though we act like kids at times, two full days is a bit much. Everyone did the attractions yesterday and now today it has been raining all day, the highs are in the 40's, and everyone is pretty much hunkered down wondering what happened to our snowbird experience. This is the day to do laundry, get caught up on the Internet, go to Walmart, and try not to eat or at least purge in anticipation of a wondrous meal tonight. It's the farewell dinner. For me it is somewhat akin to a funeral and a retirement party. It's when we will say nice things to each other and say how much we have enjoyed being with them and how much we will miss them and hope our paths cross again. I just want to make new tracks and get out of Dodge, but the farewell dinner is part of the experience and I'll have to be there.

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I must admit, the carving on the bare granite dome is impressive. And reviewing the history of how it was finally brought to completion was fascinating. The 3 figures carved into the wall are Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson. It was meant to be a monument honoring the Confederacy, and indeed everything about this place does do that. We watched a spectacular laser and fireworks show at this site and sat in an area that honored one of the 13 states that seceded. The laser show did end up honoring the USA, but there was lots of southern focus on the way to the end of the show. We also learned in the museum that Stone Mountain was sacred ground for the KKK 60 or more years ago, and numerous rallies and cross burnings took place here. But now it is mostly an amusement park for the kids. And in the end, if onc can get past the history and the politics, it is a fascinating story that somewhat parallels Mt. Rushmore, Borglum and all

 
Catching up since the last blog posting included visiting a tea plantation in SC. It is the only tea plantation in North America. We took a wagon tour through the grounds and learned of its history and the on-going efforts to produce tea. We then toured the facilities that processed the tea leaves. It was one of the more fascinating tours that we took. What you see in the pictures are tea bushes. They are a particular species of Camila from China, and the plant is the source of all the tea. Because SC has high temps and high humidities, tea does very well. They have developed a mechanical harvester that cuts the new growth off the tops every 20 days during the summer. The have the only mechanical harvester in the world.

When we were in Charleston, we had a boat ride to and a tour of Fort Sumter. The day called for a tour of the aircraft carrier, Yorktown in the morning, lunch on the Yorktown, and then a boat ride to Fort Sumter. Shannon and I had toured the Saratoga in Corpus Christie and thought 1 aircraft carrier was enough. Beside, we had a better offer, breakfast with my niece April (eggs Benedict with crab meat and fried green tomatoes), and a visit to the angel tree.

The Angel Tree was a live oak, of course. Immense in size and spread. It was well over 300 years old and there was a reverence when people were looking at it and photographing it. Climbing on it was strictly prohibited, but that did not deter the kids that visited, and it was a full time job of the personnel to keep kids off the tree. A future volunteer job...? Anyway, I didn't blame the kids; it would have been awesome to climb on the tree.

And finally, Biltmore Estate in the Asheville, NC area. When I hiked through the trees from the parking lot and broke out of the trees and saw the estate in front of me, my mouth hung open and I said, "Are you sh**ing me!" I could not believe the immensity and the grandeur of the structure. We took an audio tour of the building, and it was well worth the effort. It is so immaculate and well preserved, and so unbelievable that someone had as much wealth at George Vanderbilt did in order to build such a grand structure. I also had to hunt, but did find several references to Gifford Pinchot and the early efforts to learn and do forestry here in the New World.

Enough. I now have to get through the farewell dinner tonight and the good-bye breakfast tomorrow morning. If I survive those, we are heading back up north to Asheville, NC to get our motor home looked at again at Camping World, and to explore the Great Smokey Mountain NP. It will then be onto PA, maybe via Shenandoah NP, to see my brother and sister-in-law. We follow that with a first-time-ever visit with a first cousin on my mother's side of the family living in upstate NY. Then we head toward MN, but stop off in Ohio and see our volunteer friends, the A's, that we met at Santee. But we are not done yet. It is then on to Sioux Falls, SD to get driver's licenses, and then finally to William O-Brien State Park to campground host during the month of May. I'm tired already just typing all that in the blog. Never a down time when you're retired.