2013 Vacation 2

After Atlanta, we stopped at Stone Mountain on our way to Augusta.  Tom and I have both traveled a bit, but we'd never heard of Stone Mountain...until this trip.  Tom decided to turn our trek to Virginia for a family reunion into a tour of Confederate Civil War sites, and while researching the trip, he learned about Stone Mountain.  It was definitely a highlight of the trip, especially since all the Georgia schools were already in session so there was hardly anyone there when we went.

Here we are riding the gondola to the top of Stone Mountain.  This is a big deal, because Lukas has been afraid to ride a gondola for a long time...

 ...and here he is enjoying it! We seem to have made a big advancement in this area!

These two look a little nervous in the picture, but they actually weren't at all.

On top of Stone Mountain...you can see so far in every direction!

I think that's Atlanta in the background.  The kids had a hard time posing because it was a sunny day and the white stone reflecting made it very bright.

Yeah, it was bright, so we squinted.

Natalie enjoyed the wildflowers.

Here is the carving of Davis, Lee and Jackson on the face of the mountain.  Did you know the carving is bigger than the carving on Mount Rushmore?

 Very rare pose of Natalie smiling and looking at us!

Ok, Dominik is cute too!

That night we met second? and third? cousins of Tom, had dinner and learned a little family history.

These might be third or fourth cousins.

For breakfast, we drove to South Carolina (just across the border from Augusta) to eat at a Waffle House.

I worked at a Waffle House in Texas when I was a teenager, so it was fun to show the kids what it's like.

Dominik is in his "no pictures, please" stage.

Then we drove around with Tom's cousin, Jean, to see family sites in Augusta.  Here Lukas and Konrad are reading the name of an ancestor who carved several Confederate monuments.

We spent a good part of the morning at a cemetery, seeing more ancestors of Tom.  Here's the Confederate section of the cemetery, where Jean says Memorial Day services are held.

Beautiful tree-lined streets.

Then we stopped at Jean's church and Lukas and Konrad met the organist, who let them play a few notes.

And before we left Augusta, we had a nice lunch with Jean and Henry had some great hushpuppies and fish (the first time I've had hushpuppies and liked them). What a fun time meeting family!