Gone Camping!...and hiking, and fishing, and of course, Geocaching!

If the title of this post catches your attention, then you'll probably appreciate the trip that my son and I have for the upcoming week.  Since he was unable to go on vacation with us during Memorial Day weekend, I decided to take another week of vacation so that he and I could get back up to the mountains for a few days of Dad and Son time (and just some good ole R&R).  We will be pulling out on Saturday morning, July 7th and we have a lot of things lined up.

 (JDAWG fishing at Reed Bingham State Park)

 For starters, we will make about a three and a half hour trip north of us to Indian Springs State Park, where we will geocache.  From there, we will travel about 20 miles Southwest to High Falls State Park to do the same.  Those state park caches will give us 22 on our way to the 30 needed for our next coin, Silver (we received a bronze coin for 15).  Hopefully during our visit to these two parks, we will have the opportunity to introduce my dad to geocaching.  He has already indicated that he is interested and we plan to pick him up on the way.  Once the finds are made, and we make a trip to The Bass Pro Shop, we will retire for the evening at my parent's home (JDAWG'S Grandparents) before resuming our trip bright and early Sunday morning.

On Sunday morning, we will travel to Panola Mountain State Park just outside of downtown Atlanta.  Panola is like a smaller, sister mountain to Georgia's Stone Mountain.  We plan to do a bit of hiking, picture taking, and of course, geocaching.  From Panola Mountain, we will travel west to Sweetwater Creek State Park where we will again be in pursuit of the state sponsored geocache.  We also plan to take a bit of time to enjoy some trails and possibly do a bit of fishing here.  Kayaking may even be on the list of things to do.  Once we conclude our adventure at Sweetwater, it will be on to Red Top Mountain State Park where we plan to do much of the same.  We also plan to stay the night here, though we haven't decided yet if this will be a camping destination.

On Monday morning, JDAWG and I will depart Red Top and travel Northwest to James H. (Sloppy) Floyd State Park.  Our plans here include geocaching, hiking, and possibly fishing, though we don't intend to stay too long so that we can get on up to Cloudland Canyon and set up camp.  At Cloudland Canyon State Park, we will camp for two days!  During that time, we are hoping to do quite a bit of hiking and fishing, after locating the geocache of course.  I've already challenged JDAWG with the "we don't eat if we don't catch fish" line.  Here's to hoping we catch some fish!!

After two days of bliss at Cloudland, we will roll over to Fort Mountain State Park and then on to Amicalola Falls State Park.  At Amicalola, our itinerary consists of a visit to the nearby Chattahoochee Forest National Fish Hatchery and some trout fishing at Cooper's Creek (15 miles NW of Suches, Ga).  I will also be on a fact-finding mission about the Hike Inn; a destination that my wife and I plan to spend some time at in October.  JDawg and I also plan to get in a couple of hikes and retrieve another cache during our time at Amicalola Falls.

On Thursday morning, our plans are to leave the Falls and start heading south towards home.  We do plan to make two more "quick" geocache runs through Fort Yargo State Park, and Hard Labor Creek State Park on our way to a late arrival back at The Remington Inn and Grille (the affectionate name of our home).

So there you have it.  Though the list seems long, fast and furious, the events that we have planned are things that we love to do.  And lest we forget, they are all part of Life Outside My Door!

How are you planning to spend the week ahead?