While not nearly as ambitious as our State Park project, Trey and I have been slowly making our way around to all of Macon’s city parks. This little recreational area is tucked away in a neighborhood on the north side of town – we accidentally found it when visiting a friend in that neighborhood.
The park is basically just a small playground but that is all a 3-year-old needs. We ran around and played and I got to experiment a bit more with my off-camera flash tricks.
I’m a bit late getting these up but here they are – photos from the Cherry Blossom Festival held a couple weeks ago. We didn’t attend nearly as many events as we did last year (I was busy preparing for the Mulberry St. Art Festival) but we did get to the fairgrounds at Central City Park at least once and we watched the big parade downtown. You can see some more of my parade photos on my web site.
Trey really enjoyed watching the parade – the highlight of the parade were our sister cities’ floats – Ulyanovsk, Russia and Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
Our visit to the fairgrounds was a bit of a disappointment because they were no longer selling the Unlimited Rides passes. The money we had “budgeted” for Trey to enjoy got him about 7 rides instead of the infinite number we had hoped for. Nonetheless, we spread the rides out and he enjoyed them just as much.
Just up the road from my grandparents’ farm in Tennessee is Fort Loudown State Historic Park. Trey and I visited this 256-year-old fort while my dad was taking Peepaw and Grammaw to some doctor appointments.
The fort was a British colonial fort meant to solidify their alliance with the Cherokee Nation during the French and Indian War. In the end, the Cherokee were fed up with betrayal after betrayal and finally ran the Brits off and destroyed the fort.
It was a cold, windy day when Trey and I went and we were the only visitors there. Trey was a big fan of the replica canons around the fort and had a good time exploring all the buildings. We also watched a 15-minute documentary about the history of the fort and it was interesting enough to even keep Trey’s attention!
You can see some more photos from our visit on my website.
Friday kick started our town’s big, pink, annual event – the Cherry Blossom Festival! We skipped the opening ceremonies, but Saturday we headed down to Central City Park to meet up with our friends the Crosbys. Trey and his best buddy Causey had a great time watching the 200+ motorcycles pull into the park.
Later in the afternoon I had to attend a reception at City Hall so Trey stayed at Causey’s house. Causey’s dad Adam took them to another nearby park to watch the annual Cherry Blossom lawnmower race. Only in Georgia!
This week was the first 2nd Second Brunch to be held outdoors since the last one we attended. It was a beautiful day with temperatures in the low 60s and there was a decent turnout for the show. Heidi was working today so it was just Trey and me picnicking in the park.
Performing on this fine day was The Ralph Roddenbery Band. Ralph is a local singer/songwriter whose music is a mix of country, rock, blues, and Americana. Trey danced a bit to the music but was most interested in running around and playing in the little streams and ponds throughout Washington Park.
Special thanks to Marike Carrier for sharing the photo to the right!
Monday was a beautiful day and after the past 2 weeks of cold weather and rain Trey and I had to get out. We headed about 20 miles north to Lake Juliette to find the mysterious Rum Creek Wildlife Management Area. Google Maps has it completely wrong, where they label it to be is actually on the property of Georgia Power’s massive coal-fired power plant.
Turns out that Scherer Plant is the United States’ largest single point-source for carbon-dioxide emissions (a mere 25.3 million tons per year to be exact). In fact, in 2007 it was ranked 20th highest CO2 emitter in the world (out of 50,000 power plants worldwide)! Their ash ponds have also been of some concern after the disaster in East TN last year. I’ve been here in Macon for almost 18 months and no one told me that polluting, monstrosity was in my backyard.
Now I’m not one to dive into the whole global warming debate, but I do know that that much carbon-dioxide being emitted in one place can’t be good. Trey’s take on it was “I don’t like it. It puts smoke up and down and it hurts my eyes!” I agree, it is a bit of an eye sore in the middle of Lake Juliette.
After getting directions from GA Power’s friendly security guards we head to the south side of the lake and found a muddy road leading into the woods. The area doesn’t have any hiking trails and I couldn’t find a good map online anywhere (remember I said mysterious) so we just followed an old road into the woods to the lakeside. Trey had a blast playing with his toy digger/bulldozer on all the rocks covered in moss. He also continued to exercise his tree climbing talents (he’s getting good enough to keep his mother very concerned). We actually spent about 2 hours just hanging out in the woods before heading home. Fun times!
