Category: Beechwood Inn

Beechwood Inn in Clayton, Georgia – Day 2

Saturday, 14 May 2022

Well, I feel much better about my hiking skills after today. More about that later.

I am always an early riser on these trips and today was no exception. I was awake by 5:00 am but then again, I went to bed at 9:00 pm. Coffee was ready around 7:00 am and I got a cup and realized as I sat on the porch I needed a jacket. I met Mark from South Carolina who spent a significant part of his military career in Germany. That’s where he met his wife (she’s actually from Massachusetts) and they raised their two daughters in Germany. Yesterday, he and his wife did Tallulah Gorge and he and I compared notes.

Breakfast was exceptional! Eli is a good cook. It was grits with truffle sauce, eggs purgatory (a fried egg with cooked tomatoes) and country sausage.

The coffee and juice kept coming. Eli and Marlon really treat their guests royally.

The view with my coffee

After breakfast, I changed into my hiking clothes and headed for Black Rock Mountain State Park. It’s a short drive from Clayton and is between Clayton and Dillard, Georgia. The park roads are very curvy but well maintained. A quick stop at the visitor center to pay the $5 parking fee and to pick up a map and I was off.

The two trails that interested me were the Tennessee Rock Trail and the Ada-hi Falls Trail. The Tennessee Rock Trail is listed as a 2.2 mile loop and the Ada-hi Trail is a 0.6 mile out and back trail. After the hike, my InReach GPS listed the Tennessee Rock Trail had it as 2.6 miles and the Ada-hi Trail as exactly 0.6 miles.

The Tennessee Rock Trail is listed as moderate. I agree but it also has some of the steepest grades I’ve encountered on my hikes. The average grade of the trail (park figures) is 10% and the maximum is 25%. I think the maximum needs some updating.

Trail head for the Tennessee Rock Trail and the James E. Edmonds Backcountry trail

You eventually reach the top of Black Mountain at an elevation of 3,640 feet. You start from an elevation of 3,079 so there is a elevation gain of 561 feet during the hike.

Some of the scenery is spectacular on the trail, albeit steep.

Just after this monument you reach Tennessee Rock Overlook.

View from the Tennessee Rock Overlook

One thing that stuck out to me was the variety of trilliums I found. Trillium is a genus of plants that has three leaves. The Atlanta Constitution-Journal lists 22 species in Georgia. I saw four on my walk today alone and three of them were new species for me.

Catesby’s Trillium (Trillium catesbaei). I first found this species walking a trail at Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park in Georgia. I found a few species scattered along the trail. This was the most abundant species on the trail today.
Trailing or Decumbent Trillium (Trillium decumbent). Most trilliums have a stalk that lifts them above the ground. This one grows very close to the surface.
Vasey’s Trillium (Trillium vaseyi). This was a startling sight to me. The first one I saw in bloom I had to climb down a part of the mountain to get the photo. Later, they dotted the trail and was able to get better photos.
Red Trillium or Stinking Willie (Trillium erectum) This was growing at Ada-hi Falls. I almost missed it because the flowers were so small.

After the Tennessee Rock Trail, I headed to Ada-hi Falls Trail. It’s near the trading post for the campground and it simply drops down to the falls. There are some wooden stairs (3 sets) and the downward leading trail through rhododendrons.

The first set of stairs down to the falls
Trail down to falls

The park warns you that the falls are mostly a trickle in dry season. Once I saw the falls, I realized it could be much, much larger than it was.

Ada-hi Falls
Wikipedia says the falls are 35 feet in height

In this case, the average grade is 25% and the maximum grade is 58%. As usual, I handled going back up better than I did going down.

After doing the falls, I drove to downtown Clayton. I really like the way they have maintained the downtown area. The place was really busy and there were very few available parking spaces along Main Street. I thought, this is like a Saturday morning in my old home town – and then I realized it was Saturday morning. There were a lot of tourists but also a lot of locals.

Side street of Clayton

Dinner tonight was at the Lake Rabun Hotel and Restaurant. Like Beechwood Inn, they are celebrating their 100 year anniversary.

