Road Trip - Day 1 (Stone Mountain)

So we have another road trip, but not nearly as far as Minneapolis was last year.  This year the plan was to visit Atlanta on our way to Charlotte, NC, and return through Asheville to visit the Biltmore.  On the first day of our trip we quickly arrived at Stone Mountain and checked into the hotel.  Two double beds is a little cramped for a family of 6...but more on that later.  I was expecting crowds for the summer, but the attractions were open with hardly any wait.  We began with the skyhike, where even with some girly pouting and shreeky "I caaaannn't dooo itt" from Belle, she made it all the way through the whole hike even up to the third level 30' in the air.  With the boys I would have just told them to suck it up and keep going.  With belle, it worked opposite, I was ready to go down if she was too scared, and each time she whined, I said OK, let's go back down, then she kept whining, but pushed her self out on these 30 foot off the ground ropes.  Haha...I was proud of her when she made it the whole way, and I think she was proud that she made it.  I just asked her and she said she was ready to do it again. 

 

Sam fell on level one and while the harness saved him from breaking a leg, it gave him a nasty rope burn on his neck which was just the first of many Sam injuries on this road trip.  At the top of the rock, the weather was awesome, overcast, so we let the kids play around (as much as you can with a sheer cliff a few feet away).  We found some fun photo spots and had to "hang" off the edge.  Crazy kids were even leaning against the fence giving both mom and dad near heart attacks.  And poor Ruby, she was great on the ride up and down the mountain, but when we picked her up, her palms were super sweaty...she may have gotten her Dad's fear of heights. 

 

Back on the ground, we did something the kids have been begging me to do each time we visit...the DUCK BOAT.  And we all had quackers and the quackers were LOUD, and they did not stop.  "Who let them dogs out?"  QUACK....QUACK QUACK...QUACK QUACK.  It was pretty fun though, and our tour guide let each of the children drive the truck/boat.  And ended the day with a late night laser show...long 1 hour laser show.