Erika & Brian

We drove up to Stone Mountain Park (part of the Appalachians) and were not disappointed. It was a beautiful winter day and we had a blast exploring the area. We saw the quartz monzonite mountain from afar at first, relishing in its carving (the largest of its kind in the world). There is a lot of interesting info surrounding this historic site, too much to list here. The view of the mountain from the ground was impressive. We hiked up the entire thing which gave even better views of the surrounding area. Once at the top, we took a while to soak in the sights and rest for a bit (especially me; good thing I used my inhaler beforehand).

There was a cable car you could pay to take up to the top, but we decided we'd like the exercise. However, hiking back down didn't sound as appealing. So we went to the cable car and asked if we could take it down even though they were closing for the day AND we hadn't bought a ticket. The man operating it was kind and let us hop on for the ride down. I was incredibly hesitant to get on for various reasons. The tremendous height, the swinging of the car, and the lack of personal control over my environment was a bit too much for me. Even though I did convince myself to hop inside of the car, I may have been paralyzed and silently crying the whole way down. Whoops. To make matters worse, there was a group of kids in there who were screaming about the car rocking or falling to scare each other and oh man did I want to kill them.