The Drys Vs. The Wets

 

It is interesting to note that the Landmark Historic District in Savannah has a very lenient public drinking policy which allows open alcoholic beverages every day of the year. This is noteworthy because Savannah is home to the American Prohibition Museum. Let me rephrase that – the ONLY Prohibition Museum in America. Rather ironic wouldn't you say?

Savannah - Second Best City In The South

 

Next stop was supposed to be St. Augustine, Florida. I was previously there in the 90's and I just couldn't get up the gumption to go there again. So, it was on to Savannah. Nothing says genteel like Savannah with it's old world charm. Southern Living named Savannah the second best city in the south after Charleston.  I would beg to differ - Savannah is like a grand old lady whereas Charleston, which has it's own charm, is more like a painted up debutante.

Sunsets And Whales

 After the sobering intensity of Montgomery, there was a need to defrag. I lucked out big time and found some waterfront sites in a Corp of Engineers Park back in Georgia called East Bank. Two nights and a day of sitting in lawn chairs go a long way in restoring the soul.

The Way Of The Future

 

Eddie Owens Martin (aka St. EOM – pronounced Ohm) was a visionary – a person who had a template for the direction that the human race should endeavor to go. From a sharecropper's child to a sex worker, drag queen, drug dealer, fortune teller to the unsolicited leader of a movement, St. EOM was ahead of his time. 

Up In The Air Junior Ranger!!

 

One of the great aviation success stories is the story of Delta Airlines. Delta is one of the world's oldest airlines in operation and it is second among the world's largest airlines by number of passengers carried, passenger miles flown and fleet size. And to think that it had such humble beginnings.

Chairs R Us

 

I've always liked places of worship – they can tell you a lot about a community from the sparse Puritan spaces to the ornate Eastern Orthodox churches. I'm not even going to mention the non-Christian holy houses – wait, yes I am. Let me tell you about BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir.

Cyclorama and Puppets

 

I left those crazy mountain roads and headed further south to that grand old lady of the south – Atlanta. The very first time I came to Atlanta for work. I had the great honor of meeting Fran Tarkenton, the great Vikings quarterback. Minnesota people will know just how cool that was.

On The Waterfall Trail

 

I am not a fan of mountain driving especially with a 36-foot fifth wheel trailing behind me. Narrow curvy, curvy roads with nothing but big ditches on each side. Of course those ditches are only there when there are no cliffs along the way that you can fall off of. I am not even going to mention the massive uphills or the mega downhills that I had to deal with. I almost felt bad for the lines of cars behind me, because of course there is no passing on these roads and I'm probably only going 25 mph. Oh well, my survival instincts are strong. Those poor cars are just going to have to deal with it.

Rock Garden

 I was planning on spending the whole winter in Minnesota. Then it got super cold. Then it snowed and snowed. I said, I give up – I'm outta here. I fired up the old camper, loaded it with food, wine and other essentials and headed out. No more ice and cold for this girl.

To The Stars and Beyond

Enough of Mississippi – time to leave the lovely Tishomingo Park and go to the big city – Huntsville, Alabama. I was married at one time to a Marine and we were stationed in Huntsville for almost a year, way back when. It has certainly changed since then. I heard someplace that it is the city with the largest growth of technology jobs in the United States. The place is huge. It is located in the foothills of the Appalachian mountains. If you look west, it is totally flat – if you look east, you see big, big hills.

I ended up staying for four nights at Monte Sano State Park which was located ….on the top of Monte Sano mountain. You could look down from your campsite on the top of the mountain, nestled in the woods and see the Huntsville lights spread out all the way to the horizon. There were lots of trails and they even had an observatory there that never seemed to be open. I wonder what you could actually see in the observatory with all those lights down below. Huntsville is definitely Not on the Dark Sky list. 

Miko has a boyfriend (he's the one on the left, in case you don't recognize Miko)

The weather has not been all that conducive to flip flops and Pina Coladas.  

The clouds are low on the mountain today

What is that white stuff?  Alabama, you disappoint me so.

My first stop in Huntsville was to the visitor center where I spent maybe a half hour with a very personable Visitor Center lady named Mildred. She told me about an artist's enclave where there were over 200 artist studios that you could visit all based in one old warehouse.

