I Think I Saw a Ghost

 

Blairsville, Georgia (high 81, low 61)

We have already been on a pretty good hike and are now sitting outside, enjoying the 63 degree morning temperature.  Chatty and Baxter are outside with us.

Here is a close up of Chatty (Chattanooga)

Al is enjoying his morning coffee.

You see that nice (freshly painted) deck up there?  You notice we are NOT sitting on the nice deck?   It’s because we have bird feeders attached to the deck rail and other feeders nearby and if we sit on the deck, it will disturb the birds.  Crazy huh?

The hummingbirds are going nuts, chasing each other all around.  I think we’re accumulating a few more of them.

Still trying to get that perfect photo.

Still working on a good gold finch shot too.

 

Yesterday started slow, but we ended up having a very full day.

We finally made it to Helton Creek Falls. It’s about 5 miles from here, 2 miles of which was on a narrow gravel road with narrow shoulders and steep drop offs.  We made our way slowly on the road, being careful not to fall off the side of the mountain.  There were some places  along the road that would have been a real problem if you would have met another vehicle. 

It was a short walk to the falls once you finally got to the parking lot.

The water was really flowing.  I guess partially due to all the rain this summer.

There were pretty plants all along the trail to the waterfall.

After we left, we decided to go to a place where you could pick blueberries.  Not as cheap as David and Sherry have been finding. These were $15 a gallon.  The season is about over, but there were still lots of berries, but all were small.

It was a beautiful location to pick berries though.

These beautiful horses greeted us when we arrived.

They were in a cleared pasture, with mountains all around, and down the side of the hill were the blueberry bushes.  What a a lovely place.

We picked about a pint, and left.  Mexican lunch was calling our names and their lunch specials were over at 3pm, so we had to hurry.  :)

We love Monte Alban Mexican restaurant, and for $10 total, we can eat pretty cheaply.  We’ve been substituting the beef enchilada for bean and other than the little amount of cheese they use, it’s mostly vegan.  It’s good enough for us!  It’s delicious! 

After lunch, it was off to Home Depot again, for a few more plants and flowers.  It’s funny how often we’re going there again now that we’re “homeowners” again.

It was getting pretty warm by the time we got home, so we sat inside for awhile until it was time to go for our evening bear hunt.

So far, we have only seen one bear, despite the fact that we’ve been going back to the same place we saw him, and at the same time of day.

Last night as we were approaching the place we park to watch for the bear, I had my camera ready…just in case.

As I was looking through the viewfinder, I kept seeing this white blob through my lens.  I thought it was a spot on my lens or a reflection, but it wouldn’t go away.  I thought I snapped a few pictures, but today when I downloaded them, I only had one.

This is what I shot. I did not see the white blog when I looked with my eyes, but I saw it through the lens.

See that white blob towards the right?  It was really weird.  It sure doesn’t look like a spec on the lens or a light reflection.  When I saw it through the lens, it appeared to be moving.  Al didn’t see it.

I cropped the photo to bring it closer, but it just got blurrier.  Maybe I saw a ghost?

After bear hunt, it was happy hour/hot tub time, then after that we had dinner.  Yep, it was a very full day!

 

So…..back to this mornings hike.   We decided to be brave and walk up the road where we saw the bear coming down the other night.  We had never driven that road and weren’t sure there was a place to turn around, because there was a dead end sign on it.

It was a pretty steep hill…good for getting a cardio workout!

It turns out the road went on and on and there are plenty of places to turn the car around.  There are a lot of private driveways with houses on the top of the hills, with what must be breathtaking views.

It was foggy this morning, but we saw this new house under construction.

Isn’t it a shame, someone has to clear the entire top of a mountain to build their “house in the mountains?”

You don’t see that often.  Most of the mountain homes are deep in the woods, and you sometimes wonder how they ever get to the house.

This big beautiful house made me sad for the destruction of the beautiful habitat.

We saw a lot of beautiful plants along the road though.

 

I spotted a centipede on the road.

Al decided to rescue it.

We saw some deer, two of which were fawns.  Unfortunately, no pictures.

We did see this guy.  He posed very nicely.  A little too nicely?

A sign of fall color to come?

I tried to get some more mountain pictures for Sherry.  She left a nice comment yesterday complimenting me on my header photo of the mountain. 

Thanks Sherry,  it is not the view from our campground, but it’s nearby, if I remember correctly, and there are mountain views like that all around.  We’re in a valley.