River's Edge

Last winter, after I was sure our house sale would eventually close, I began making plans for this winter. Craig wanted to go to the Florida Keys if possible, so I used that as my destination goal. Our blogger friends Karen and Al have two lots in a park in the North Georgia Mountains, one of which they rent out. I asked her to save October for us.

As it turned out we arrived on Saturday, September 20. A little earlier than I had planned, but it worked for them because their last visitor had left a few days earlier. 

Their lots are in River's Edge, a lovely private park with large spaces, level concrete pads, full hook ups, and very nice people. It is about 10 miles from the town of Blairsville, which has both a high end supermarket and a Walmart.  What else do we need?

We will be here for a month, so I will have plenty of time to get some cleaning and sorting projects out of the way, and to rest after several months of travel. We spent much of our first day on the computer ordering things that we wanted from Amazon and other sites. Although we have a mail forwarding service, Amazon likes to have a street address for Fedex deliveries.  So if it wasn't needed right away, we kept saying "when we get to Georgia we will order this or that".

It feels like fall is here. The mornings have been cool, and the afternoons sunny but not hot.

There are many places to walk and hike in this area, so perhaps I will get some much-needed exercise. On Monday we went up to the observation tower on Brasstown Bald Mountain. The upper portion of the tower is not open to the public, but there is a large observation deck lower down that is.

Nottely Lake as seen from the observation tower at Brasstown Bald Mountain

We learned that the blue haze in the air over the mountains is not smoke. Its largest ingredient is isoprene gas released by decaying vegetation.

The 360 degree view was fantastic. I hope we can get back to this place the day before we leave so I can take a comparison picture. It seems the trees are just a tiny bit more colorful every day.

On Wednesday we went to Vogel State Park for a short walk. We now have an annual Georgia State Park pass, and hope to use it frequently.

As we drove in we were reminded what was important. 

The small lake which we walked around was very clear and smooth as glass.

Local resident. 

We took the side trail that leads to the Trahlyta falls.

We are looking forward to a wonderful month!

How will you celebrate autumn?

[From Craig]  There are two ways to photograph a waterfall.  You can use a really slow shutter speed, to get a "big fluffy white stream" look.  Or you can use a really fast shutter speed, to try for "each little droplet in its place".  I mostly use the latter approach.  The image above was shot at 1/2000th of a second.