Georgia Excellent Adventure
February 11-13. 2005
Bruce and I met up in Greenville, SC and explored the northern most reaches of Georgia. Every trip we do has an overarching theme. This trip’s theme turned out to be “The Weekend of U-Turns and Dead Ends”. Bruce, who is unfailingly good at navigation couldn’t find the proverbial peanut farm if he fell off a tractor. No matter where we were heading, the road didn’t go there or we hit an uncharted dead end. I honestly felt like Lewis and Clark when I should have felt like Martin and Lewis. Bob Hope would have had no career with a road picture like this.
Bruce said the maps sucked and I have to believe him. Otherwise there is no other explanation for our inability to find things that doesn’t involve us looking like idiots. The weekend should have been the weekend of waterfalls and we were in rain, too.
Anyway, we crossed another state off the list… Goodbye, Georgia!
Gotta Pee..
We had to stop after getting off the plane. Sometimes, you just gotta go when you gotta go. We found a parking place off the highway that just happened to have a river, kayakers and hikers with beer. Just lucky, I guess.
Tallulah Gorge
“Tallulah” is just one of those words that you love to say. The fact that it is a famous place is an added benefit. This is where Karl Wallenda walked across a 2 inch thick steel cable setting a world’s record for the highest tightrope walk in history.
Toccoa Falls
You go through the gates of Toccoa College and down a long road to get to this cool place. You can read the story of the falls. Very interesting stuff.
Helen, Georgia
Our base of operations. This is a little town in the mountains about an hour and a half north of Atlanta. The area is a major tourist attraction and must be jumpin’ in the summer. In February it is not too crowded and is still affordable. Everything had a string of xmas lights on it and I presume that the buildings are still lit in the summer. There is an active river through the town that is a tubing attraction.
Saturday
First Stop, Ice Wall
We were driving to the Amicalola Falls when we happened upon these ice formations. They were very cool and we stopped. It was not cold at the one that Bruce found. The ice climbing one was freezing cold and very windy.
Amicalola Falls
This is a waterfall that starts as a bucolic creek at the top of a mountain. Once it gets to the edge it turns into a waterfall that drops 729 feet into the valley. Bruce left me at the top and drove the van down to the parking lot. I did the 427 steps down. It was easier than climbing up. Trust me.
Chestatee Wildlife Preserve
We only took six wrong turns, three U-turns and three direction stops to find this place. It was worth it. It is a private zoo that has over 125 species of animals. They have more tigers than we’ve ever seen in one place. It is really cool, no matter what it takes to get there.
Toccoa Riverside Restaurant
We found the restaurant all right but we drove five miles into the wilderness looking for another waterfall and couldn’t find that. No biggie… the restaurant was very good. I had pecan trout and gave some to Bruce. It was his first trout. He liked it.
“Sunday… sunday… sunday… US30…30…30…”
Oops, got carried away there for a second. On Sunday we awoke to rain. Not to be deterred, we went the Anna Ruby Falls, Brasstown Bald, then to the airport. Wet and wild, that’s the way to leave Georgia!