Deep in the head of Georgia

Evenin' Campers!

Silver Cliche' here again... this time from northeastern Georgia on Lake Sidney Lanier northeast of Atlanta. Last night I wrote from the "heart of Georgia" and in retrospect that was an apt choice of words. Much of central Georgia -- the core of the state if you will -- is like the place we stayed last night. Rural, timeless and unspoiled (or only slightly spoiled by trailer parks, abandoned tractors and such). Today we drove out of that part of Georgia into the part that is developed (highways!), bustling (traffic!), and modern (fast food chains!). I have no idea what culture-clashes may be playing out in Georgia but as an outside observer I'm guessing the heart wonders if the head has lost it's mind.

Let's go back to this morning... Mrs. C' and I got up as we usually do before the sun. The coffee was delicious. The reading was typical (Wall Street's on fire!... Wall Street's on fire!... Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are hogging the media!... Europeans are revolting!). Eventually, the sun started to appear through the windows and I said "gotta go!" as I often do when we are on the road and the sun is doing something different than it was 10 minutes before. I grabbed the camera in one hand, a coffee cup in the other, a spare lens in the pouch pocket of my cargo shorts and walked back to the dock where I took last night's panorama of the cypress trees. I was expecting to take the morning version of last night's shot. The sun started to rise. I started to snap away. Here's the first group of pics I got:

Nice, eh? I thought so... except you can't tell those are cypress... or that it's a swamp... heck, it could be Africa. A keeper? Yes. A SilverCliche' fav? No. Photography is like that for me... you go out to take a shot and it doesn't click (that's a photography pun... ) but sometimes something else pops up. Here was that something else:

Now that's CYPRESS! I might name that pic "Two Among Many". It's not photoshopped. The sun literally shone on the trunks of just two trees and they were in the foreground. Sometimes Mrs. C' and I feel that way when we're on the road and seeing such beautiful places as this.

The cypress pics continued... panoramas... solo trees... mid-morning groups... I can show you cypress pics until you cry "Uncle". Don't believe me? How about this:

Or this:

or this (this is like playing peek-a-boo with a 2 year old in the row ahead of you on a long airplane flight):

or even this:

Did I make my point? There are a crap load of cypress trees at George L Smith State Park and I did my best to photograph every damn one of them. I failed, of course. But I think I captured enough to overwhelm the cypress-tolerance of everyone except a Georgia Tech Forestry student or the producers of Swamp People.

With that, we were off!

Heading north-northwest toward the metropolis... Hotlanta (again... having been there in July on the way home from Yellowstone). We had learned our lesson previously and recognized that we were headed for the perfect storm of Atlanta traffic... Friday/afternoon/holiday weekend. Remember, these are the same roads where people spent 24 hours in their cars during a snow and ice storm not long ago. 24 hours! And they didn't have their Airstream, generators, 40 gallons of fresh water, 60 lbs of propane, a fridge full of home cooked food, spare toilet paper. All they had were dried McDonald's french fries under the seat, a "porta cup" (ok... that's the emergency facility made from a discarded 7-11 BigGulp) and some Taco Bell caliente sauce packets. We were ready to be stranded... but we planned a route that avoided Atlanta alltogether.

That route took us out of the part of Georgia that time and history have forgotten and into some of the most beautiful, preserved, southern towns you could imagine. We stopped for a bit of shopping and sightseeing in Madison, Georgia (Google it... it's worth it and I didn't get any pictures). There was a historic marker every 2 blocks, lovingly restored antebellum homes, a courthouse that would be the pride of any county in the US and charming shops and restaurants on the main street. My warped mind kept saying "I guess Sherman didn't come this way." (sorry to any of you who are members of the United Daughters of the Confederacy... but a mind is a terrible thing to have).

As we reached the Atlanta outskirts the GPS suddenly jumped from showing 1:32 minutes of travel remaining to 3:05. OUCH! TROUBLE AHEAD! RE-ROUTE... RE-ROUTE! So we stayed even farther outside Atlanta and reached our destination around 5:30 at which time it was still 88 degrees. Maybe I should say it was still and 88 degrees... oh... and humid.

So where are we? We are camped on the shores of Lake Sidney Lanier near Cumming, Georgia (no... I'm not gong to touch that one... I promised this would be occasionally spicy but always good family fun... you're each on your own this time). Like other lakefront campsites we've stayed at, Lake Lanier is: a.) man made and b.) spotted with US Army Corps of Engineers campsites such as Bald Ridge Creek where we are now.

Here's a pic of the trailer in site 14 from which I am writing presently:

That's the lake in the background. In contrast to some of the dusty, muddy, eroded campsites where we've parked the Cliche' in the past, this site (and the whole park) is sweeeeet. The trailer is on a concrete pad, the area next to it is nicely raked composition (compacted and smoothed with a fine gravel topping... the dogs love it) and it is so level that I didn't adjust the trailer with side-to-side levelers or unhitch from the truck to get the pitch adjusted. It's just plain level.

We don't often show you what life is like inside our mobile bungalow. Here's a pic from amidships looking aft with the rear hatch open and the lake in the distance:

That's the new "cafe table" I made after Yellowstone in the center. Its half the size of the dinette that came with the trailer and allows us plenty of coffee cup and iPad room plus more open space for living. Mrs. C' takes the couch on the right in this pic and I take the left. Kailey's day bed is under the table (in the evening she withdraws to the foot of our bed in the front of the trailer) and Romeo can be found wherever Mrs. C' is located. Those slipcovers were made before the Yellowstone trip and are sacrificial so we can preserve the original tan upholstery. The fridge is on the right in this pic and the corner of the galley on the left. The entrance door is between the galley and my couch. The head was to my left when I took this pic. The closet and stall shower to the right and the queen bed behind me.

Here's a shot of sunset from Mrs. C's spot through the open hatch (I made her a 'smore tonight... so she let me sit in her spot to take this.)

I walked down to the lake at sunset. The lake water level is 4' below the "full pool" level. It's higher than it has been in many recent summers. The lake shore shows lots of erosion which exposes a sedimentary rock formation that has many thin layers and is tipped dramatically. There are signs everywhere that the shore erodes steadily. In the final pic of the night I'll share a sunset panorama from the beach below our campsite. In it you can see at least four major trees that have toppled from the bank into the lake. That appears to be a year's worth in the 200' or so of lake shore in the picture. I think we're good for the weekend, but if a visit to Bald Ridge Creek is on your bucket list, I wouldn't leave it until last!

It's a lovely spot. Thanks to all you tax payers who help the US Army Corp of Engineers to provide us such a nice place to park for three days! I'm not an accountant but I suspect what we payed them for this site doesn't cover the cost. Your contribution to our happiness is what modern America is all about and we appreciate it!

Here's the final panorama for the day:

Good night from Cumming! (that still doesn't sound right) We are here for three nights then on to the Great Smokey National Park.

SC