East-Bound and Down

 I had a little fun during our first day of travel and took a bunch of video segments while driving.  I then assembled them into a video collage and set them to the theme song from Smokey and the Bandit.  Some of the lyrics seemed appropriate, although not all.  We’re definitely not running beer across the Georgia state line but we are:

East bound and down, loaded up and truckin'
We gonna do what they say can't be done
We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there
I'm east bound, just watch ol' Bandit run

Not near so many miles covered today, only 329.  Yesterday we were heading pell mell towards the south.  Now that we’ve reached decent weather and we have a little more time available, we’re slowing down a bit.  Time to take in some sights.

The big storm that was somewhat concerning came over during the night.  It poured buckets, drumming loudly on the roof of the RV and making for a rather difficult night sleep.  That and the warmth.  We were not used to how warm it was.  When you’re used to sleeping in a 45-degree bedroom, 68 degrees feels downright torrid.

First stop for the day was the Old Stone Fort State Archeological Park.  The brochure at the park describes it thusly:

Old Stone Fort is the name given to of Native American mound site. It is a hilltop ceremonial enclosure begun 2000 years ago and used at least through the fifth century. It has been identified as, perhaps, the most spectacularly sited sacred area of its period in the United States and the largest and most complex hilltop enclosure in the south. Settlers tended to name such enclosures "forts."

This particular “fort” sits on a promontory between two forks of the Duck River and encloses about 50 acres of grassland inside the mound walls.   Some of the sections of the walls were lost to the construction of a rope factory in the early 1800’s, and a paper mill a few decades later, as the river made an ideal place for water power. During the Civil War, a gunpowder factory was built next to the paper mill, but was destroyed by Union troops a year later.  All that remains now are a few foundations overlooking the Duck River.

We hiked the trails around the mound area and found this to be a delightful park.  The waterfalls on both forks of the Duck River are beautiful, with water cascading over multiple steps.  We ended up spending a few hours there, hiking several of the trails and enjoying the sunshine and the roar of the waterfalls.

Finishing here, we continued on Interstate 24 towards Chattanooga, and made a stop at the Lodge Factory Store.  This is a tourist-trap-type place that makes cast iron cookware and claims to have the world’s largest cast iron skillet in its museum.  We’re always game to add another World’s Largest to our collection so we stopped but discovered the museum cost ten dollars a person.  Not willing to spend twenty bucks just for another World’s Largest, we decided to skip the actual sighting and add it by proxy, so no pictures.

We left the Interstate just south of the Chattanooga to take the Dixie Highway.  It’s always nice to leave the high speeds and the trucks behind.

The Dixie Highway was perhaps a little too much of a good thing.  The first obstacle was a low bridge in the town of Ringgold, with large signs warning of a height of 11’6”.  We are normally 10’8”, but with two kayaks hung vertically on the back, we exceed that by an unknown amount.  Rather than risk knocking the kayaks off the back, we took the truck route through town, delaying us by 10 minutes or so.

The road roughly follows Interstate 75 but with lots more curves and a 45-mile-per-hour speed limit.  Deb wanted to get to the Chattahoochee River Recreation Area before dark, so we relegated ourselves back to the Interstate and followed trucks for the next 60 miles.

A few wrong turns, construction zones, and rush-hour Atlanta traffic added more delays and we arrived at Chattahoochee about 15 minutes before the visitor center closed.  Deb managed to get a stamp in her notebook and we hiked a few of the trails, some of which were underwater because of last night’s storms.  Probably would have been better if it had been more dry and earlier in the day.  It was dark when we left.

Atlanta traffic is no fun, especially in a RV.  We made dinner at Chattahoochee to let the rush hour settle a bit, but it was still extremely heavy traffic all the way around town.  It was a relief to get beyond Atlanta and onto the normal insanity that is Interstate 75.  We stopped for the night at a rest area just north of Macon.  This rest area has designated parking for RVs which some reviewers on the internet described as “quiet”.  Must be that their definition of “quiet” is much different than mine.  A constant roar is more like it.