Instruments made out of cigar boxes

There were three large walls of pencil drawings of perhaps album covers?  The artist was really into Tom Waits - tons of Tom Waits pictures

One of the reasons I came to Huntsville was to drive about an hour out of the way to a place called Russell Cave. It is a National Monument. People had been living there off and on since 10,000 BC. I seem to be running into these ancient sites a lot this trip. I now know what they call all the ages that these people lived in – I have it memorized and I shall bore you with the list. Ice Age, Archaic or Paleo, Woodland and finally Mississippian.

The cave

The main reason though that I thought I would stop in Huntsville was to go to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. Huntsville was where so much history happened starting with bringing over German scientists right after World War II to build the space program. So...the day comes and I thought to myself – Do I really want to do this? It is either go to the Space Center or stay home and do laundry, read books and nap. I'm afraid to say that napping won out – no Space Center for me. Oh well.

I moved on to Austell Georgia which is just west of Atlanta. I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos about Rvs where one of the front tires blows and there is a total loss of control, sending the driver into the ditch and even sometimes rolling the rigs right over on their sides. I know, I know – I should not watch things like this but it is too late. So because of my terror at this happening, I have come to a place that makes and installs something called Safe-T-Plus. If you have a tire blowout, it is supposed to help make sure that you don't go veering off the road. By going to the factory to get it installed, I saved about $500. Of course some of that is offset by the amount of gas I used to get to the Atlanta area.

Where I spent the night, behind the factory

It's that white tube there - going to protect me from being a YouTube star. 

And yes, I did drive up on those ramps all by myself.

Should I Worry?

I didn't quite leave the coast.  I stayed a couple of days at Crooked River State Park.  It is down in the almost farthest southeastern section of Georgia that you can get.  I think that if I had stood up, I could have seen Florida from my campsite.  Originally, the plan was to go to the Cumberland Island National Seashore but since I've sworn off oceans for a bit, I'm just camping.  This park is really nice - long private sites.  I am in the middle of a Palmetto forest.  There are a few hiking trails that Miko and I explore but we are basically just hanging out. 

View out my side door

Miko in a contemplative mood overlooking the salt marshes

One of the trails - can't get much flatter than this

Drove to the Tallahassee area of Florida. I'm just passing through. I found a little county park on the west side of Tallahassee where I could stop for a night. COE Landing. It is on the Ochlockonee River. I asked for a pull thru site since I was only going to be there for one night and lucked out in that I got one with my own private deck overlooking the river. Of course on the back side of the RV was the campground road which was only about 10 feet away. That is ok – I had a deck. We were right next to the boat launch area and Miko and I walked over to check it out. There were several signs saying “Buzzards will ruin your vehicle” and then there was a pole with a rubber buzzard hanging upside down on it. Strange.

 

My Deck overlooking Ochlockonee River

I get woken up at about 6:00 the next morning by something that sounded like an airplane engine right outside my door. Turns out that air boats are a big deal on the Ochlockonee River and those fisher people like to start early. Ok, I'm up. I pull open my front curtains and what do I see? I'm not sure if they are buzzards or vultures, but there was one right in front of my rig. Then there were two, three – no a whole flock of them all sitting there staring in at me. Perhaps they know something I don't?

These guys are really really big birds

Bugs

Today is a sad day. Lou and Davey are heading north and I am going south. We have been convoying for three weeks and it is time for each of us to move on.

Each year, after not using the RV for a few months, something is always bound to go wrong – something will not work. Davey has been my hero. He has that keen engineer's eye where he can just look at something and say – why aren't you doing this this way? – something that I would never have thought of. For example - I was having a lot of trouble with my tow bars – it was getting really hard to get my towed car disconnected. Davey says “Do this” and it is like a miracle – it is so easy now to disconnect my car. Sometimes I have some mechanical issue and Davey just walks into the RV and it is magically fixed. How does he do that?

Lou – she has special talents also – besides keeping me extremely well wined and dined, she pushed me onward. I probably would have chickened out on the zip line activity if she hadn't pushed me. She always made us walk the extra mile and made sure we knew what we were seeing as we wandered on.

