So the thing about trying a socially distanceable outing is you have to be willing to fail: ie, drive an hour away, realize it’s too freaking crowded and turn around and go home…which is hard for all of us but especially if you have a kid whose probably steady whining even before things go south…and you don’t really have many plan Bs up your sleeve (or any) because of Covid. We haven’t had an epic fail yet (we probably will now that I just wrote that sentence) but we have had a mid level fail which I will describe in this, and a mindboggling epic win which I will start with.
Fort Yargo State Park: 210 S Broad St, Winder, GA 30680, (770) 867-3489
About an hour outside of Atlanta, I probably wouldn’t go on a weekend unless you are reading this within 30 minutes of when I published it and you are in Atlanta…in that case, leave right now because it’s spotty raining which is the socially distancing hidden gem.
We went on a Friday afternoon, and I didn’t know it was going to rain. It was not so crowded that it wasn’t feasible and I brought my twenty-five year old tent with the broken tent pole to set up on the beach so we could hide in that if crowds got too thick. Yes, you are allowed to have a tent apparently. But in the high sun, even without the rain flap, it was sweltering.
We had one corner spot of the lake picked out where there were fewer people because there is this pipe going across the lake serving as a swimming boundary line. But there are no lifeguards and people (including us) went past the pipe in order to spread out as it is still shallow enough for kid safety just beyond the line.
But then the coolest thing happened. It started to rain and everyone left.
For the rest of the late afternoon, we pretty much had the place to ourselves. Epic score. So we were probably feeling confident. Even cocky and hungry because we had stayed a lot longer than we had planned and decided to give it a whirl to find a Mexican restaurant with an open patio. I had very low standards in my head. Like the restaurant on Ponce where someone died from food poisoning several years ago…that would be totally fine if there wasn’t anyone on the patio. I would just order vegetarian and ask for a double shot of tequila to kill any germs…but then a true miracle happened.
Taqueria Los Hermanos: 4955 Sugarloaf Pkwy, Lawrenceville, GA 30044, (770) 817-0363
Have you all ever heard of Taqueria Los Hermanos? Well, it’s my second favorite Mexican restaurant in the whole metro Atlanta area (since Rosa Mexicana left Atlantic Station) but we rarely go to it because it’s in Tucker and they don’t have a patio. Well, they freakin have one in Lawrenceville that has a good sized patio! They block out the tables so people can’t be next to each other. There was only one other family on the patio a good 15 feet from us when we were there, and the wait staff all wore masks. The food is so good. It was like I had died and gone to heaven. I am a mole aficionada, and theirs is outstanding.
I don’t know if this sequence of events can be repeated, but it’s certainly worth a shot.
Let’s just take it to the mid level fail next. My son is often a Debbie Downer about these hikes we drag him on every weekend because they are cutting into his screen time. (I know…he’s not getting enough of that, right?) so when he woke up one Saturday morning and suggested we go find a muddy place in the woods to run his Monster Truck, I was thrilled that he was motivated to come up with an outside plan on his own.
I thought we would try FernBank Trail: 767 Clifton Rd, Atlanta, GA 30307, (404) 929-6300 (this is the half in six and a half sites) but when we got there I saw a sign in the back of the parking lot that said the entrance to the trail was through the museum. It appears they are selling timed tickets to Fernbank for people to come in with masks and be six feet apart, but we didn’t feel like dealing with that to go to the woods. If there is another way in, I just don’t know about it and Tayo (probably rightly so) was afraid the museum would have cleaned the woods so it wouldn’t be muddy enough for his truck so we moved along to the next place which was :
Tanyard Creek Park, 73 28th St NW, Atlanta, GA 30309, (404) 477-3687
This is a beautiful park in Buckhead with a bike trail running through it that we will definitely be going back to to try out for a ride.
But the Tanyard creek which had motivated me to choose this place for its muddy potential had signs all around it saying do not let the water have contact with human skin so we couldn’t get near it. Now, I realize most of the creeks in our Metro area probably share the same risk. (Our vet just found trace amounts of giardia in a sample of our dog which I just learned is an infection from drinking contaminated water and it can be spread to humans (because we didn’t have enough to worry about!..) but since she is asymptomatic, the vet said not to worry about it. Depending on the circumstance, I am sometimes willing to take the risk…but when I see big signs all around, then no. So we went to
Sope Creek Hiking Trail Entrance: Marietta, GA 30067. You can probably see why by now my son can be a Debbie Downer about getting dragged around the city to various woods. You should go here if you are a mountain biker because that is what people do and the trail is apparently very long and good for that. You shouldn’t go here if you have a cranky seven year old, especially if the night before in order to charge your phone, you unplugged the Monster Truck you have been dragging all over the city to drive in the mud and forgot until you try to drive it that you had unplugged it.
Tayo, to his credit, decided like a champ to hike to find the river (we went on literally the hottest day of the year according to the radio) in spite of the fact that when I asked a wild eyed woman about my age with her young daughter how far the river was, she replied, “very, very far. Good luck with that.” We tried. I was willing to give up at the first informational sign, but Tayo wanted to keep going so we made it to the second informational sign and quit. I personally believe we would still be looking for that river if we had gone on.
Intown Adventures
Kirkwood Forest: 1807 Dixie St SE, Atlanta, GA 30317. We parked on the dead end side of Roger St. in Kirkwood and walked right in. It is a small but very nice little forest. I wouldn’t call it a hike, but it is an enjoyable hang out place especially if you have very young children. They have this nice pavilion near a neighborhood garden that has a good sized sand box with toys in it.
You probably already know about the beloved Medlock Park bike trail that runs to Mason Mill so you can start and end at a nice park.
It’s called South Peachtree Creek Trail S Peachtree Creek Trail, Decatur, GA 30033, and it really is gorgeous. On a Saturday it is a titch crowded, but we just put masks on when people got near and that worked. Almost everyone was wearing masks. It’s Decatur, after all. It is shady, and there is a very pleasant boardwalk across much of it.
We walked this particular day, but I will definitely be going back for a ride soon.
and lastly, back to Kirkwood. I had never been on the part of the bike trail that runs through Krog street into Kirkwood and over to Memorial. It is the Eastside trailhttps://beltline.org/places-to-go/eastside-trail/
You can ride from here over to the busy Krog street market section of the beltline all the way down to Piedmont Park, but we went in the opposite direction to Memorial.
When we got to Memorial and crossed the street, I was excited to see that there is a Four Fat Cows ice cream coming to that corner. (I mention the Alpharetta location and the chocolate covered strawberries and champagne flavored ice cream in part one) The trail continues on into Glenwood Park which has become so developed, I didn’t even know what city I was in when we entered it. Condos, stores, buildings, fancy Kroger, Maynard Jackson highschool, oh my! all right there together in one newly developed, completely unrecognizable neighborhood.
So I say it’s worth the risk to get out there and strive for socially distanced adventure! Even if faced with an epic fail, it’s worth it to keep plugging along with positivity until this is all over. Which, it will be. One day. Until then, stay safe my friends, and keep biking, hiking and hole swimming.
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