Shifting Gears before Shifting Gears

The original plan today was to do something in Atlanta around Centennial Park before heading to the Braves game in the evening. Unfortunately, we found out this morning that the park was closed because of the Shaky Beats Festival. Since I'm not up on my EDM, I had to look it up and see bands like Slushii, Kaiydo and Flosstradamus were performing all day (I'll just assume that those are real and not some kind of elaborate prank). It seemed like it'd be busy there and we weren't too excited about our options around there anyway after we found out the Coke Factory charged to get in and that the music would "shake the bones of everyone in earshot" so we decided to change it up. There's a National Monument on the way so we stopped there first.

Ocmulgee National Monument is a prehistoric Indian site that dates back 17,000 years. The highlights include old funeral and temple mounds along with a reconstructed mound that still has the original floor that dates back over a thousand years. There was about a mile of trails and a lot of nice views so it was definitely worth the stop, especially given that some areas date back to before the last Ice Age.

After that we made a quick stop to Stone Mountain. We've all heard of it before and knew it had something like the Confederate Mount Rushmore but it was definitely weirder than we all imagined. You had to pay to park and then when you pulled up it's basically an amusement park area in from of a small mountain that has the carvings in it. I think you can hike to a better viewing area but we didn't have much time so we just looked at the relief in the side of the mountain from the parking lot.

The Braves game itself was fine. SunTrust Park just opened a few weeks ago and while it was nice, it showed. It turns out it was Star Wars Night so it was nearly sold out which meant it was harder to get tickets than we had hoped. There also wasn't any scalpers around so it was a good thing I snagged a few of the last tickets available during the car ride today. Once we got there, we assumed there would be signs to park but while there were lots, they were all pre-paid only. We missed the start of the game but it the end, it worked out ok - we found a private lot a relatively short walk away and even though it rained much of the game, our seats were just under an overhang so we stayed dry. We did leave early but considering we have to get up early for Talladega tomorrow, no one was upset.

As they say in Stone Mountain, "General Lee won the war and reunited the country." Note: They probably do say this.