Category: Smithgall Woods State Park

20 November 2024

Stephen and Jimmie were up early and after a quick breakfast, were out the door headed home by around 7:30. Me, it takes a little longer. I think I finally had the Jeep loaded by around 9:30 am and bid Smithgall Woods State Park a fond farewell until next time.

From there, it was a little over an hour’s drive to Chip and Dorothy’s in Sugar Hill. When I went to type his address into my GPS, it didn’t recognize the address. I had to revert to my iPhone’s GPS to get the correct street address. Just to show you how out of date my GPS in the Jeep is, it had me get off I-85 and then get back on it. I did manage to get around Atlanta, just not as easy as Sherman going through it.

Chip and Dorothy met me outside of their really beautiful house on a cul de sac. Chip greeted me with a handshake and a hug and I met Dorothy for the first time. We sat in their living room and rehashed old times, caught up with each others’ lives, laughed, and bored Dorothy with old Coastie stories.

I would say Chip hadn’t aged a bit but that would be a lie. Of course, I look exactly the same as 53 years ago except no hair.

Chip was an excellent ET on board the Reliance. I only saw him stumped once and that was with our huge transmitter that still used tubes instead of transistors. When he couldn’t identify the problem he said it was time for “the old smoke test.” I asked what that was and he said we power the transmitter up to the max and see what burns out first. It worked.

Dorothy had fixed a really nice lunch of salami, pepperoni, cheese, crackers, and fresh fruit. Then she won my heart by providing donut holes. She also used the same drip method for coffee that I used this trip.

Stephen liked the coffee provided by the park and I like my Blue Bottle coffee from home using the drip method. He would offer me a cup of the park coffee and I would decline and then offer him a cup of Blue Bottle. Kudos to Dorothy for knowing drip method rocks!

Chip showed me his garden and I spied some tomato plants. He picked me some that were just turning and so I now will have some homegrowns when I get home. Thanks Chip! I’ll be back next summer for some more.

I really hated to leave but didn’t want to hit rush hour on my way to Macon. Alas, it didn’t matter. Most of the way to Macon was stop and go on the interstates. I managed to keep my cool when a transfer truck kept pushing me from behind and repaid the trucker who kept people from cutting in line at the beginning of my trip and moved over so the pushy didn’t have to change lanes.

I had dinner at the Outback Steakhouse (chicken tenders). I had a side Cesar salad that the lettuce was so wilted, I set it aside. I did like the baked sweet potato.

There’s something strange about Macon. The desk clerk at the hotel had zero personality and I had to ask for the complimentary water. Then the hostess at Outback was no where to be seen for about 3-4 minutes. At least my waitress was attentive.

Tomorrow is a 5 hour drive to Ocala – horse country! Stay tuned!

18 November 2024

The 3 bedroom cabin we are in is really nice. It’s called the Parkside cabin and is located just adjacent to the visitors center.

One of the wonderful features of the cabin when visiting during colder months is the fireplace.

After they delivered the kindling, I was able to make a fire, albeit with difficultly. There was a strong downdraft from the fireplace and when I tried to close the damper – nothing. Eventually, I got the kindling going and the wood burning but soon smoke began to fill the cabin and the smoke detector went off. This I wrote about yesterday. What I didn’t write about was the cause that came to me at 3 am. Somehow, we had cut the attic fan on which was drawing air from the chimney and up through the attic fan. I noticed it during my 3 am bathroom break. It would not matter whether the damper was closed or not because smoke was going to pulled into the cabin by the fan. If we do a fire tonight, we will make sure the attic fan is off!

We spent a lazy morning and ate breakfast in the cabin. Later, Jimmie, Stephen and I went to the visitors center and we toured their exhibits.

The Japanese maple made for a great background. Later, Jimmie and I walked around the visitors center loop trail. We clocked in 0.4 miles.

We decided to drive to Cleveland for lunch at our favorite place. The food is good and the prices are right. The place is called Clydes after the owner’s dog.

