Elvis Has Left the Building

 

Cleveland, Georgia – Paradise Valley Rv Park ( high 85, low 60)

 

We left South Carolina yesterday morning for a 163 mile drive up to Cleveland, Georgia, which is in the northern Georgia mountains.

I was apprehensive about driving the motor home up  steep and curvy narrow mountain roads, but the route we took was all good roads with no steep drop offs!   We’re only at about 1600 elevation.

We landed at Paradise Valley Campground.  It’s a lovely campground with all privately owned lots. You can either buy or rent a lot or cabin.

We are renting from one of the owners and are in lot #69.  We are considering purchasing a Rv lot in this area, so we made a deal to rent their lot while we’re here.  The lot owners have recently purchased another lot here and are currently traveling out west.  Many of the owners we met own multiple lots, it seems.

They made arrangements with neighbor John, to meet us at the gate, to let us in and to give us a “clicker.”   He led us in to our site.  We made the mistake of not unhooking the toad when we should have and had some issues with that, but we finally got parked.

Our other issue was that for the first time since we’ve had it, our Directv antenna could not pick up a signal.  Too many trees.  John came to the rescue with an antenna, but we haven’t had the time to see if it will work.

After we got set up John called to invite us to a campground function at a local winery.  It turns out there are a lot of winery’s in this area.  They were having wine tasting, snacks and entertainment.

We decided to run into town for a very late lunch.  When we got into the restaurant we spotted a couple having a meal.  He was wearing shorts, but still looked very much like Elvis with the black hair and long sideburns.

Al was sitting with his back to him, and after a few minutes, he asked if Elvis was still there.  I looked up and noticed he was gone and of course I said…… “Elvis has left the building.”

We went back “home”  looked around the campsite a little and took a few pictures.

This is a lovely and huge place.  You can easily get lost (and we did) around these curvy campground roads.

We have a pull in forward site.  Our front is looking out up a slight slope that leads to the pool and clubhouse.  It’s pretty private.

There is a long rock drive that leads to a concrete slab.  To the right/patio side is a raised deck that has a nice sized screen room attached.  It has indoor/outdoor carpeting, a ceiling fan and lights and tons of electrical outlets.  In front of that is a nice sized shed, also hooked up with electricity.

The outdoor lighting is set on a timer and it made it look very nice.

The screen room would be nice for morning coffee and times where there are mosquito's keeping you inside.

Al is setting up his birdfeeder in the next picture.  We have heard and seen a lot of birds.

I seem to have had a spot on my lens.  Sorry.

Baxter got to go for a ride in his stroller.  He was excited to see a few rabbits.

At about 6pm, we headed up to the winery for the get together.  What nice people!  It seemed that many of them knew we were coming and they rolled out the welcome mat for us.  You couldn’t have asked for a nicer group of people.

After we were there a few minutes, but who should walk in but the same “Elvis”  we saw at dinner.  He was wearing the same clothing,but after doing a sound check, he left for a while.  A few minutes  later he came back and looked like this.

 

Again…sorry for the spot on my lens. 

Elvis was very good and put on a great show for us.   After he sang for a while we left, but I guess the party continued on with a DJ and some very happy wine drinkers!

We were a bit tired, so we came back and did a short walk around the park.  We saw two rabbits and a hummingbird came to about 3 feet from where I was admiring a flower. 

This morning, I’m going out camera in hand to take some photographs of this lovely place.  

Blue hydrangeas!   Wow!

 

 

 

Another beautiful lot with cabin and Rv.

flowers everywhere

We’re off to Blairsville today.  I’m sure I’ll have a lot more pictures tomorrow!

Google Earth Questions

 

Cross Hill, SC,  Lake Greenwood Motorcoach Resort, (high 95, low 66)

 

Yesterday was a hot here in South Carolina.  It seems to me it gets hotter up here than it does in Florida.

Our evening trip to the hot tub, turned out to a trip to the pool instead.  They have a beautiful  pool here that was just the perfect temperature.

Earlier in the day, we took what was supposed to be a short trip into town, but ended  up doing  little sightseeing.

Most of you have heard of Park Seed and Nursery,  and I’ll bet we’ve all had their catalogs.  They are supposed to be located  in the city of Greenwood.   The GPS pointed us to a dead end, so we never did find them.  We thought we would find a nice little park like setting where we could walk around and look at pretty landscaping.   Of course, the head designers at Park Seed did the landscaping for Lake Greenwood Rv Resort, so I guess we’re seeing all those pretty plants and designs every day!

After another stop at Ryan's Buffet (yes that makes 2 days in a row), we discovered downtown Greenwood.  What a pretty downtown area they have and June is the month for their flower festival.

 

There were beautiful topiaries, most of which were covered in live flowers and plants.

Here is the SC college mascot.  A Gamecock.  See his cute little beak and feet?

The red is made from lots of red begonias.

And here is King Kong.

and an old car.

After we ate lunch, we ended up at a National Historic Site called  “96”.

It was the site of the first southern battle of the Revolutionary War.  The loyalists were defending the star shaped fort against the patriot forces  which were led  by General Nathanael Green.  Although the patriots lost, the victorious loyalists abandoned this post soon after the battle and moved further towards the coast.

It was a lovely park with a lot to see and do, however it was so darned hot, that we made it a quick trip. Unfortunately, the visitor center was closed yesterday, so we had to learn what we could outside in the 95 degree heat.

It was a beautiful area with a lot of huge and fragrant pine trees.  It’s a place we’d enjoy going back to on a cooler day.

 

Thanks for all the comments and suggestions from yesterday’s post.  We have decided to head to Cleveland, Georgia, which is in the north Georgia mountains.   I have it mapped out on Microsoft Streets and Trips as well as our truckers GPS.

I checked Google Earth and it looks like we should be able to get there without too many frazzled nerves.  :)

I have not figured out how to get the elevation to show, like George and Suzie suggested.  I tried adding a pushpin which indicates you can get elevation, but I was unable to figure out how to make it work. 

Any suggestions on showing elevation on Google Earth? 

I do have a phone app called Get Altitude.   You can get the elevation from where you are currently at or search a new location.  It’s great, but having it on Google Earth would be more convenient….if I could make it work!

We had planned on heading to Cleveland today, but there is a cold front pushing through with the probability of severe weather.  You know me.  If I can avoid bad weather, I will certainly try.  Al lets me make all the decisions regarding weather.  (and the reason for that is because he got us caught 25 miles offshore in our boat during terrible storms and lighting.)

Actually, he did that twice and the second time was when he told me that from then on, he told me I was in charge of weather decisions.

So….another day hanging out here in the beautiful Lake Greenwood Resort.  There are certainly worse places to be and it’s nice we can be flexible.