Starting to sound sort of like a eulogy for these two folks so I will stop. It will be a big adjustment for me. It was great fun but as they say – Onward.

I headed south down I95 which is the main thoroughfare between Florida and New England. There are so many RVs heading north that I decided to count them. I took three samples – how many RVs would I pass in a three mile area. The answer – between 12 and 14. That is a huge number when you think about it.

I have been having a hard time finding places to stay. Every RV park has been full. Spring Break so that every park is full of families. And then there are the snowbirds who are starting their migration north. I wanted to hang out in Charleston for a bit, but every park I called was full until the middle of April. Ok, skip Charleston. Let's move on to Savannah. Same story there. No room at the inn.  I was a little bummed because even though I have been to both Charleston and Savannah in the past, they are beautiful cities and well worth spending a great deal of time in.

I got the very last spot in Colleton State Park in South Carolina. I could only stay there for one night because somebody else was coming in the next day. Nice park – it is right along the Edisto River and had some nice ( I think) trails – the trails I tried to walk were all under water and I really didn't feel like strolling through the muck.

I am now down on Blythe Island in Georgia. This is a regional park and the sites are amazing. My pull through site could easily fit three long RVs end to end. Lots of trees, lots of foliage. Each site is rather private. I have somebody from Minnetonka, Minnesota on my left side and somebody from Brainerd Minnesota on my right side. Beautiful trails and a beautiful park. Bad things are that it is super expensive and the Wi-Fi sucks. Oh well. I have wheels and will move on eventually.

I needed to go to Fort Frederica – on my list of National Places to visit. I also wanted to do another Junior Ranger – The National Park Service has unleashed a Junior Ranger monster, I tell you.

First, a little bit about the fort. This was a British fort that was built in the 1730s as protection against the Spanish. This particular part of now Georgia was a disputed region between the British and the Spanish. Since that time, the surrounding town and the fort has pretty much completely disappeared and has become a great favorite site for archaeologists.

This Junior Ranger program was pretty cool – they give you a haversack filled with articles that you need to complete all the Junior Ranger assignments. There was a spy glass, a old compass, a protractor and several maps. You had to figure out how far the cannons could fire on the river – deliver messages to various pretend town people and a whole series of other tasks. Whoever designed the Fort Frederica program really went out of their way to try to engage kids. I now have badge #2(I lost my Congaree National Park badge someplace – probably in the Congaree swamp) proudly displayed in the RV.

 

That moss can make anything look creepily majestic

 

This is all that is left of the fort and it is just the arms magazine

But they had a nice view of the river - that is a cannon in the lower right

All that is left of the town - the trees were not there though

Since I am so close to the ocean, Miko and I went over to Jekyll Island. You have to pay $6 to even get on the island and the we drove around the whole island. I was looking for Driftwood Beach which was listed on various websites as one of the most beautiful places on the island. It is also a dog friendly beach. We arrive just about sunset, the wind has died and the biting gnats have come out in droves. I am walking with one hand on the leash with a wave-crazed dog on the other end, talking to Tony on the phone and had absolutely no hands free to try to stay bug free. My ankles and wrists, my neck and hairline are all covered in itchy red welts.

The worst part is that Miko, in her wave mania, swallowed a ton of salt water. I had no idea that this was rather toxic to dogs. I pull her out of the water after about fifteen minutes, get in the car and start home. Me with a zillion bites and Miko throwing up half the Atlantic Ocean in the back seat. When we get home, I read up on what to do with dogs who have ingested salt water and they say that you should give her as much fresh water as she can drink because the salt has now made her severely dehydrated. Well, once she drinks a ton of water, that needs to be thrown up also. It was a long night but Miko seems to have recovered and is back to her old self.  Myself - I'm still scratching.

I am now not fond of the ocean in any shape or form. I'm leaving this place and heading inland. Enough of this sea to shining sea crap. I shall admire all future oceans from afar.

 

  

The beach

 

 

Besides this, there was only one other piece of driftwood at Driftwood Beach....well,Ok, then.

 

Words To Live By

Long driving day today – we are coming down the mountain. We actually left Tallulah Gorge State Park by 9:06 which if you know me (and the Joneses) is pretty damn impressive.

