June 20th--Day 8--Backroads

It's Friday and camp is over. Our next stop is Flintstone, Georgia, which is at the base of Lookout Mountain just on the other side of Chattanooga, Tennessee. Angel's cousin Joy and her family live their (you saw pictures of her three kids in the reunion entry). Angel decided that the backroads would be more fun than the interstate, so she put me in charge of the map. GPS? We don't need no stinkin' GPS!





All goes well for a while. We pass through Cleveland again (remember the CPK hospital?) and are making pretty good time until ...

Angel though "Oh no, not a hay truck!" And she was right. It was the only thing slower than a hay truck. A tractor. And if you look close enough, you'll see that it is also carrying a bale of hay on the front. Wonderful. We finally made it to a dotted line and passed.







We finally make it to Highway 60 and are driving through the mountains. Angel can only go about 35 mph because of all the twists and turns. But it is a beautiful drive, and guess what we found? The Appalachian Trail!









Ashlynn on the AT at Woody Gap. There was a sign warning that bears were active in that area, so we did not stay long. I doubted bears have ever tasted monkey, and I didn't want them to start today!









So Angel's making her way along the mountains, winding around all those curves, and we turn a curve and this is what we are faced with:

That's right--a big mound of stones. In the middle of the road. It looked like a roundabout.











This is the sign posted beside the stones. I hope you can read it, because it's pretty interesting:












Not long after the stones, another slow-down. This time we just rolled down the windows and turned off the engine, because we were there for probably 15 or 20 minutes. Re-paving mountain roads takes a while. We finally got on our way, but a short while later...









Yep, slowed down again. This time for horses. It wasn't too bad though, since we couldn't drive very fast on the roads anyway. Keep in mind, however, that it is lunch time, and Angel and Ashlynn are starving. Angel kept asking me to look at the map and see what town was coming up next. Then she'd tell Ashlynn they would stop at that down and get something to eat. Then we'd get to the town and there would not be any place to eat. So we'd go on to the next town. I was hoping to have something nice to say about Suches or Morganton, but sadly, we just kept on going. I think Angel even sped up to get past the one store in Morganton that had a big sign advertising that it was "Confederate Owned." Seems these mountain people never got the news that the war is over.

OK, this is probably not very PC, but when has that ever concerned me anyhow? We finally made it to civilization (I think there's some irony in this situation, but will leave it to you, my reader, to interpret)! I never would have considered the town of McCaysville to be a metropolis, but considering the towns we've been passing though, this was big time! DJ and Angel came to McCaysville last summer for his birthday to go whitewater rafting. If you ever plan a trip to the Ocoee River, use Rolling Thunder. They're a great company. Anyway, lunch was at a little 50's style place. Compared to the camp food we've been eating for a week, this place was 5 star! (And I don't care what Angel says--that was raccoon they served last night.)






McCaysville is right on the border of GA and TN, as you can see by this sign we're standing under. So officially, Ashlynn is in two states at once. The town on the Tennessee side is called Coppertown. Guess what they used to mine.

We also passed through Cleveland again. But this one was in Tennessee.

And for the record, we did make it to Flintstone safely and without having to go down any dirt roads. Ha! I spit in the face of your GPS! Now go away before I taunt you a second time!