Friday, April 1st – Fort Yargo State Park, Atlanta, Georgia to F.D. Roosevelt State Park – Day 52
Another day at lovely Fort Yargo. Another travel day. We were originally thinking of spending another night at Fort Yargo but we couldn’t find a site with three days available and we figured if we were packing up to move to another site, we might as well see another park. I spent an hour the previous morning putting all my researched “places to see” on a map of Atlanta to group together things we could see in a day. I feel a map helps visualize everything. I had read about F.D. Roosevelt State Park and put it on my spreadsheet so it must have been somewhere good although I could only vaguely remember what it was all about. I proposed we visit and Gen booked. She then realized it was an hour and a half from Atlanta and thought we made a terrible mistake but it was already booked. I didn’t think it was that big of a deal.
The kids finished some very fun activities in the junior ranger booklets for Fort Yargo State Park under Gen’s watchful eye while I packed up the trailer. We went to the visitor centre to get a badge. Mary bought Aisling a junior rangers vest which was quite nice.
Today was about seeing the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park in downtown Atlanta. We had additional elements to the plan, the National Park is always first because of the junior ranger badge, but time was short due to the late night before and we ended up only being able to do one thing. The things we did not get to do were seeing the Civil Rights museum in Atlanta (which I hear is absolutely fantastic, shout out to Sam Mitchell, former Coach of the Toronto Raptors, for letting me know) and hike a two mile round trip trail to the top of Arabia Mountain. If only we had more time but, unfortunately, we can’t see everything.
We arrived to the MLK Jr National Historical Park after a battle through Atlanta traffic, again. We sat on the playground outside the visitor centre and had lunch. I went in to get the junior ranger booklets for the kids and we started working on them. There were some easy tasks and then they got progressively more detailed. We matched definitions to words like leadership, segregation and non-violence. The kids did a MLK Jr. connect the dots. They also had to go through the museum in the visitor centre and state one thing they found interesting from the exhibits. I tried to lead them through discussions on non-violence, inclusion and segregation while informing them about Martin Luther King Jr.. It was very difficult to hold their attention and convey my point. I give credit to Aisling and Charlotte for putting up with me and doing their best to listen and understand. John was doing his best at his level and Gen was helping him do what he could.
Finally, we were done the activity books, lessons had hopefully been learned and the kids presented their work to the ranger. He was fantastic. He brought them over, put them in a line, had them hold their badge and certificates and they repeated the following pledge:
I promise to respect people of other cultures, races and beliefs. I will honor Dr. King’s dream of peace and harmony for all people.
Once the kids were finished their pledge, John began melting down. We walked around the park to the church where Martin Luther King Jr was a Minister. You can walk through the church and hear one of his sermons.
We then went to the Martin Luther King Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change Inc (I just noticed the Inc at the end, odd) and saw the final resting place of Reverend King and his wife, Coretta Scott King. On the wall they have Reverend King’s six principles of non-violence which I thought were fantastic:
1. Nonviolence is a way of life for courageous people
2. Nonviolence seeks to win friendship and understanding
3. Nonviolence seeks to defeat injustice, not people.
4. Nonviolence holds that suffering can educate and transform.
5. Nonviolence chooses love instead of hate
6. Nonviolence believes that the universe is on the side of justice.
The National Park office closed, and we walked back to our car. At his point Mary realized she forgot her hat and water bottle inside the centre. The next hour was about finding someone to let us into the visitor centre again. Unfortunately, there was no one. We did get to see the house that Martin Luther King Jr grew up in so that was a bonus.
We then headed to F.D. Roosevelt State Park. The drive seemed long but we got there just before dark to set-up the trailer. Our campsite was epic. We were right beside the lake and had an amazing view. Gen started cooking pasta while Mary, John and I went to the visitor centre that turned out to be far away and closed – a terrible combination. The visitor centre was beautiful though. We will go back tomorrow.
We came back and met our neighbours, Josh and Rachel. They were from Alabama but had spent time in Quebec prior to kids and wished to go back to Canada. They had Amos, 7, and Tallulah, 3. The kids had already been playing and were fast friends. Aisling and Amos were running around with laser guns playing laser tag in the dark. John and Charlotte were engrossed on a tablet inside with Tallulah. We are always worried that our kids are annoying other people, but Josh and Rachel were incredibly nice. Josh had a trail race in the morning which I was fascinated with, so we talked for quite a while about what that was like. Gen and Rachel seemed to hit it off and Rachel even gave us free passes to Callaway Gardens, a local nature park. It was a really nice to meet them and we chatted for ages before we realized what time it was; Josh had to get rest before his race in the morning. Bedtime.
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