Georgia On My Mind

We woke up to the sound of rain drumming on the roof.  The forecast called for significant rain all day long.  It appeared, however, that we would be driving out of it somewhere in Georgia.

But, as I said yesterday,  At least it ain’t snow!

Although 39 degrees and pouring rain is its own brand of miserable.  At least we have good heat in the RV.

Most of today was just driving.  We had a goal to be somewhere around the Georgia/Florida border by the time we quit for the day and we accomplished that goal.  We are currently parked behind the Cracker Barrel just south of Valdosta, Georgia, sharing the space with four other RVs.  

To break up the driving somewhat, we stopped at three state parks.  Georgia has 50 state parks.  That sounds like a lot, however, Florida has 175, and Michigan has 103.   Now it doesn’t sound like so many, right? We saw three of the state parks in the matter of a couple hours.  Under normal conditions, we probably would have spent more time, but we needed to put some miles on, and it was drizzly rainy gloomy and wet.  We did walk on some of the shorter trails for a chance to stretch our legs and get outside.

Red Top Mountain.  Their description starts out This popular park on Lake Allatoona is ideal for swimming, water skiing and fishing.  Well, not today.  The lake is nearly empty and is largely a mud hole.  I’m sure it’s lovely when it has water in it.  We hiked the short trail along said mud hole and sat on the rocking chairs in the 1860’s log home.  We had lunch in the parking lot in a heated 2008 RV with indoor plumbing.

Indian Springs State Park.  Georgia may not have as many state parks as other states, but this one has the distinction of being the oldest one in the nation, which earns its way onto our *World’s Largest (and oldest)* list.  Yes, I can expand the list to include oldest since it’s my list.  This is the site of an artesian well which was built up as a resort in the early 1900’s, back when this water was thought to have healing or special properties.  The CCC built most of the buildings around here, so everything is the characteristic stone construction.

The building housing the spring still attracts people, who carry jugs to fill.  A large sign above the plastic pipe that dribbles water out of the well reads Only one-gallon or smaller containers allowed.  Surrounding the pipe were several people and a queue of the big blue water-cooler bottles.  Must be Georgia has a different idea of how big one gallon is.

We decided not to fill our water bottles.  Not only would we be waiting behind several five-gallon containers, but also the water smelled like sulphur and we were told that you would have to leave it uncapped for 24 to 48 hours to allow the smell to dissipate.

We’ll stick with unsmelly Lake Michigan water carried along with us.

High Falls State Park.  A place with some nice waterfalls, the largest of which cascades over a dam.  By this time it was drizzling pretty steadily so we took our picture and were back on the road.

Somewhere between Park 1 and Park 2 there was a resounding smack! and a large star appeared right in the center of my vision in the windshield.  We seem to be collecting these at a regular rate.  There were two on our last trip and now we are two days into this one and already have one.  This one was a doozy.  We’ll have to get it addressed pretty quickly.

We passed the time driving by searching for and listening to songs that mentioned Georgia.  The first is Georgia On My Mind by Ray Charles.  Interestingly, when he was performing this back in the ‘60s, he had to enter through the back door of the venue.  He was not allowed to enter the front door because he was black.  Now the song is the Georgia State song.

There’s also Ramblin’ Man by the Allman Brothers, The Devil Went Down to Georgia by the Charlie Daniels Band, Midnight Train to Georgia by Gladys Knight at the Pips, and several others that I didn’t recognize.

I also compiled a short video of Atlanta traffic.  I just clipped a GoPro on the dash and let it run for a while.  Played back at 20x normal speed, it summarizes why I really don’t like driving through Atlanta.

About midway through the state of Georgia, the clouds and fog rolled back and the full moon shone through.  The temperature also started to rise.  By the time we stopped here in Valdosta, it was 69 degrees, and we have transitioned from having to use the afterburners just to keep warm every time we stop to opening windows and turning on the vent fan.  It may be a little harder to sleep this evening.

We are now officially below the weather.