Lake Chatuge Damn

 

Blairsville, Georgia  (high 58, low 39)

 

Well, we survived the coldest night so far this year.  It was 24 degrees this morning.  There was frost on the pumpkin….or there would have been, but we put the pumpkin in the cabin last night along with my flowers!

Can you see the frost on the deck and grass?

Our two maple trees evidently are not the pretty colorful kind, but our neighbors have some beautiful trees.

Our new heater kept the house about 62 last night, which is apparently as warm as it will be with such low temps.  That’s fine with us though because we like cool temps when we sleep and of course we’re under the electric blankets.  Despite their fur, the kitties get chilly, so we have an electric blanket on the couch for them!  So far we haven’t had to run the dreaded noisy furnace!

 

We took a drive up to Murphy, North Carolina yesterday, and picked up our friends Karen and Ken.  We decided to have lunch at Shoebooties Cafe for lunch.  Al and I had a delicious black bean burger.  One of these days I’m going to try their “shoetini martini” sampler. They have a $24.95 all you can eat snow crab special that Al wants to try, so that might be the time for the martinis.

After lunch, we walked down to the Trail of Tears Museum.  It was only $3.00 per person, and well worth the money. They had some wonderful Indian artifacts as well as a lot of information on the removal of the Cherokee Indians from this area.  What a shameful time in our history.

After visiting the museum, we decided to take a drive towards Franklin, North Carolina along the scenic highway 64.

The fall colors are fading with many trees bare.  There were still some pretty spots though and the vistas from the higher elevations are always pretty.

I loved the sheer rock walls along the highway.

Here are Ken and Karen posing for us.

We didn’t really have any specific plans, so when we came across the sign for the Lake Chatuge Damn, we decided to check it out.

We were glad we did, because it was beautiful.

It was also very cold.   You could walk around this barricade and walk along the walkway on the berm.  There was a campground in the distance.  The further we got, the more the wind picked up.  The cold wind on my face gave me the feeling you get when you eat ice cream too fast.  We decided to not walk all the way across, but we’ll go back on a warmer day.  It was lovely.

There were some gorgeous slate rocks along the berm.

You can see the wind blowing across the water.  Burrrrr.

Since it was too cold to walk to the campground, we decided to drive.  It’s a lovely campground with beautiful waterfront sites.  I didn’t even think about taking pictures of the campground.  Sorry.

Lake Chatuge was formed by the TVA in 1942.  There are 7200 acres of water and 133 miles of shoreline.

 

We left Lake Chatuge, and headed a little further towards Franklin, but decided we’d better turn around or we would be going home in the dark.

It was a lovely day spent with good friends.

Today, we’re going to hang out around home and do a few chores,  and hopefully can start painting the little cabin on the new RV lot.  It’s small so we should be able to get it done pretty quickly.  Of course, we have to wait for it to warm up a bit.

Despite the chilly weather at night, other than yesterday, the days have been pleasant and we’re not feeling the urge to head south just yet.