Overnight in Georgia

 6-25-2021 - Friday

We are now in the "making miles" mode, so the only sightseeing is what we see from the road, until we stop for the night.  We were next door to a Costco, so we fueled ($2.739) and were on the road by 8:30.  It was 77, a little windy but not bad.  We had a late breakfast somewhere at a Cracker Barrel (they let us in today).  We stayed with I-75 past Knoxville, then went over to highway 411 into Georgia to avoid Chattanooga.  Traffic was heavy on I-75, especially the northbound lanes.  And that situation was not helped by the burned up semi trailer they were loading onto a wrecker.  Coupled with road construction, there was a several-mile long back-up over there.  We felt very fortunate to only get slowed down by road construction occasionally.  We crossed two state lines today: Tennessee at 11:20, and Georgia at 2:30.  We went past the turn-off to Rocky Top, which made me think of my ex-brother-in-law Larry Sullivan, who is not doing very well these days.  He and his band sang that song a lot.

Sometime after we went over to Highway 411, we went through an Amish community.  I missed the first horse and buggy (I was on the phone with Bridgette), but I got the next one, and a business of some kind with several buggies parked in front.

We were also met on this highway by a funeral procession, with cops leading and following the line of cars.  We were happy to see everyone pulled over to show respect -- you don't see that very often any more.  

We see more farmers in the field.  Joe didn't think I could catch this picture of a combine cutting the wheat, but I got it!  He always checks out the farm fields.

Not far past the Georgia line, we came upon an inland port of cargo containers for trains and trucks.  They were stacked pretty high, out in the middle of nowhere.  

Then we started seeing big carpet factories in the little towns we were going through.  We don't know what mountain range we are seeing, but the mountains are hazy, like the Smokies.  Very pretty.

We didn't have a destination in mind, thought about trying to get through Atlanta before we stopped.  I kept looking ahead and would get something in mind, then we would go past that area.  After we passed the area of the first park I had found,  I picked out Fort Mountain State Park in Chatsworth as a possibility.  I said, "it's 3:00, so if we are going through Atlanta, that will be 5:00 at least."  He agreed, mentioned rush hour, so I tried to call the state park, and was put on hold (at least 8 callers ahead of me, the recording said).  Suddenly, Joe sees a campground sign, looks down the road and said it looked nice.  We pulled over and tried to find it in our "tools" but couldn't (didn't have the name right), so he just made a u-turn on the highway and we went back to it.  Fortunately, they had a spot for us (if we had waited much later, I don't think we would have been so lucky).  So we stayed in 411 Rivers Rest Campground, about 9 miles south of Chatsworth.  I told her I had been on hold with the state park, and she said it was a very hard pull up to the campground for RVs.  But this one is really nice, right on a river.

 

I love the way the limbs hang out over the water.

The river is right behind those trees, and fence.

So after we got situated and had a little rest, we drove back to Chatsworth for dinner.  Joe had googled restaurants there and had picked out a couple.  The first one we tried to go to was "closed due to lack of help."  The sign said they would open Monday.  So we went to Edna's, really good food, very busy.  They were short of help too, by at least one bus-person.  And they ran out of several items on their menu.  I think a lot of people who would have gone to the other restaurant moved over to this one.  I felt sorry for the help because they were really working hard.  They also were doing a pretty good carry-out business.  

From there, we decided to go for a little drive in the Jeep, up to the Fort Mountain campground.  On the way we saw a sign that said "auto tour," so we drove that for about 10 miles, which looped us back in town.  I think it was a 53-mile drive, so we missed the biggest part of that, and didn't see anything on what we did drive to warrant a scenic drive.  So back around to our starting point, we took the road to the state park.  It went up in elevation probably 2500 feet, very curvy, a steep pull.  Pretty drive though.

This must be considered a romantic spot, because one guy turned his pick-up around and he and his girlfriend (wife?) sat on the tailgate to watch, the sunset? the moon (strawberry moon was last night)?  They were still there when we came back down from the top, and as we went down the mountain there was a beautiful sunset through the mist from the mountains. 

 I couldn't get a shot through the trees, but I got this when we got to the bottom.

We drove through the State Park, and the campground.  We only saw 3 motorhomes, the rest were pull-trailers, pop-ups, or tents.  It was a long, hard pull.  They had bear warning signs posted, and bear-proof trash cans, so we looked and looked for bears, but we didn't find any.

  

On the sign post, it said "lake," and "beach".  Joe said, "how in the heck did they get a beach up here?"  But there was a lake, and a beach.

The sun hitting the top of the trees behind the beach was really pretty.  

They also had cottages, which looked to us like full-size houses.  We couldn't see inside, but there were several of them, and they looked nice.

The drive up and back to the state park was about 16 miles.  Our little evening jaunt took about 2 hours, and we got back to the RV just before dark, at 9:20.  We drove 289 miles in the RV today.  Bridgette is pressuring us to get to Florida.  I told her we were probably going to camp somewhere north of Atlanta tonight.  She asked me when we would be at her house, the kids are asking (more pressure!).  I told her Sunday or Monday.  She said, "It takes 3 days to drive 600 miles!"  Then she brought the kids into it, reminded them of where they went on vacation last summer (past Atlanta), which they drove in one day.  (I was thinking, 200 miles/day, x 3 days = 600 miles, sounded about right to us.)  So I told her we would probably get there Sunday.  Jeez.  She keeps forgetting we are old.  And slow.  I'm sure she has more in mind for us when we get there than we do.  That's why we need rest every day.

Tomorrow, we have Atlanta first thing (85 miles).  Then we will see where we get.