Day 43 - Macon to Stone Mountain, Georgia

Well, it's cocktail time in Stone Mountain, Georgia, and we deserve it. Today was sort of a pistol, and that's no lie. While getting out of that beautiful camp in Macon was a piece of cake, the rest of the day turned out to be quite a challenge.

It all started when we made the decision to pick out a camp for this evening before we left the camp in Macon this morning. Seemed easy enough. Since we had to use Interstate 75 to get from Macon to Atlanta, there being no secondary road that headed in that direction that I could find, we chose a camp on route 75 and programmed the GPS to take us there. My thinking was that if the camp looked good, we'd book for the night, pay the required fee, and then just return when we were through doing our sightseeing in Atlanta. That way we'd get a jump on people just pulling into camp later in the day.

That's what the script said. What really happened was the GPS, possibly to pay us back for the previous day's "dising," took us twice to a vacant lot on the side of a mountain that the guide book swore was an RV park. Not seeing any RVs by the second visit to said vacant lot, we jumped back on the freeway and headed for Atlanta.

Our destination today was the Atlanta History Museum. There we hoped to visit a 1860s working farm (photo right), a couple of vintage houses, and a Civil War museum par excellence. After leaving the vacant lot that didn't turn out to be a real RV park, we once again programmed the GPS and prayed. Wonder of wonders, though the damn thing kept saying "keep right" when we really needed to keep left on the maze of interchanges in Atlanta, we managed to arrive at the museum in one piece after motoring through some of the prettiest residential neighborhoods either of us had ever seen.

But as we pulled onto the museum grounds we immediately discovered that NO parking had been provided for RVs in any way, shape, or form. Only a small two-story parking garage, and some widely-scattered automobile parking was provided. There was a couple of school buses pulled up in the "Don't park here, it's the fire lane" spaces, but we decided that parking somewhere off the property was going to be necessary.

The first driveway we encountered after leaving the museum main entrance was the gate to one of the nearby mansions that is advertised on the museum brochure. Looking inside the gate, I didn't see anyone around and just beyond the gate was a dandy little spot just made for a motor home. It looked like perhaps gardeners normally parked maintenance vehicles there. Deciding to throw caution to the wind, I cranked the wheel over and entered the mansion grounds. Still not a soul appeared to be around. So......I just backed the rig in amongst the trees (photo top left), ran the front wheels up on blocks to partially level it, and then we spent the next half hour having lunch.

When lunch was over and still no one had come to challenge our bold bit of trespassing onto the mansion grounds, we packed up our cameras and set off for the museum. Every once in a while as we walked someone would exit from the parking lot labeled "staff only," but not a single one of these folks seemed interested in our presence.

With a last look back at the rig, we walked into the museum grounds and made our way to the 1860s farm where we soon encountered a couple of docents in costume who spent the next half hour enhancing our knowledge of 19th century farming. While Concetta interviewed first the main house "farmer" (photo left), and then the kitchen "slave," I wandered the grounds taking advantage of the wonderful blue skies for doing some photo work. All the while, we both hoped that the rig would still be there when we returned.

After the farm we both headed into the main museum building, visiting first the Native American exhibit, and then the Civil War exhibit. Both these efforts were extremely well done, especially the Civil War room. In fact, I can't remember when I've ever seen a nicer Civil War Exhibit.

At one point I discovered that I had not taken the battery for the small camera out of the charger this morning and when I went to take photos in the museum, it naturally didn't work. This necessitated my walking back to the RV, which, though quite a hike, I didn't mind since I wanted to check on it anyway. The small Nikon takes much better low light photos than the larger camera.

When I got back to the rig the first thing I saw was a very official-looking chap standing a couple of hundred feet away, looking right at the RV while talking with his assistant. Oh, oh, I thought. Busted. Not wanting to look like I owned the truck, I busied myself taking photos of the grounds. After a few moments the man and his assistant both turned away, but continued to make hand motions as if he was telling his assistant how and where to perform some task. I took that opportunity to steal over to the RV, unlock the door, and dash inside.

After retrieving my battery and using the bathroom, I stole glances out the window to see where the man and woman were located. To my disappointment, they were still rooted to the spot on which I'd first seen them. Not wanting to draw attention as I exited the coach, I got up in the cab and quietly exited the driver's door, shutting it gently and locking it. Then, seeing they still had their backs to me, I quietly walked up the staff parking drive and disappeared into the museum grounds without being noticed.

Now this was all well and good, and it didn't appear that the truck was going to be towed away for illegal parking, but we weren't out of the low-karma woods yet, not by a long shot.

You'll remember that I mentioned a couple of school buses earlier in the narrative. Well, those buses, as you might expect, contained about three dozen children. As it turned out, those kids were the loudest, most ill-behaved tiny people on this planet. I don't think a single one of those kids said anything to one of their school mates unless they did it at the top of their lungs. They ran from room to room in groups. They laughed. They screamed. They just generally did whatever they wanted.

And the chaperones? Well, they didn't do anything at all as far as we could see. They gazed into their cell phone screens a lot. They sat semi comatose quite a bit. But for the most part they could have been totally absent and it wouldn't have made a bit of difference.

As you might guess, this bit of nonsense made the museum experience a bit trying. But still I would encourage you to visit the museum if you should find yourself in Atlanta. If we were to come back, we'd certainly try to time it for a day when children wouldn't be present, if that were possible, but we'd still visit again. The museum was simply great.

I have to mention at this point that just before we left the museum we visited the book shop, our habitual weakness. There we happened to mention to the clerk about how we had taken a chance and parked on the grounds of the Swan Mansion next door to the museum. The clerk smiled knowingly.

"You know," he said, "they've been filming a movie on the mansion grounds for the past few days. Anyone who saw your RV would probably just assume you were part of the film company."

And there you have it. The Davis luck, though a little weaker today for some reason, managed to do right by us in the end. When we got back to the truck there was no one present to chastise us for our bit of parking chicanery, so we just took the rig off the leveling blocks, cranked her up, and set off for our intended camping spot for the night, that of Stone Mountain (photo right). It's been around thirty years since I visited Stone Mountain, but I can tell you it's definitely worth the visit. The camp here is outstanding, if slightly pricey.

Tomorrow we're headed back into Atlanta to visit the Jimmy Carter library and perhaps one or two other points of interest. By mid afternoon we'll be headed back here to Stone Mountain camp for our second night. I'm sure hoping the GPS is in a friendlier mood tomorrow.