This is the third time we’ve eaten there. The park is equidistant between Helen and Cleveland and there are a lot less tourists with which to contend.

After dropping Jimmie and Stephen off, I headed to Dukes Creek Falls parking lot and walked the Dukes Creek trail down to the falls. It’s one mile to the falls – all downhill (with some steps) and then one mile back – all uphill. My Apple Watch clocked my hike at 2.5 miles which probably included some wandering down around the falls and when I had to go back and pick up my water bottle that had fallen out at the last part of the trail.

The falls are approximately 150 feet in height. Also coming down Dukes Creek are several cascades that are really nice.

I met a lot of people on their way up the trail and I would joke with them about the broken elevator or escalator for the falls.

As I was hiking back up, sweating and panting, I considered how nice it was to get back in the woods and on the trail. Several times when I paused to catch my breath, a gentle breeze wafted through the woods and cooled me off. Even the smell of the woods was intoxicating to me. I’m so pleased I managed to hike 2.5 miles today, down and back up a mountain. It gives me hope. Stephen commented on how I seemed to have a lot of energy today and maybe that’s due to getting back to something I love.

Even though it’s mid-November, there was still some color on the trees.

As I got back to the parking lot, I took one more look at Mt. Yonah. There’s a spectacular view from the parking lot.

Tomorrow, we plant to head to Sautee and our favorite general store and have lunch, buy taffy, and pretty much cool our jets. After all, it’s a vacation!

Stay tuned!

16 November 2024

I don’t know if it was the drive or the booze at dinner last night but I was exhausted and turned in at 8:30 am. That meant that I was awake at 4:30 am. In between time I had three vivid dreams. I blame the petit filet since I so seldom eat meat these days.

The first dream had me awaking at 4 am after hearing voices in the parking lot below. Realize, I’m on the tenth floor and hearing voices in the parking lot below is unlikely but not impossible. I spent one night on the 19th floor of a San Francisco hotel and heard every conversation from below because the buildings close by echoed the sound upwards.

That was not the case here. Anyway, I opened the curtain to take a look and saw about 50-60 people in folding chairs staring out farther into the parking lot. They were mostly wrapped in blankets so I assumed it was a little chilly. After listening a while, I finally managed to understand they were at a casting call for an audition to some tv or movie. Why 4 am, I have no idea, but hey, it’s my dream.

I eventually tried to take a photograph (for the blog, course) but couldn’t get rid of the glare from the window. I finally went back to bed. This was so vivid a dream that when I did wake at 1 am, I did a double take on the alarm clock.

The second dream was explaining to friends where I had eaten last night. Apparently we were in my grandmother’s home in Morton and I could not remember the name of the restaurant. I tried Googling it and could not find it using any search terms. I then had the bright idea of checking my blog. I didn’t mention the name in my blog. I never came up with the name. One reason may have been I was Googling “Sheraton” when I was staying at a Doubletree Hilton.

In between dreams, I realized it was Ruth’s Chris Steakhouse. Note bene! I forgot the possessive on the name of the restaurant in yesterday’s blog – maybe that’s why I dreamed about it.

The last dream was a recurring one albeit always slightly different. I was working at Broward College and apparently, due to the way personnel had the records, I was retired with the exception of having to teach two classes. After those two classes, I was free to go home. There are several parking lots on South Campus and faculty have designated spaces on two of those. If you have late classes, you may not get a parking space because students and nature fill a void. If so, you may have to walk farther than you usually do to your office or class.

In any case, I was through with classes and needed to get to the Jeep to get home but I couldn’t remember where I parked – more and more common these days. On my key fob, I have a button to remotely start the Jeep which is proceeded by two honks of the horn and a flash of the lights. That’s how I find my vehicle when I can’t immediately locate it. The problem was I walked the campus and all the parking lots and the Jeep didn’t respond. On top of that, a storm was coming that predicted six inches of rain in one hour. Fortunately, after several travels around the campus, I waked and didn’t loose the Jeep. Hopefully the rain is not a premonition. I’ve already had two floods at the house.

