The Perfect Day

Today, we decided to play hookie from all responsibility and headed to Stone Mountain for a day of, well, whatever struck our fancy. On the way, we went through the drive-through at Krispy Kreme for a donut. We were at the red light outside the store and it looked so good that we couldn't resist. Anyway, there is so much to do at Stone Mountain that even though we'd just been there 8 days ago, we found a lot of new things to do. It's amazing that you can go to a place over and over again and keep finding new things that you like about it.

The first time we visited Stone Mountain, we thought that it was a tribute to the Confederacy. We've learned that all the Old South stuff is not actually the main point of the park, even though a lot of people identify it that way. It's a place where there is a lot to learn about history, ecology, geology, and so on. The park was originally a granite quarry and was bought by the state of Georgia as a nature preserve.

We found the old rock quarry today. We would have found it a couple of years ago if we'd ever bothered to read the map they give us at the gate. It was the place where granite was mined and sent off to places all over the continent. We learned that some of the granite from Stone Mountain is in West Quad and its surrounding buildings at U of M, as well as in the Ann Arbor post office! Those years that we sat down in the MUG with our Subway cramming for tests, or mailed a package, or the time when Matt wiped out on his rollerblades outside the post office, we never knew we were surrounded by the rock from the place we'd visit as a family years later.

We stopped for the better part of an hour to feed Gabriel and have some snack bars at a picnic table overlooking an old grist mill between a stream and the lake. It could hardly have been more picturesque.

We tried unsuccessfully to locate several geocaches. The first was in an area that looked like hiking through it would be destructive to fragile plant life, so we decided to forgo that one. We hiked through woods for a while, only to realize that the second cache was on an island just 100 feet from the edge of shore. We didn't want to rent a kayak with Gabriel to go out there, so we decided that we should try another one. We made it to the third spot and looked until it started to get dark, but since we had a lot of hiking yet to do, we finally moved on. We did find a beautiful spot with a bench under tree cover next to a stream, though. It would have been the perfect camping spot.

We decided to take an old Cherokee trail over the mountain. As we started the trail, a very big fox accidentally began to follow us until we spotted each other and he decided to wait until later to climb the mountain. Not too long after that, we made one of the most breathtaking discoveries we've ever made hiking. There was a place where the mountain cleared out and became steep granite. Just as we got there, the view opened up to miles and miles of skyline. The sun had just set, and the sky was horizontal streaks of varying shades of red. We could see the Atlanta skyline 15 miles in the distance. The moon was high in the sky, and the stars were starting to be visible. Patty's shifted center of gravity (Gabriel in the carrier) and quickly-tiring legs combined to bring back her fear of heights, and as soon as she saw the view, she bent down and grabbed the ground before getting back up and hurrying across the mountain for safer ground. We had to move quickly anyway, since it gets very dark up there at night as we learned last weekend. We have a flashlight that has both red and white lights, so we could use the white light while in unfamiliar territory and red when we got to the wide trail that most people use to get up and down the mountain. Red light preserves your night vision, but while light is better when you really need a good view of where you're walking.

Our GPS unit saved the day once again, when we needed to find the "walk-up" trail to get back to the Jeep. It wasn't marked by signs or blazes that we could see at night, but we had it marked on our GPS. We had initially passed the trail before realizing that we were descending; we knew that the trails crossed at the highest point of the Cherokee trail. Sure enough, our GPS pointed us back to the junction and we were back at the cars minutes later. It was fun to imagine the Cherokees passing over the same rock and along the same ridges that we were. We even had a papoose to make it a more genuine experience!

As usual, Gabriel was a trooper all day. He seemed to love being outside in his carrier for six hours and fell asleep just when the Cherokee trail got scary. He missed all the drama but woke up just in time for the drive back to Midtown, happy as ever.

Update on Jack

Jack called home this morning to say that he's at the airbase and doing fine. You can read it in the comment from Mom K attached to the post below, but we'll reprint it here to make it easy.

Jack called this morning. He's finally at his camp. He used the satellite phone and the sound quality was much better than the last time he called us. He said the camp was very small, maybe a mile around the perimeter, and you could probably throw a stone all the way across it. They're in tents right now, but some Navy guys are building some more permanent shelters. He said they have a hot breakfast and dinner, but lunch is an MRE, which he said he doesn't mind. And they can have a nutrition bar any time they want. No TV, so a lot of the Marines have DVD players and buy DVDs at the PX. We might try to see if we can send Jack one soon. The only newspaper they have is Stars & Stripes. He'll be catching up on his phone calls soon, now that his calling card works.

She Did It!

Congratulations to Laura, who passed her boards and is now Nurse Laura Kelly, RN! The boards are computerized, and the number of questions varies. Laura and her friend Genevieve both got the minimum number of questions, and after going home and checking some of her answers, she was certain that they'd both failed. After a rough 24 hours, she found out that she is just as brilliant as we already knew she was. We're so excited. She's worked harder for those two little letters than just about anyone we know has worked for anything.

