A Peak of Fall Color

 

Blairsville, Ga (high 76, low 60)

 

There is not much going on around here.  The often predicted rain has put a damper on some of our plans.  We have had some pretty good rain, including a strong storm the other night that brought small hail. Hiking has been put on hold until the rain stops.

Here in Rivers Edge, we are allowed to put up a short fence to cover your sewer and water connections.  We got that done earlier in the summer, and have been waiting for the wood to cure enough to paint.  We also put up a fence for our patio side neighbor, since his sewer connections are the ones we get to see.  His rv is a little run down, so it’s nice to block some of the view.  We finally got “his” fence painted, but we had to work between rain showers and then wait for the wood to dry back out. 

We still need to paint the other fence, some touch up on the deck, and the back side of the cabin.  If the rain would just stop.

They are predicting a rainy winter, and if the past few weeks are any indication, I think that may be true.

We have spent some time with Merikay and Craig, having lunch, and a few happy hours.   They are mostly hunkering down working on projects around the house.  I need to remember to get a picture.

One of our favorite things to do up here is to take car rides, explore, and see what we can find.  Wherever you go, there is always beautiful scenery, the traffic is never a problem, so its something we enjoy.  We find cute little shops selling all sorts of things, including antiques, cabin decor, fruit and vegetable stands, as well as scenic views and other places of interest.   We never know where we might end up.

The following are things we’ve seen in our travels.

The farmers are starting to harvest the corn fields, much to the dismay of the local bears.  They mostly wait for the corn to dry up and turn brown.  I assume it’s either used for ethanol, or animal feed.

This old chimney was repurposed and use for decoration.

I never could see the view, but I understand it had a heck of a view.

One of the beautiful trees in our own rv park.

Yesterday, after we finished the painting, we decided we needed some more paint, so off we went to Hiawassee, to the nearest Benjamin Moore paint store.  We got our paint, had a nice lunch, then headed back home via the scenic highway 180, through the pretty area called Track Rock Gap.   It’s one of our favorite scenic rides.

We noticed the fall colors are starting to change.

As we started getting into some higher elevations, the color started getting more and more pronounced.

Since we had to go right by the cut off for Brasstown Bald, (the highest mountain in Georgia), we decided to go up there and see how the foliage looked from the top.

The further up we went, the more color we saw.

We were surprised at how much the colors had changed already. 

It was foggy, so the distant shots didn’t turn out so well.

 

 

 

This is a view of Lake Chatuge.

 

 

 

 

 

I think maybe a trip to Clingmans Dome (highest peak in Tennessee) will be in our future.

There are two fall festivals starting today (that I know of).  One is here in Blairsville, and one is the Hiawassee Mountain Festival.  We haven’t decided exactly what we will be doing today, but we have friends visiting from Tampa, so we’ll hook up with them later today. 

We expect to be pretty busy the next few weeks as we wind up our nearly 4 month stay here in Blairsville.    We’re really not looking forward to going back to Tampa, but the Keys are starting to call our names.  :)