I packed up everything and after a breakfast they charged me that was supposed to be free and for two valet parkings, I headed out on I-95 again until I got off on I-20. I was 7 minutes from my next hotel and 3.6 miles away when we came to a dead stop. There was a left lane closure ahead and like South Florida drivers, the left lane drivers all tried to get to the head of the line and then cut in. This was causing a significant backup in both lanes.

To the credit of a semi driver, he moved into the left lane and blocked anyone else from trying to cut in. I loved it. Kudos to the driver!

I checked into the hotel and they gave me room 238. I had reserved a room on the fourth floor to keep the elephant noises down but I didn’t want to make a stink. However, when I got to the second floor, there was no 238. The rooms stopped at 235. Back down I went.

After much discussion between two employees, they upgraded me to a king bed on the fourth floor. That made me happy.

Today’s drive was almost less than yesterday’s but with the traffic jam on I-20, it ended up being around 5 hours again. Tomorrow is supposed to be a 3 hour drive but never believe what the GPS says.

Stay tuned!

15 November 2024

I was out of bed by 6:30 this morning and after getting everything into the Jeep, I killed time until the traffic eased on I-95. I finally got underway (Coastie term) around 9:43 am and actually breezed through the area around Sunrise and Coconut Creek which is always backed up. Of course, by the time I approached Boca Raton, traffic was dead stopped. Only a few times later did the traffic get bad other than the crazy drivers on 95 thinking they were Mario Andretti.

I got to Jacksonville a little after 3, as predicted by my GPS, and after taking a wrong exit due to the lack of an update on the GPS, I finally saw the Doubletree Hilton. When I get to choose my room, I always choose the upper most floor because I don’t want to hear the elephants above me. I’m in room 1016. I have a beautiful view of nothing other than some passé buildings around the hotel.

Speaking of passé, Davis Brown informed me that my old friend Jack passed away last year. Jack was my French teacher at Ole Miss for my first two semesters. He was hell on wheels at the French Lab and told his classes if they missed two labs, they would drop a letter grade. I ended up with Legionaires Disease and in the infirmary for two weeks. He graciously allowed me to make up the labs. Later, he hired me to move some magazines of which he was the editor to another location and paid me generously. He became a life long friend. He retired from Ole Miss and owned a plant nursery in Oxford and when he came to South Florida to buy plants, he would always stay with me. I’ll miss him.

I decided to dine locally at the hotel. They have a Ruth Chris steak house here. I’ve done appetizers at the Ruth Chris in Fort Lauderdale and ate a steak at one in Hollywood years ago. This was a real treat, albeit an expensive one ($188).

I chose the petit filet (medium) with creamed spinach and potatoes au gratin. I tried their blackberry mojito (I think they were out of blackberries and substituted blueberries) and a pinot noir by the glass from Oregon. For desert I had coffee and crème brûlée. The steak was good, the potatoes excellent and the creme spinach just OK. I’ve had better crème brûlée.

For a very fancy restaurant, it was noisy with the wait staff gossiping with one another at the wait station to the point you could hear their conversations. I started to mention it to the manager but decided not to.

The restaurant had a riverside view of the St. Johns River. Jacksonville is noted for the military bases here. At one time, the U.S. sub fleet was in Key West. A local politician got Jacksonville as the home port. The subs have top travel a significant length of the St. Johns River in order to hit the Atlantic where they can deep dive off the continental shelf and hide. The Key West base was better because the continental shelf is closer in the Keys and it takes less time to get underway and hide. Such is politics.

Jacksonville, at one time, had the largest square mile area for any city in the U.S. I assume it is still the same. The city limits just sprawl. The only time I’ve spent any time here was at a Florida science convention. I made a professor very uncomfortable when he showed some slides of some significance and I asked the question how he didn’t know the stuff he was showing was artifacts in the production of the slides. In my defense, they looked like artifacts I had seen in slides before. His answer was “they just aren’t artifacts.

