Well, really Day 0 and Day 1, just to keep things connected and flowing…
That Friday started out rainy, which would normally have made loading the car a bit of a chore, but the anticipation of driving out from under that front and into clearer skies and what we hoped would be an excellent adventure made it kind of enjoyable.
Of course, for those who don’t know, the route from Houston to Shreveport is…less than direct. If you google that, you get 239 miles of country roads with the occasional stretch of a 4-lane highway, but not the well-maintained interstate that one wants for quick and efficient travel over longer distances.
At 5am, in the rain that managed to cling to us for a full (and almost exact!) five hours, that’s not a comfortable start to a drive…
Despite this, and with the eventual envelopment of us in the darkness of night after we made that “left turn at Atlanta,” we rolled up to the cabin sometime after 10pm (Eastern), unloaded in the crisp, mountain air of NE Georgia, and collapsed into bed for much-needed sleep.
The next morning, Day 1…
So, very nice to be back in a place with mountains, clean air, and the promise of clear, freestone streams!
Coffee on the porch swing, a look around the area…
… and an introduction to the sources of some of the morning noises that would welcome us in the days to follow proved a great start.
Of course, from the cabin one could also hear the siren call of water dancing playfully over stones, leading me to wander off for a few moments, camera in hand.
Ahhhh…that recharges the spirit, doesn’t it?
First day there saw us visiting the town of Blairsville, which houses Cabin Coffee just off the old town square (34°52’31.98″N 83°57’30.19″W). Great beverages and a convenient place for my lovely wife to reconnect with the sister she had not seen for far too long, leading to a fine walk around the shops in the area as the two of them started to catch up.
Also, it turned out, a great area to look for a gift to provide for a friend, later in the trip…
(Sorry, that’s about as close to drama and intrigue as you’re going to get)
Eventually, we ended up back at the cabin, and I had a chance to build my first campfire in quite some time, while looking around at the fluttering leaves…
…and other flora around the cabin.
A quiet, late afternoon and simple hot dogs cooked over the wood fire were a great way to relax.
Eventually, the growing chill in the air, the creeping pain of travel-weary joints, and the spreading shadows on the far ridge all pointed to the approaching end of that first day.
With the impending darkness, the geese started to retreat to their hidden nighttime resting places (which I never did find), and things started slowing down nicely.
A good day, to be sure.
A few peeks at google maps (when cell reception allowed, which generally required standing in the middle of the cabin, holding my phone above my head, and a good bit of “lucky signal bounces”) to plan places to go looking, the next day, offered some intriguing options.
Tomorrow, then.
Sure, we had things that needed to happen, but intentional gaps in the day, too.
Tomorrow, we would see what the woods had to offer.
Which I will share with you, in it’s proper time.
Until then.
Tight lines…