2013-10-23 Stone Mountain & Atlanta Aquarium

Once the Good Sam Rally ended on October 21, we headed to Stone Mountain Park and Campground, east of Atlanta. We enjoyed the lovely lake-side campground despite our site – 293 - being extremely bumpy required lots of boards to get the Titanium leveled.

   

Stone Mountain is a massive bowl-shaped dome of granite that rises 825 feet above the plateau – one of the largest hunks of freestanding granite in the world. The mountain contains the Confederate Memorial Carving – the world’s largest relief sculpture. It is a carving of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson all riding their horses.
We were sorry to have to miss the Laser light show and the other attractions in the park but they are open only on weekends in October.


     

We used the campground as a base to explore Atlanta a bit more. We went Houston’s Steak house on Monday night for Paul’s birthday dinner.

On Tuesday the 22nd, we spent the afternoon at the Georgia aquarium – the world’s largest aquarium which was built with money from Bernard Marcus of Home Depot. It is a beautiful facility with fascinating exhibits – well worth the visit.


                   

We then walked through the Centennial Olympic Park on our way to Pittypat’s Porch restaurant – one of the oldest southern restaurants in downtown Atlanta. The restaurant was named after Scarlett O’Hara’s aunt in the movie Gone with the Wind. We thought that the southern cuisine was delicious – despite some of the negative online reviews which we read.

         

On our way back to Stone Mountain, we drove through the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic site. We will have to go back to Atlanta to explore the site more fully. Jane is already planning another trip so that she can visit the Gone with the Wind sites.

2013-10-20 Atlanta Good Sam Rally Final Day

On Sunday October 20, we did some last minute shopping at the Camping World store and at a vendor who sold microwave cooking supplies. We even took the opportunity to look at some of 5th wheels again but left the Rally without buying a replacement for the Titanium.

       

We couldn’t resist taking pictures of the trams and converted school buses that transported us back and forth to our rigs. Unfortunately they did not have sufficient transportation for peak times but that was really our only complaint about the Rally itself.

     

The early evening entertainment was by the Vogues – a group we had seen at the Syracuse rally in June. Once again, the crowd sang along and had a great time.

       

We are anxious to see where the 2014 rally / rallies will take place but doubt that we make the trip – unless the timing works well with our trip to Texas.



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2013-10-18 Atlanta Good Sam Rally Photos

We spent Monday night October 14 at Forsyth KOA which is south of Atlanta but one of the closest campgrounds to the Atlanta Motor Speedway which is in Hampton, GA.

Tuesday morning October 15, we checked into The Rally and got a great parking spot – on asphalt rather than grass which we had in Syracuse. The Speedway is huge – it must be quite the place during an actual race.

After we registered, and found the seminar rooms and tours of Atlanta pick-up spot, we headed out to explore the neighbouring town. We headed to Lovejoy, Georgia (yes the actual name of a town) where we found a Discount Tire which had a replacement trailer tire in stock.

For supper that night, we chose C.J. Hot Dogs – a small little place that serves mainly hot dogs with various combinations of toppings. Jane enjoyed her Chicago Dog while Paul tried the Mexican Dog. To end the day, we even made a quick trip to the outlet mall in the neighbouring town.



 

Friday October 18 we spent the day going to seminars and browsing through the exhibits. The highlight of the day for Paul on his 65th birthday, however, was the Beach Boys concert. We were seated in the speedway stands looking down at the stage so everyone had a good view. Since the crowd was filled with baby boomers, everyone sang along and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

               

For Jane, the Good Sam Culinary Experience seminars with Canadian Bob Blumer were the most fun so she attended both his pumpkin pizza making seminar and his weekend brunch seminar. http://therally.com/atlanta-ga-october-17-20-2013/bob-blumer-host-of-surreal-gourmet/

 

During the rally, we bought lunch at the various food trucks – the most interesting was Nana G`s chicken and waffles. This artery clogging dish was delicious – a bacon infused waffle topped with fried chicken strips and finished off with powdered sugar and maple syrup. It is a good thing that we split one or we would have never made it to the afternoon seminars.

           

Saturday evening’s concert was country star Vince Gill. The weather was beautiful again and we enjoyed watching the sun set from high up in the stands.