So far, the hotel is quiet but it’s not even 6 pm. It could get louder tonight. There is quite bit of traffic on a road nearby. The hotel could use a remake. The carpet is tired and so are the rooms. However, it was convenient and I get Hilton points – shades of Tom Green.

Tomorrow, I head to Augusta, Ga. I swear, when I was a kid putting together a puzzle of the states of the U.S., Augusta was listed at the capital of Georgia. My Georgia friends insist Atlanta has always been the capital of Georgia. I did a Wikipedia search an apparently that is not true.

Anyway, stay tuned for Augusta!

14 November 2024

Tomorrow begins my trip to Smithgall Woods State Park to meet up with Jimmie and Stephen. We’ve planned this trip ever since our first visit and we made reservations at the same cabin we had last time at least six months ago if not longer.

I’m not sure any of us are up to hiking. I have no stamina, Jimmie has hip problems and Stephen gets out of breath. Looks like we will have to enjoy temps in the 3o’s and 40’s at night with a fire crackling in the two fireplaces, doing some star gazing, and, of course, dining out in Helen. Hopefully the fall colors will still be around.

I managed to get most of the items on my “to do” list completed. It’s been a busy and exhausting day. I think I’m pretty much packed and I hope to get out of town around 10 am. It should be about a five hour drive to Jacksonville where I’ll spend one night.

The one problem I ran into is choice of clothes. There’s gonna be some cold days and nights and those clothes are bulky. I think it’ll all fit in my suitcase.

Stay tuned for the trip!

4 November 2022

Over 1500 miles later, I pulled into the driveway at 1:05 pm today. I did get an early start from Lake City so I made better time with less early morning traffic. As per usual, a couple of places on the turnpike bogged down a little but the biggest traffic tie-up was in Broward County near Broward Boulevard. Fortunately, I was only 6 minutes from home.

Even with the price of diesel, I got by pretty cheaply on the cost of fuel. I filled up three times and that was $167.80. Of course, it was more expensive around larger cities and the interstate but I paid as low as $4.67 per gallon in north Georgia and as high as $5.45 in Florida. Seems Florida has more gas tax than Georgia.

This was a great trip and just what I needed – to get back into the woods for a change of scenery. The weather was perfect for hiking and I missed the summertime crowds. It was extra nice having Jimmie and Stephen to share the experience.

Amazingly, I only gained two pounds on the trip! Looks like I need to up my exercise game now I’m back home.

Hopefully, it will not be too long before my next excursion. Stay tuned!

3 November 2022

A the sun sets on the Smithgall Woods stay. Or, I should say, the sun rose on the last day at the cottage. Usually, I’m the first one out the door to head home but Jimmie and Stephen beat me to it this morning. After I saw them off to Greensboro, I took my time packing up things and loading the jeep. I finally pulled out of the park around 8:30 am and pulled into Lake City’s Home2 Suites by Hilton at 3 pm – a 6 1/2 hours to the minute of my estimate. Tomorrow’s trip home is gonna be a little over 5 hours depending on how crazy the Florida Turnpike is and how bad traffic slows at West Palm Beach., Helton C

On this trip, Jimmie and I visited two waterfalls: Helton Creek Falls and Anna Ruby Falls. Technically, Anna Ruby falls are two falls in one location. This was my third trip to Anna Ruby and I’d still go back again.

In North Georgia, there are seventeen significant waterfalls (counting the two at Anna Ruby): Amicolola (the tallest in the state) Anna Ruby, Desoto Falls, Dukes Creek Falls, Chunanee Falls, Helton Creek Falls, Hemlock Falls, High Shoals Falls, Horse Trough Falls, Panther Creek Falls, and Tallulah Gorge. Tallulah Gorge has five separate waterfalls: Tempesta, Hurricane, Oceana, Bridal Veil and L’eau d’Or. Of the 16 waterfalls in north Georgia I’ve been to 12: Amicolola, Anna Ruby, Desoto, Dukes Creek, Chunanee, Helton Creek, and all five of the Tallulah Gorge.

