04.26.11

Day 2: Natural Bridge and Stone Mountain

Posted in Astronomy, Space Shuttle, Traveling at 9:42 pm by Rebekah

Today turned out to be a high risk for severe weather, but thankfully I remained ahead of any storms, and only had a bit of rain in Mississippi. Skies were fairly clear when I got to Atlanta.

Here was today’s route (click to enlarge):

I was quite taken with the beauty of the forests and hills (or “mountains”? I think this is still considered part of the southern Appalachians) of northern Alabama into Georgia. The number of pine trees steadily increased from northwest Mississippi all the way into Georgia.

In northwest Alabama, I saw a sign for something called Natural Bridge, so stopped to have a look. A little bit off the beaten path, I found that Natural Bridge is the largest natural bridge east of the Rockies, at 148 feet long and 60 feet tall. It was quite pretty. Next to Natural Bridge was a rock face that was supposed to look like the silhouette of an Indian. It was called Indian Face.

Indian Face

Natural Bridge

Alabama forest, near Natural Bridge

Talladega Superspeedway, in eastern Alabama

Turner Field, home of the Atlanta Braves. Atlanta is the only part of the Southeast I’ve been to before, but I didn’t get to see Turner Field the last time I was there. I quite liked the ballpark, at least from what I could see of it. The baseball poster on the left was bordered with the years the Braves made it to the playoffs, won the NLCS, or won the World Series.

Atlanta skyline, from Turner Field. Note the Olympic Rings on the right…this hung over the road to the ballpark. Atlanta was the site of the 1996 Summer Olympics.

This is also something I wanted to see near Atlanta. Stone Mountain is a granite hill on the east side of Atlanta. It is a large dome that seems to stick up out of nowhere. Carved into the side of the mountain (similar to Mount Rushmore) are three figures of the Confederacy: Stonewall Jackson, Robert E. Lee, and Jefferson Davis (from left to right). Stone Mountain is 1,673 feet above sea level.

I took the “skyride” (a cable car) to the top, and then hiked down (it’s about a mile).