One of the great powers of journalism done well is that it can open your eyes. That was true for me after reading Thomas Lake’s lovely story about watching the sunset atop Stone Mountain, Georgia’s largest tourist attraction, which also sits 11 miles from my home. And yet I’ve never been there.
A NEW VIEW
Credit: Thomas Lake
Credit: Thomas Lake
Take in some of the majesty of the twilight at the front edge of summer:
🎨 Isaiah Ramirez, 24: “The colors. Always the colors. And just how the orange turns into the blue seamlessly. I always think about, ‘How would you paint that?’”
🔑 Tamara Hamilton, 56, and Jim Ennis, 52, on their third date, singing together, “Will you buy me a house of gold?”
❤️ Musings on the heart-shaped stone cutouts of Maryann and Greg, dated Dec. 18, 1979, to infinity.
Doesn’t it make you want to just go climb? Or fall in love? And, readers: Do any of you know who Maryann and Greg are, or where they’ve gone? We are so curious about the rest of their story!
Lake recently joined the AJC in the prime of a prodigious career: freelancing for The Washington Post, The Guardian and The Wall Street Journal; about five years at Sports Illustrated and a decade at CNN.
I asked him for more places of beauty.
- Blood Mountain in North Georgia: He recently hiked this with his wife and four kids. A rainstorm crashed what was forecast as a perfectly sunny day. When they reached the apex: “It was like we were inside a cloud. It was not an experience we would have planned or chosen; we just had to go with it. It was just so beautiful.”
- Caladesi Island, Dunedin, Florida: “So lovely. You can only get there by kayak or boat.”
- Craggy Pinnacle, outside Asheville, N.C.: “A short hike off the Blue Ridge Parkway to breathtaking views of the highlands.”
- Driftwood Beach, Jekyll Island: “Near the island’s north end, a spectacular landscape where the sea takes over the forest.”
- Daniel Boone’s Grave, Frankfort Cemetery, Kentucky: “A restful place overlooking the Kentucky River.”
- Alabama as a whole is a place of real wonder: “I wrote about it roughly 10 years ago in a story about a day in the life of the state."
A NEW DO
Looking for a life-changing haircut? Seems like Thai Nguyen could be your guy. People from around the Southeast trek to Virginia for a trim from this 26-year-old who has amassed a cult following on social media.
Watch how happy he made this mom, whose 13-year-old was nervous about losing his long mane, and this man who chopped five years of messy curls to prep for his wife’s baby shower.
FRESH PEACHES
Credit: Joe Kovac Jr.
Credit: Joe Kovac Jr.
Sometimes a 3-hour drive is easy. Even with your ex-husband in tow.
That’s how Melissa Jackson felt, making her pilgrimage from Alabama to the Dickey Farms packinghouse market — a rural crossroads 30 minutes west of Macon where, in nearby orchards, this state’s favorite fruit has grown plump and juicy for more than 125 years.
Some 95% of the state’s peaches hail from those parts — Crawford, Peach and surrounding counties between the Flint and Ocmulgee rivers — and, man, does it draw a crowd.
“I pinch myself every day with how many people are here,” said Robert Dickey, who leads the family-run operation and is also chairman of the agriculture committee in the Georgia House.
🍑 Enjoy more from the AJC’s Joe Kovac Jr., who also mused on the perfect new location of the Otis Redding statue in Macon.
SIPS FROM THE SOUTH
📚 Union County, North Carolina: Yes, it’s summer vacation, but there’s no better time to give back to schools/teachers in need. Perhaps follow the lead of the group of students at Weddington High School who formed the “School Supplies Closet,” collecting and distributing supplies to kids who need them. More from WSCO-TV
🎥 Atlanta: By the mid-1950s and into the 1960s, more than 4,000 drive-in movie theaters dotted the American landscape. Less than 300 remain. Still, these family-friendly relics have an old-fashioned charm that some cannot resist. That includes the Starlight, the last of its kind in Atlanta. More from the AJC.
🥁 South Carolina: June 28 is a big day in the Palmetto State. Why? It’s Carolina Day. That means parades and reenactments in honor of the Battle of Sullivan’s Island, the first major naval victory of the American Revolution. More from Charleston City Paper.
☄️ Around the South: You may have heard about the fireball that unexpectedly flashed across the sky on Thursday. Well, you can plan for the next one, including the Southern Delta Aquariids meteor shower, which is expected in the next month or two. More from the American Meteor Society.
WE ❤️ SWAMPS
Credit: Phil Robibero/AJC
Credit: Phil Robibero/AJC
There aren’t many places left on Earth like the Okefenokee Swamp, which contains the 407,000-acre Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge, the largest federal preserve of its kind east of the Mississippi River.
It shelters an astonishing range of wildlife, from the iconic American alligator to threatened and endangered species like the red-cockaded woodpecker, indigo snake and wood stork. It also serves as the headwaters of two rivers and holds vast deposits of carbon-rich peat that help lock away millions of tons of planet-warming greenhouse gases.
A group of conservationists, wealthy donors, MAGA loyalists and a UGA legend helped preserve this iconic wetland.
🐊 Here is how that unlikely coalition kept an Alabama company from mining nearby
TELL US SOMETHING GOOD
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Credit: arvin.temkar@ajc.com
Is there a cool event we need to know about? Something great happening in your town? Let us know. This is your space, too. amatl@ajc.com.
SOUTHERN WISDOM
“I remember feeling like there's got to be more than this. I wasn't being my true self."
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