First stop is the Georgia Guidestones. I am not too sure how to describe this. So here is the Wikipedia link.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_Guidestones

They have been called everything from the Stonehenge of Georgia to extraterrestrial guidance. They are a “subject of interest for conspiracy theorists”. Perhaps it is all a little bit strange which of course calls to me. The Guidestones are in the middle of a field, someplace in extremely rural Georgia.

Each panel has the following words, but each panel is in a different language.  

1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2. Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
4. Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
9. Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
10. Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.

There was so much more to these stones – astronomical, universality, good for at least a ten minute stop.

 

 

 

We got to Augusta, Georgia and are staying in Heritage RV Park – a private park but the wifi is excellent. I can overlook a lot if there is great wifi. We set up our rigs and head to what I've been long considering as one of the highlights of the trip. The Laurel and Hardy Museum in Harlem, Georgia – a very small town about twenty minutes west of Augusta. In fact, the Laurel and Hardy Museum is the only reason that we have come to this part of Georgia.

I was wondering why the Laurel and Hardy Museum was located in Harlem but it all became clear when we rolled into town and saw this:

 

 

 

 

Ok, maybe I'm getting a little jaded with some museums. What I want in a museum is to learn something about the subject. You probably could learn a little bit about the boys but you really had to dig for it. The front room was mostly Tschotchkes – dust collectors. Things like Laurel and Hardy salt and pepper shakers. Or Marionettes. There were some binders that you could open and read some of the details, but it wasn't really easy to get at. There were a ton of movie posters and even a Laurel and Hardy pinball machine.

 

 

We sat and watched a couple of Laurel and Hardy movies – The Music Box and County Hospital but then decided that we had seen and conquered and it was time to move on.

This is the whole town of Harlem

Well, except for more flowers in Harlem

 

We had to stop for nourishment on the way home and ended up Perry Foster's BBQ.  I think there was another Perry Foster branch in Mississippi - so I guess technically I was at a chain restaurant.  We just did takeout.  I very seldom get to eat out because I have Miko at home and often I am gone all day long doing touristy stuff so I feel bad leaving her even longer to eat out.  So this was a treat.

 

 

 

 

From the Profound to the Silly

I did a Google search on Best Georgia State Parks and one of them that popped up was Black Rock Mountain State Park. This park was listed as the park with the best views. Since it was only a half hour drive away and it was dog friendly, we decided we needed to check it out. We had thought about camping at this park, but they only allow RVS that are less than 25 feet so that left us out. As we drove into the park, we were again grateful that we were not driving into the park with our RVS. Another narrow mountain road with a long fairly steep incline. Inclines aren't too bad, but if you have a long, steep incline that means that to leave you have a long steep decline which is when it really gets scary. I think that the actual altitude was something like 3600' which is not much in the Rockies, but here in the Southern Appalachian Mountains it is a good size hill.

The park itself spans the Eastern Continental Divide which surprised me. I guess I thought there was only one Continental Divide and that was out west in the Rockies.

Once we got to the visitor's center, we looked at all of our hiking options and decided that we would go back down the mountain to the Black Rock Lake Trail which was flat and only about a mile long. The trail was also a fitness trail where they periodically had “Fitness Stops” where they told you to do 20 jumping jacks like a bunny or 20 pushups like a toad. We were very selective about which stops we executed.

Lots of fisher people – bass and trout were the targets for most of the fisher people. It was just a lovely day to do a laid back stroll.

Hazy, dull brown - but Georgia Mountains

The Joneses

Lou creeping in the rocks

Black Rock Lake

 

 

On the way back to the campground, there was a touristy place called Goats On The Roof. They actually did have goats on the roof. 

Goats had a whole playground up there

Another Day, Another Georgia Wonder

Sometimes you have to lose yourself 'fore you can find anything.
                                  Lewis in the movie "Deliverance"

Onward to another of Georgia's Seven Natural Wonders. Tallulah Gorge. Back in the 1880s, this used to be quite the tourist spot. It still is, but you don't see the women in long skirts and men in suits and ties climbing all over the boulders. Now it is all lycra and spandex.

