Sweet Georgia Mountains

Monday, we dawdled about, gathered our belongings, and bid a sad farewell to Atlanta (and beloved Cousin Gail).  We paused for lunch, and then hit the road north... then turned around came back five miles, and back into the restaurant to fetch an errant sock.

Sock 1 had slipped out of the bag when I pulled  sock 2 out for some knitting, and then slipped off the booth bench to hide on the floor in the dark.  Luckily, it was still there when we got back.  I'm SO glad I chose to compare the two socks at that moment!  I fear that if we'd gone many more miles, Golf Pro would have resisted the about face.

We journeyed up into the Georgia Mountains, along twisty hilly highways, past fields of cows (many cows), until we reached my dear friend -- from high school! -- Andi.  As we pulled into her driveway, several tentative snowflakes fell.  There was snarling from the peanut gallery, and it seemed to work.

Here is the view from her back porch at about 4:30 in the afternoon:

Ahhh.  Those of us normally trapped in the flatlands think this is just heaven.

And look what's happening up in the Georgia Mountains on the first full day of Spring...

We don't have THOSE blooms back home yet.

We settled in to a great evening of peaceful conversation, southern hospitality, and...
um...
Marshmallow wars

On Tuesday morning, I just had to take more pictures off the back porch -- this time in the morning sun.

And look who circles above the ridge?

Aren't they amazing?

Anyone know what they are?

We finally got the whole crew up, showered, dressed, fed, and hauled all of our stuff to the door to load up.  Someone please tell me how it is that we have this much stuff for a one night visit??

Oh, yeah, we're four people -- and though we got to stay here (near Clarkesville, GA for those who care), we were actually on the road for a week.  Anyway, we got all this, and all of us, stuffed into cars.... and headed off to Tallulah Gorge. 

I'd never heard of Tallulah Gorge before Monday night, but I can't resist a worthy bit of natural awesome when it's that close at hand.  And just this once, I'm going to spare y'all the history lesson, and show you pictures instead.  This is the view from the first overlook.

We walked part way down... there are steps built into the side of the hill (okay, essentially wall), with lots of places to rest along the way. I didn't pause on the way down, but knew that I'd likely feel differently coming back up.  We went down for a loooong time, and came to a fork in the path.  The left fork, which we took, led to a bridge that crosses the gorge.

These are from the bridge across the

Gorge. 

 

 

And here's a shot or two looking back up the gorge from the bridge

Yeah, a long way up there.  And I was beginning to contemplate the climb back up, when I got distracted by more birds in the sky...

The right side of that fork I mentioned led to steps that kept going down to the gorge floor, but we wanted to be back UP the steps, and all the way to Nashville before midnight.  We figured half way was plenty.

Since my legs were shaking when we got to the top, I think we made the right choice.

After Tallulah Gorge, we headed into Helen for lunch...

C'mon... did I have a choice?

Helen is a quaint town in which 90% of the buildings are done like alpine cottages.  There are TWO alpine mini-golf courses.  And a lovely German bakery/restaurant where we had a farewell lunch with Andi before getting on the road to Nashville.  I haven't gotten permission from her to blog her picture, so you'll have to accept the written report on that alone.

Our trip to Nashville was supposed to wind through the mountains for a bit, and then slip quietly onto I-75.  Kinda like this

That way, it's 136 miles to Chattanooga. But... well, there was this rockslide.... which led us to a detour... that added two hours to our trip. It looked like this:

THAT route is 188 miles.  Now, I'f I'd had an actual map in the car, instead of relying on our friends at GoogleMaps and Mapquest, I'd have been able to see that one could turn south at Tellico Plains, for a route that was only 168 miles...that looked like this:

Or, even better, one that ignored their suggestions about heading north, and doing this

for 159 miles. I have learned my lesson.  Take the stupid Atlas, even when you know where you're going... even if it doesn't fit comfortably anywhere in the car.  At least the road was pretty -- lots of mountain roads, all twisty, turny, and fun to drive, but no fun to endure from the back seat.

Despite the bonus delay, we managed to pull into Nashville in time to check in, and get dinner at a civilized hour.  There was a little tired, and a little cranky going on  (which was not improved by "high speed" internet that offered a whopping 1 Mbps rate (at which rate, btw, all sites seem to time out, and TypePad does NOT cooperate with blogging or saving, much less uploading pictures)).  But we were "home" for the night, safe and sound.

Comments

[Helen]

I learnt to take the road atlas after a trip where we had to drive across a small river that Google hadn't noticed. Just as well it was a hire car.

I do enjoy your trips, and it's good to find another Helen :)

[Joy]

The birds are vultures (in that are could be either black or turkey vultures) - they soar on the thermals - amazing to watch! They soar with their wings in a shallow V, while hawks soar with their wings out flat.