Ledges State Park

After one of Alex's soccer games a few weeks back, we decided to take advantage of the nice weather and head to Ledges State Park.  We haven't really been impressed with Iowa since moving here.  The landscape doesn't vary too much and we just feel like there isn't as much to do compared to some of the other places we have lived.  So we are trying to venture out and find more things to do here.  This is one park that actually has some nice scenery and good hiking.  We will definitely be heading back if it ever stops raining.

Ledges State Park

Chattahoochee Nature Center

The weekend before leaving Atlanta we decided to check out the Chattahoochee Nature Center.  Alex had been there for a school field trip and really liked it so we brought her back to check it out.  They had quite a few owls, hawks, and other fowl.  I loved seeing the owls, they are so cute!  Unfortunately, they were contained in a cage and the pictures didn't look to good, otherwise I would post them.

We are back in the cities now and have a lot of catching up to do on the blog!  I will post more later.

Appalachian Trail

One of the areas Keith and I wanted to check out before leaving Georgia was the southern most point of the Appalachian Trail.  The trail head is kind of hard to get to: located at the top of Springer Mountain.  We drove through some windy dirt roads to get to a parking spot and walked the mile up the mountain to where we found the trail head along with some markers.  We walked for about ten miles before heading home.  We would of loved to of spent more time there, but we had packing to do for our move!  We would love to check out some other points along the trail, which runs from Georgia to Maine.  Check out some of the pictures we took:

Appalachian Trail

Red Top Mountain State Park

On Easter we decided to go hiking since it was such a nice day.  We chose Red Top Mountain State Park because it wasn't too far away and we had not been there before.  There is so much to do there; camp, hike, rent boats, water skiing, they have cabins to rent.  We decided to hike the Homestead Trail and did not realize it was going to be as long of a hike as it was.  We hiked a total of 7.5 miles with Alex with us.  Luckily, she was a trooper and didn't complain at all.  We saw quite a few snakes.  I took a picture of one of them, which you can check out at the link below.   Someone told us they thought it was a King Snake, but after looking it up I don't think so.  I think it is a Common Garter Snake.  You can check out the picture and let me know what you think.  We also so a baby snake that had a diamond mark on its head.  Not sure what kind that was, but figured it may have been poisonous.  I think the snakes may have freaked Alex out a bit.  We almost stepped on two of them and the talk of poisonous snakes made Alex just want to get out of there!

Click below for pictures:

Red Top Mountain State Park- Georgia

Kolb's Farm

The other day, while Alex was at school, Keith and I hiked 12 miles around the Kennesaw Mountain Battlefield area.  There are so many trails in this area that we still have not covered them all.  Last week we went to Kolb Farm, a restored farmhouse build in 1836 and is the last standing building from the civil war.

Unfortunately, the home is not open to look, but there was a family cemetery right on the front lawn. After spending a few minutes walking around the area we walked back to our car.  I think we were pretty sore after walking 12 miles.

Little River Canyon National Preserve

Yesterday, for my birthday, I wanted to go to a national park in Alabama, Little River Canyon because I have never been to Alabama and it's only two hours from where we live.  I had read online that some call it the "Grand Canyon of the East".  It was very beautiful, but not really comparable to the Grand Canyon.  When we first got there we stopped by the Little River Falls and watched a few people kayak down the waterfall.  Below is a video of the second guy going down the falls:



I stopped the video before you see the guy come up.  I was a little worried but he did come up behind the waterfall, we just didn't see it.  It was pretty neat and I wouldn't mind trying this some day.

There were other falls along the river that we saw.   We stopped at all the lookouts that we could see and saw quite a few hawks gliding around the canyon.  It really was a beautiful area and I am glad we went.  I took a few pictures along the way but I feel the pictures really don't capture the beauty of the area.  Check them out below:

Little River Canyon National Nature Preserve

Sweetwater Creek State Park in Georgia

The next day, after hiking Arabia Mountain, we decided to check out Sweetwater Creek State Park in Lithia Springs, GA.  We really liked this park and Keith thought this was the best hiking out of all the places we have been in Georgia.  We hiked the trails in the park for about 6 miles.  Inside the park, right next to the creek, we saw an old mill that used to be used to make clothing for confederate soldiers.  The name of the mill used to be New Manchester Manufacturing Company.  The area was fenced in so we didn't walk around inside of the structure, but we wanted to.  There is so much history here!  The views were really beautiful and we would love to go back.  Click below for more pictures:

Sweetwater Creek State Park- Georgia

Arabia Mountain

Keith has had a lot of time off this week.  He started a new rotation on Monday and had a few days off this week so we decided to head to Arabia Mountain, located in the southeast corner of Dekalb County.  We walked around the mountain, which was basically a big slab of granite rock.  There were occasional spots nestled in between the granite with a small plant with bright red leaves, called Diamorpha.  We also found some areas with Cacti.  After walking around the mountain area we headed over to the Lyon Farmhouse, possibly the oldest standing farmhouse in Dekalb County.  The farmhouse was all boarded up so we couldn't get inside, but we could see the inside of the basement.  It sounds like from a news article I read online that a Lyon family member lived in the house until 2006, when he moved to Tennessee.

Click below for pictures.

Arabia Mountain