Lake Rabun Hotel
Hotel Lobby

It looked as though the hotel was filled. I was the first diner for the night. I had the pork loin, collards, with some smoked grain like bulgar. The pork loin was very good but they gave me two huge cuts. I was only able to eat one. The collards were good but a little salty. The grain was disappointing. The real problem was the service. Once served, that was it. I had to ask for the check.

Last night the service was excellent and the food mediocre. Tonight the food was good but the service was mediocre. Go figure.

Tomorrow is a short trip to Bryson City, NC. GPS says it is around 1 hour and 16 minutes. In any case, I don’t trust the GPS. It tried to route me to the restaurant tonight and sent me into someone’s driveway. How embarrassing!

Instead of heading directly to Bryson City, I’ll probably head into Smokey Mountains National Park and over into Gatlinburg. I need my salt water taffy!

Stay tuned!

Beechwood Inn in Clayton, Georgia – Day 1

Friday, 13 May 2022

Another good night of rest.  Last night I had the hamburger steak smothered in onions and gravy.  Of all the meals I had at the restaurant at Wakulla Springs Lodge, this was the best.  It reminded me of the same meal served at the Gulf Cafe in Morton, MS when I was working there and since I worked there, it was free! .  It was my go-to meal.  At the Gulf Cafe they served it over rice.  I had to ask for the rice at the Lodge.  The actual steak, onions, and gravy were just as good as I remembered from the Gulf Cafe.  Kudos to the chef!

I was on the road by 7:30 am.  I forwent the breakfast to get an early start.  I wasn’t looking forward to the 8+ hour drive and I needed to get to Clayton in enough time to dine at Julep Kitchen at 6:30 pm.

Again, Cassandra tried to get me to turn onto dirt roads.  I refused twice and then she tricked me the third time with a road that started out paved and then turned to dirt.  However, she was at least nice enough to route me immediately to another paved road.

One road mistake was not her fault.  I was stopped with a massive fallen tree across one of the roads she sent me on.  Road crews were busy at work trying to remove the tree but Cassandra re-routed me quickly.  I arrived at Beechwood Inn at 4 pm.  The trip took 8 hours and 30 minutes but most of the over time was due to bathroom breaks.

The hosts are Eli (pronounced Ellie) and Marlon who recently purchased the Inn in December of last year.  They were corporate types in Miami and decided they wanted to do something different after the pandemic craziness in the corporate world.

Beechwood Inn, 220 Beachwood Dr. Clayton, GA

Eli said the house was built in 1916.  The husband died and the wife turned it into a bed and breakfast in 1922 to support her and her three daughters.  It has pretty much operated as a bed and breakfast for 100 years.  

Common Area
Front Porch
View from the front porch

My room is the Savannah room and Eli thinks this was the original master bedroom.  It has a dressing room attached to the room.  My room is massive.  There is a gas fireplace by the bed, a sitting area in the bedroom, and a huge walk-in shower.

Savannah Room
Savannah Room

Eli showed me a feature throughout the house that confused them at first. There seemed to be a huge number of coat pegs in every room. It was explained to her that instead of having candles or kerosene lamps in every room, a device was made to hold the candle/lamp that had a hole at the top. You simply carried the lamp from room to room and hung it on the “coat” pegs.

Candle/kerosene lamp holder

Dinner tonight was at Julep Kitchen, the restaurant associated with Julep Farm. It’s very touristy. I had the duck. It was just OK. They substituted asparagus for green beans. The highlight was the cheesecake. I have to say it was the best I’ve ever eaten.

Julep Farm
Julep Kitchen

Just a bit of nostalgia. Behind my bathroom door at Wakulla Springs was something that I remember from childhood. My parents would often travel from military bases back to Morton, MS and my grandmother Ruby would take me all over the place – the Smokeys, the Mississippi Gulf Coast, Michigan, etc. We would often stay at these mom and pop motels along the way or what were sometimes called travel courts. Invariably, attached to the bathroom door was something similar to what is shown below.

If you guessed a bottle opener, you’re correct. Of course, they were provided for people to open Coca Colas. You’d never use it to open beer bottles. Ahem.

Tomorrow there is 69% chance of rain and Sunday, it is 68%. I may or may not get a hike or two in. I’d be just as satisfied to curl up in the king size bed and read and nap all day.

Just delivered to my room!

Stay tuned!