This morning, the largest manhunt in Georgia history came to an end when they caught Brian Nichols in Duluth, about half an hour's drive north of here. It turns out that he escaped the scene of the crime by taking MARTA, Atlanta's train system. It's a little scary to think that we could have easily been on the train with him and that he did, in fact, go right underneath our apartment while we were sitting here watching the story on the news. We were going to walk over to the overpass to watch them drive by with him this morning, but they stopped at the FBI headquarters so we went to lunch instead at Noodle. When we were walking back, we saw all of the news helicopters fly right by us, following the curve of the interstate. We knew right away that they must have been transporting Nichols. They were taking him to City Hall East, which is across the street from the Whole Foods where we were yesterday.

We spent the evening at the Karsons'-to-be house with Steve and Kelly's dad, Bob. We had some fantastic Thai food (fourth Asian meal in a row - Japanese for dinner Thursday, Thai for dinner Friday, Vietnamese for lunch today, and Thai for dinner today) and played a lot of ping-pong on their new table. Gabriel was so good all evening and got a lot of floor time, which he doesn't normally get. He watched Daddy play foosball and calmly sat in Daddy's lap all through dinner without fussing one bit. Kelly was at work and didn't get there until we were driving away, so we took the car out of gear and coasted backward down the street to go say hello and see her engagement ring. Steve did a great job with the design - it's really beautiful.

On Thursday, Paula Zahn Live on CNN will be at Camp Lejeune, so that should be an interesting show... even if they're about 3 weeks too late.

Food, Glorious Food

That line from the musical "Oliver!" pretty much sums up our day. We went to Your DeKalb Farmers' Market - yes, "Your" is part of the name - as well as Whole Foods. We bought every organic fruit and vegetable known to man and even some grain-fed, antibiotic-free, free-roaming, daily-manicured and aromatherapized chicken. We will probably eat none of this, however; it's for Gabriel.

He now has the entire top shelf of the freezer just for his food. He has apples, bananas, pears, sweet potatoes, corn, peas, and chicken, not to mention spelt (wheat-free) bagels in case he wants something to gnaw on. There are papayas and mangoes, and some more bananas, pears, and peas waiting to be prepared and countless things in jars. We also gave him his first cookie today, an arrowroot biscuit both for teething and so he can learn to eat finger foods. He loved it - that is, until he threw it on the floor.

For dinner, we had pad thai with peanuts and lime, rice with "rat-s*#@" chili fish sauce (sorry, that's what they're called), and salads. Our wine was pretty much drowned out by all the spice, but it's so totally good that we couldn't wait until tomorrow to open it. It's called "Chard-No-Way", and Darren, who owns the restaurant down the block, Toast, introduced us to it.

Jack called home today to say that bad weather has left them at Al Asad airfield for some time. The helicopter can only transport about 25 troops at a time, so he's working about 4 hours a day doing flight manifests for the time being. To find it on the map, look in the northwest of the country, not too far beneath the Euphrates River. After clicking on the northwest part of the country to zoom in, it should be recentered to find the airfield.

In other news, there was a shooting downtown that was all over every news program today. A criminal shot his judge, the court stenographer, and two deputies (one of whom survived) and escaped by a series of carjackings. We live about a mile north of this courthouse and have parked in the garage where the carjackings took place several times. We've been in the area countless times, but today wasn't one of them. We can't figure out how he got away from that many law enforcement types. On the bright side, it's a good thing that it didn't happen tomorrow because it will be family day there.

We got some digital camera photos today in the mail from two different companies. They weren't that much different from each other, but we thought that Shutterfly was slightly better than dotphoto. We also sent film to Snapfish to be developed, put online, and printed, but they haven't yet received it.

We also tested several programs to download music, because we have an MP3 player and are excited to put new music on it now that we have this computer. Napster is quick, easy, and well-organized, but the songs can only be downloaded in MP3 format with a certain type of subscription. If only downloading songs to burn on CD or listen to on the computer, it's great. Morpheus is a peer-to-peer program that was pretty difficult to use. Every time we chose a song, it said that the host had gone offline. Finally, we tried Kazaa, which works great for MP3 downloads. Both Napster and Kazaa were very quick, and the songs are of good quality. For CDs we will be using Napster, and for our MP3 player we will be using Kazaa.

Our Checklists

The book NOW has inspired us to create our "Done That/To Do" checklists. These are lists that depend on a number of things, so they are always changing. Some things made the list because they were extremely difficult to do, whether due to obstacles or fears. Others made the list because of unique opportunities or chance. We hope that this will inspire other people to think about what they would like to do. Here are the current top seven items from each of our lists:

Matt's "Done That" List Earned a BSE in Aerospace Engineering Has designed parts for the F/A-22 Ran the largest 10K race in the world Got married Had a son Traveled to Thailand Flew in a police helicopter and caught a criminal	Patty's "Done That" List Married Matt Earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do Kayaked with wild dolphins Jumped into New River off rock about 30 feet high - twice Ran the world's largest 10K race 8 1/2 months pregnant Played Chopin's Ballade in F Major from memory Bathed under a waterfall on a mountain in Thailand
Matt's "To Do" List Visit every continent Write a book Win "The Amazing Race" Visit every major league baseball ballpark Climb Mt. Everest Visit Irish homeland Plant trees	Patty's "To Do" List Visit every major league baseball ballpark Climb Mt. Everest Complete natural childbirth Win "The Amazing Race" Earn PhD Obtain pilot's license Snorkel Great Barrier Reef