I guess I need to make a few more trips to North Georgia. Actually, in Cloudland Canyon State Park in northwest Georgia, I’ve been to both of those waterfalls: Cherokee and Hemlock, so that’s an additional two.

I pretty much try to visit any waterfall anywhere near where I stay. Over the years, the one thing I can confirm is that Bridal Veil Falls is a very common name for waterfalls throughout the U.S. Every waterfall is, of course, unique to the terrain and every one amazes. There is something calming about the effect of falling water.

Often associated with waterfalls are rapids and cascades. One would think that South Florida would be a stranger to any of these water features but the Miami River at one time had a set of rapids. My understanding is they were blown up to allow vessels access to the upper reaches of the Miami River.

Now it’s time to head home and start getting ready for Thanksgiving. It’s been a great trip. Thanks for coming along with me!

1 November 2022

Happy 74th birthday to me! Whew! I didn’t know if I would make it. I’m still here and can still get out in the woods and hike, so all’s well!

I was the first up this morning, followed by Stephen and then Jimmie. By the time Jimmie came out, Stephen and I had already finished two cups of coffee and a bagel each. Not long after, Jimmie and I headed out to see Helton Creek Falls.

Usually when I’m on a trip, I use AllTrails to plan my trip. The app suggested that Helton Creek Road was approximately 1.2 miles from the entrance of Vogel State Park on US129/19. That’s probably true if you are coming from the south but my GPS routed me from the north along the Russell Scenic Highway (which, by the way, is very, very scenic, particularly in the fall).

In any case, we finally found Helton Creek Road which leads to the falls and AllTrails was correct in saying the paved road finally petered out into a dirt road. Helton Creek Road actually is a through road and AllTrails indicated you would have to ford two creeks to get to the falls. Apparently, that information is accurate if you come in from the opposite entrance than we did so we didn’t have to ford any creeks. Dang! I wanted to use my four wheel drive!

Both Jimmie and I have hip pain so I was concerned when we encountered a “few” steps which turned into many steps. I hate steps. I hate when trail managers make steps in the terrain. Whatever they make is not made for a natural gait up steps. We persevered, in any case. It was worth it. The trip down to the falls and back is supposed to be 0.6 miles.

We did get a little caution at the beginning of the trail.

I’ve had more than one close encounter of the copperhead kind over the years. The weather was cool so I assured Jimmie there would be none out – they would be in hibernation. I lied. They would still be out but they would have been extremely sluggish. I used to step on them in Tishomingo State Park when I was doing my masters thesis work and in winter, you could get away with that. I don’t recommend stepping on them in the summer months.

Your first view of the falls is just after the parking lot to the trail.

It’s a steady, gradual trail down to the base of the falls. The only real problem was the rain of the previous day made some of the footing a little slippery – and those damn steps!

The falls are considered a double falls with a lower and upper. The lower falls are said to be 40 feet in height. To get a good view of the lower falls you need to follow more damned steps down to the creek.

To see the upper falls, you climb a little further (more damned steps) to a platform to see the 50 foot upper falls.

AllTrails does say that the falls are more spectacular after a heavy rain but the rain yesterday was very slight. Even so, there was a pretty good flow of water on both the upper and lower.

If you look very carefully in the photo above, you can see a hornet net. Look at the top of the falls and then a little to the right.

Hornets are paper nest builders. The largest I’ve ever seen was at Golden Memorial State Park (conveniently built on the side of the concession stand). I can only imagine the law suits the state park commission would have endured if I hadn’t removed it when I was park manager. It’s hard to judge the size of this one because of the distance but I’m glad it is winter here and the hornets aren’t too active. Life is too short to be stung again by hornets. My one and only experience with a sting from one literally knocked me off my feet.

