Record Breaking Temperature

 

Blairsville, Georgia (high 47, low 23)

It got down to 18 degrees this morning.  Not exactly record breaking for this area, but record breaking for us.  We haven’t seen this kind of temperatures since we lived in south Georgia.  

We survived the night, snuggled under our electric blanket, but it was hard to crawl out of bed this morning.

There were about a dozen birds waiting for Al to bring out the feeders this morning.  He takes the feeders in at night to prevent attracting any bears.   Now the birds seem to be coming form everywhere.  We’ve seen more varieties this morning then we have all summer.

The farmers finally harvested their corn and soy beans during the past few days.  The deer liked the soy beans, and our local bear spent every night in the corn field.  We feel really bad for them.  We assume the corn is being used for feed, because it has been brown for months.  The bears will have to find another source of food.  Poor things.  I was hoping they were going to leave some for the wildlife.  Should have known better.

We finally got the cabin ready for winter.  We figured we had better winterize the washing machine, which was a new one for us.  Although the cabin in well insulated, we didn’t want to take a chance on having anything freeze up, so we spun out all the water, and drained all the hoses.  For good measure, we ran some RV anti-freeze through it as well.

The water heater in the cabin was a different issue.  For some reason, previous owners plumbed the water heater by running PVC  pipe out the drain valve of the water heater, directly into the sewer.  So there is no way to open a spigot and drain the water and flush out the tank.   That made it a challenge to get the water out of the water heater and pipes.  Al ended up using his little wet/dry vac to blow water into the water spigot outside, and when we opened the pressure relief valve, the water flowed out.   I’m making note of this here, so that we can remember how we did it next year.  :)    We’re hoping the water is all out of the pipes.  I guess we’ll know next summer.  The people we bought this lot from never winterized the water heater and didn’t know how to drain the water.  Evidently the first owners are the ones who came up with that creative way to install the water heater.  The people we bought it from never had a problem, so perhaps the way it was plumbed allowed the water to drain from the pipes.  We were more worried about the pipes than the actual water heater.

It’s amazing how settled we got here during the past three months, so now we’re having to move back into the motor home.  The longer you are at one spot, the longer it takes to leave.

Al just got the hot tub drained and covered, so the big things are done.  The golf cart needs to be moved into the shed on the other lot.  We bought a trickle charger to keep the batteries charged. 

We are thinking of leaving tomorrow (Thursday), but Al is kind of voting to wait until Friday.  It will be a little warmer Friday morning for the last minute preparations like hooking up the toad.    Whatever day we leave, we plan on unhooking everything but the power and being ready to go with as little outside prep to do as possible.   We wanted to leave on Sunday, but since rain is predicted, we decided to leave earlier…….  I guess we’ll see how it goes today.

Treasure Hunting

 

Blairsville, Georgia  (high 64, low 40)

Yesterday was a beautiful day, with sunshine, blue skies and no wind.  It only got into the 60’s, but it felt warmer and we enjoyed being outside.  Those kinds of days are becoming more rare.   We’re hoping today will be just as nice, because things will be going downhill tomorrow with predicted temperatures down to the low 20’s.  We usually are a few degrees colder than what is predicted, so we may even see some teens.  There is a 30% chance of snow, and we’re hoping for it.

Yeah, it’s getting cold here, and people wonder why we haven’t left for Florida already.   It was a really HOT summer in Florida this past year, and even though we weren’t there all summer, we got really sick of the heat, humidity, and rain.  Remember, we have lived most of our lives in Florida, so cooler temperatures are a nice change for us.  Plus, it’s nice to know that we can leave here anytime we want, and that warmer temperatures are waiting for us. 

We have been pretty cozy, with our little Source Green Quartz heater (which we love), and our electric blankets (one for us, one for the kitties), and all our warm clothes.  Of course it remains to be seen how we will feel it it gets down into the teens.  :)

Here is a view of our patio table this morning.  Notice the pretty sparkling frost?

This week is being devoted to re-organizing and winterizing things in preparation for our departure, but last week we did some more sight seeing.

We decided to go back to Consolidated Mines, in Dahlonega, Georgia.

Click here if you missed my post on our previous tour of the gold mine.  It’s well worth visiting.

We enjoyed the gold mine tour so much, that I’m sure we’ll go back another time, but this trip was to do some gem mining.

You can buy a bucket of sand with prices starting at $15 all the way up to $100.   We split a $30 bucket last time, but we decided to splurge and get the $100 bucket this time.  Each bucket of sand has the “chance” to find gems.

It’s a lot of money, but we rationalized it by telling ourselves, that since we very rarely go to a movie, this was our “movie money.”   :)

Here is Al searching for treasure.

You do the gem mining and gold panning inside of a building.  We’ve been to a few other places and had to be outside in the cold.  The water flowing through is pretty cold and your hands get pretty chilly, so it’s nice to be inside. 

The gold mine is right below us.  The blue tub was was our $100 bucket filled with sand and gems???

Would we find any treasure??

Here is our stash taken about 2/3 of the way through. The box on the right is where you put the sand. You put it down into the water to wash the sand away and find your stones.

The box on the left were my treasures.  We kept our stashes separate. :)

 

The big blog in the top right of the picture is a big chunk of amethyst.  These were Al’s treasures.

 

We ended up with 5-6 large garnets, sapphires, a few emeralds, lots of quartz, rubies, a piece of petrified wood and lots more.

We ended up with 6 plastic bags full. The small bag on the right front was the stones that could be cut.

The emerald I got was a pretty good size stone.  They have gem cutters on the  premises, and I was told I could have it cut into a nice stone for about $300.  Yikes!   I think I’ll just admire it like it is.

I don’t know how much of this gem mining is set up and how much is real, nor do I want to know. I do know they get their stuff from North Carolina.  Every bucket seems to have gems in them, so I’m sure there is a little “preparation.”  We don’t care, we enjoy it and always find lots of pretty gems.

On they way home, we drove by Lake Blue Ridge.  It’s another man made lake formed by a dam.

The water was a little low on some parts of the lake, don’t you think?

I couldn’t believe how high the stilts on this house were.  Anything to get a better view, huh?

I couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if any of that ground eroded?

 

Some trees are really getting bare.

 

There is still color in a lot of areas.

view of Mt. Yonah.

The grass around our RV park is brown, but some areas have the most beautiful green pasture grass.

This is one of the back roads where we ride our golf cart.

This is a dilapidated old building we see along one of the golf cart roads.  Now that the leaves are falling, it’s a little easier to photograph.

Remember this beautiful tree in our front yard?

 

Here are those same leaves now, laying in the grass.  You can’t even see the grass for all the leaves.

Today, we will drain and winterize the hot tub, but we plan on getting in one last soak.

I guess I’ll let Al drain and winterize the washing machine too.  Boy….am I going to miss that!