We are staying in Tallulah Gorge State Park. We got the last two sites available for rigs our size. Since we are in the mountains, the campground sites were a little bit of a challenge to get level. I have automatic levelers in my rig that are supposed to sense how much to raise and lower each corner of the camper, but sometimes I think each of the four levelers are in competition with each other, all trying to outdo each other – level be damned. After using some boards, I got some of my under acheiving levelers to step up to the plate and I was level.

They had a lovely laundry here – I can't tell you how much you appreciate clean clothes and clean sheets after being on the road for a while.

From Wikipedia:

The Tallulah Gorge is a gorge that is formed by the Tallulah River cutting through the Tallulah Dome rock formation. The gorge is approximately 2 miles long and features rocky cliffs up to 1,000 feet high. Through it, a series of falls known as Tallulah Falls drop a total of 490 feet in one mile. Tallulah Falls is actually composed of six separate falls.

The pictures will show how impressive it was walking along the north rim of the gorge. But what I found truly impressive and super cool in itself was when I went to the Interpretive Center and found out that the movie "Deliverance" was filmed in the gorge. I saw the movie in my youth and it made such an impression on me. It actually made me scared to come south for a few years because of some of the horrifying parts of the movie. If you saw the movie, though, you know how beautiful the scenery was and it was very interesting to see the spot that Jon Voigt actually climbed (without a stunt double) back in the day.




Imagine this in the Fall

See the Suspension Bridge way down there - it is 80 feet above the gorge floor

Red Buds in bloom

The other big deal about the gorge (besides the sheer awesomeness of the scenery) was that Karl Wallenda performed a high wire stunt across the gorge in July of 1970 doing two headstands on the way over. They built these giant towers mounted on footings in the rocks  to hold the cables across the gorge and then once he finished his walk, they just tipped them over and left them there as an eyesore. I guess that is sort of an editorial comment, isn't it?

Clean Up Your Mess People

Amicalola Falls

One of Georgia's Seven Natural Wonders is Amicalola Falls which is located about an hour and a half north of Atlanta. Amicalola is a First Nation word meaning Tumbling Waters and at 729 feet is the tallest falls in Georgia. Another must see in Georgia.

Our campground is about a half hour drive away from the Falls so we all pile into the car and head over. Narrow roads with grand vistas – too bad I was driving and couldn't see either left nor right cause the road was so twisty and turny.

After a stop at the Visitor's Center we learned we had two options to get to see the falls. We could walk about two hours from the Visitor's Center but that involved about 640 steps. These steps were the metal ones that have a tendency to tear up dog's paws and since Miko was with us, that really wasn't an option. Gee Bummer. The other option was to walk about ¾ of a mile on a rather flat trail. Seems like an excellent choice.

 

There was a bridge that crossed the falls that was rather close to the top of the falls

Looking Up

Looking Down


 

And of course Me!!!

At the top of the falls looking over the edge - see the little sliver of water way down below

To get to the falls, you had to drive up a very narrow road that had a 25% grade.  25% is a huge grade.  I was really really really happy that I was in the car and not the RV.  When we got back to the parking lot, we saw this.

What were they thinking? 

Flowers, Flowers, Flowers Everywhere

We are moving today – sort of a short hop – about 72 miles so not too bad. We have a stop on the way though – we are going to Gibbs Gardens which we had heard about when we were zip-lining a few days ago.

Gibbs Gardens in Ball Ground Georgia, about an hour north of Atlanta, was started in 1980 as a private 300 acre estate. Jim Gibbs sort of went nuts and planted 100,000 daffodils that year. Every year since then, he has planted another 100,000. There are now currently 22 million daffodils that bloom about this time of year. Think about that for a moment. Unfortunately, we were maybe a week too late to see them all in their glory, but it still was very impressive.

 

There are currently 220 landscaped acres and there is something in bloom all year round. Currently, besides the daffodils, the cherry trees, Bradford Pears, Red buds, plus a lot of annuals are all in bloom.

 

 

 

 

This is a water lily garden with an exact replica of Monet's Bridge - supposed to be spectacular when the water lilies bloom 

We ended up in Talona RV park in Talking Rock Georgia – a tiny little park with fabulous WIFI. I feel I have to mention this because it is so seldom that campground WIFI is as good as this. There was a lovely little creek running along in front of our rigs so we took our chairs down to the creek and had another wonderful Happy Hour.