After hiking back up those damned steps, Jimmie and I headed back to Smithgall Woods and picked up Stephen for lunch in Cleveland. It seems Cleveland, Georgia and Helen, Georgia are about the same distance from the park. Helen is tourist nirvana and Cleveland is just an old fashioned southern town with a courthouse and square. The old courthouse is now a museum.

We had no restaurant destination in mind in Cleveland so we just headed for Main Street and one circle around the square showed us Clyde’s Table and Tavern. It turned out to be a gem of a find.

They had a special of three tacos with fillings of chicken, pork and brisket. I highly recommend that. After getting our fill at Clydes, I wanted a coffee.

Just out the door and down the street was Farmhouse Coffee, an independent coffee house. My order was their holiday special, pumpkin pie spice latte. It was desert in a cup. I got to talking with the employees and they are getting ready to open up another coffee shop in Gainesville, Georgia. Can a franchise system be far behind. Really, the coffee was delicious and they even sell their speciality syrups for their coffees.

Now, for a little calm and reflection.

Tonight, dinner will be either in Helen or Cleveland. Stay tuned!

31 October 2022

Happy Halloween!

You probably figured out I meant Circle K, not K Mart from yesterday’s post. I mean, it’s kind of hard to miss – a big red “K” with a big red circle around it. Chalk it up to travel fatigue.

Gross! My hotel room! Years ago on a trip, I stayed at some hotel that the carpet felt very dirty and was evidenced by the soles of my feet. Ever since that time, I’ve always packed a pair of flip-flops for walking in hotel rooms. I’m getting old and I forgot to pack a pair. Big mistake. The hotel room carpet is really dirty. After a shower and simply walking over to the desk in the room over the carpet, my feet were icky.

Double icky! The comforter on the bed. I think I need to have my eyes checked sooner than later. When I pulled the comforter back, I couldn’t find a top sheet. More confusingly, the comforter had a sheet sewn into the underside.

I thought they couldn’t possibly have put a comforter on a bed without a top sheet. I know they don’t wash comforters between visitors and even though the sheet attached to the comforter felt clean, my mind said it wasn’t. After trying to get some sleep with this arrangement, I gave up and gave it one more try to find a top sheet. It was indeed there and it simply blended in so well with the bottom sheet, I didn’t see it. I had needlessly spent about an hour with only the comforter on top of me.

Otherwise, the hotel was quiet and I finally drifted off to sleep. Either the place is not full or there are exceptionally quiet guests on my floor.

My GPS did indeed route me to Atlanta but thank the travel gods, it did not send me through downtown. For some reason, the GPS has a proclivity to send me downtown during rush hour. Thank goodness some of the by-passes are no longer under construction and I can get around the city.

I pulled into Smithgall Woods about 2 pm. I did not anticipate the cottage to be ready (check-in is 4:30 pm). However, the same park ranger that checked me in last trip checked me in this trip.

I had some trepidation about the cottage. The park website did not have a floor plan and I knew it would be hard to beat my experience at the Garden Cottage last year. I was pleasantly surprised when I walked into the cottage. It’s a very spacious layout with a galley kitchen, a living room with fire place, a “game” room with television, three bedrooms (two with full size beds and one king bed) and a shared bath with the two small bedrooms and an ensuite with the king bed.

Jimmie and Stephen arrived around 4 pm. I finally got a fire going and we all relaxed after a long drive – me from Waycross and them from Greensboro. Around 6 we headed for Helen and dinner at Paul’s Steakhouse. Stephen got the NY Strip and Jimmie and I both got the country fried steak (shades of the Gulf Cafe in Morton, Mississippi when we were kids). Heart healthy it is not – but oh so good!

Tomorrow, Jimmie and I may try a hike to a waterfall. Both of us are having hip trouble so it may be a short hike. We can console ourselves if we don’t make it to the waterfall with the home made tea cakes I made for the trip. It’s my great grandmother’s recipe and they are delicious if I do so say.

Stay tuned!