Blairsville, Georgia (high 86, low 68)
We are back in our summer mountain retreat and very glad to be here. After all it took us 4 days to drive the 560 miles! We didn’t put the slides out at night, and we were in cramped quarters for the entire time. It’s amazing what a difference the slides make.
Our last day of driving was to be the longest yet, at 244 miles and right through Atlanta and it’s 7 lanes of traffic. Since we went through on a Sunday morning, traffic wasn’t too bad (for Atlanta). We actually left the Rv park at 7:40 am! I think that was a record for us. No matter how good of intentions we have, we never seem to get on the road very early.
Our main problem going through Atlanta, was that our Garmin Rv GPS kept wanting us to go on the bypass because trucks aren’t allowed through the downtown area. We felt the easiest and most direct way was directly through, staying on I75, so that was where we went. The GPS had a fit trying to get us back on a “legal” road. The new GPS doesn’t “recalculate” like the older ones do, so it just kept telling us to get off an the nearest exit. You can change the settings on the GPS so that it knows you are a smaller vehicle, but I couldn’t remember how to change it quickly enough to get it done in time. Atlanta has good signs directing you through, but it would have been nice to have had a cooperative GPS. We ended up using my trusty Android phone map which was great, as always.
Once we got through Atlanta, our elevation gradually changed and soon we were seeing mountains in the distance. As we went through the town of Blue Ridge, I checked my Weatherbug app and it showed the temperature of 78 degrees at around noon. Boy did that sound good to us.
We got to Rivers Edge and backed in to the precise spot we needed to be, using the little black paint marks we put on the concrete the year before. We have a deck we have to work around and the black marks helped us to get exactly where we needed to be.
When we first got there it was cloudy and foggy and although humid, it was quite comfortable. It wasn’t long before the sun burned through and it got up to 87 degrees. It almost felt like we were back in Tampa, and hotter than we had hoped for. The good news is that it cools down nicely overnight and there is a cool front coming bringing our daytime highs into the 70’s a few days this week!
As soon as we got the motor home all set up outside, our next priority was getting the hot tub going. We had it covered up for the winter and were happy that it survived nicely through the very cold winter. We have some neighbors that live here year round normally, but they had to leave last winter when it got down to –13. We were a little worried that we hadn’t winterized everything properly, but were happy to see nothing was damaged from the harsh winter. No surprise leaks in the cabin. The golf cart was on a trickle charge and it started right up. The refrigerator, washer and dryer we have in the cabin all worked. That’s always a concern after they sat for so long.
We visited with our friends staying in our rental Rv site, got caught up with some other friends here, did a little bike riding, a golf cart ride and now I’m going outside to see how good the hot tub feels! Al’s still in bed, enjoying the cool breeze coming in the window.
