To get away from the crowd I went up to the contemporary art permanent exhibit. Pieces of this size always catch my interest:

Looking closer, there seems to be a problem. See the paint flaking off? I have some old paintings I have done sitting in my garage that are doing the same thing. Luckily mine are not priceless works of art.

Unfortunately I did not write down the name of this piece.

This is a good spot if you looking for a place to walk that doesn’t have a lot of those pesky hills. There had been a bear sighting early in the day but the bear must be camera shy.

Crossed two more state parks off the list. It’s funny how a last minute side trip often turns out to be the most interesting part of the day. That’s the story of the picture above. A little pond in the middle of a big field that I almost didn’t bother with because its not a state park. An ‘eh, why not go’ turned into a ‘wow, this place is awesome’.

  Me: I’m here because I would like to see a bear.
  Ranger Lady: I saw one driving in this morning.
  Me: For Real?
  RL: Yes, they are here.
  Me: Yikes. I was just talking crazy. I saw Yogi Bear last weekend.

There are about 15 official parks along the Chattahoochee River that have trails you can walk on. I’ve walked two of them this week. On today’s walk I managed to get stung by a bee on my back just below the shoulder blade. This is only the second time I have ever been stung and while it hurt, it is nothing like getting stung on the top of the head while driving. I didn’t know a bee was anywhere near me until I felt the sting. I don’t know why he stung me. It must have gotten back to the bee community that I think honey smells, looks and tastes disgusting. Even putting it into a bear shaped bottle is not enough to entice me to buy it.

See the picture above? Thats the Chattahoochee. It looks nice and relaxing, but its polluted from years of abuse. You walk a bit into the woods, and you see areas like the one pictured below, a sludge looking mess full of trash. If I had zoomed in, you would have been able to clearly spot bottles, soccer balls, beer cans and other things that clearly do not belong in the river. Maybe the bee was bitter that his waterfront community now looks over a trash dump.