This travel update is for our five days, six nights, in Ellijay, Georgia. It covers June 28 – July 5.

June 28, 2023 – Tuesday: Driving To Ellijay

We were up early in St. Augustine, Florida this morning at our house sit. We didn’t get home until about 1AM last night because Michael and Cheryl’s flight from Washington DC was delayed and we picked them up at baggage claim around 11:30 PM. So, I was sleepy. We packed up the car, then said goodbye to Michael and Cheryl and their pets and headed west then north to our Airbnb in Ellijay, Georgia. It ended up taking about 9.5 hours because of slow traffic and stops for food and gas.

Like this rest stop on Interstate-10…

…and our stop for gas and food at Buc-ee’s. The Buc-ee’s mascot is a beaver and there was a bronze of him out front whose hands we held for this selfie.

“Buc-ee’s is an American chain of country stores, gas stations, and electric vehicle chargers created and owned by Arch “Beaver” Aplin III, headquartered in Lake Jackson, Texas.”

If you haven’t been to a Buc-ee’s I think you should experience one, at least once.

We got to our Airbnb around 6PM. This Airbnb is a 2-bed 2-bath single wide trailer on 5 acres of property about 10 miles north of Ellijay where the two owners live in their own house on the same property about 100 yards from us.

The yard is fancifully decorated with all kinds of ornaments, including a Lawn Jockey.

Here’s our place from the backyard.

The living room has comfortable furniture.

The kitchen is pretty roomy.

The owners call it “Ole Mexico” and have decorated things in a Mexican way. Our bed is interesting looking and very comfortable.

Our bathroom is roomy.

The other, smaller bathroom is functional.

The small bedroom has two twin beds.

The back porch is very cozy.

I opened the closet in the guest room and found skeletons, what a cliche!

Daniel, one of the owners, stopped by to say hi then we unloaded the car and unpacked. I was actually pretty tired because we’d been up ‘til 1AM the night before picking Michael and Cheryl up at the airport then we got up at 6AM this morning. So, I was ready to crash, and I slept quite well.

June 30, 2023 – Friday: Exploring Ellijay

We slept late this morning then headed into town. Last night Daniel told us they’d tried out the new Mexican restaurant in town, Puebla Cantina, so we went there for lunch and it was good. After that we went into the historic district and parked the car and walked around the square. We went into the visitor center and got brochures for things to do in the area then went into some of the antique shops.

Here’s the square with the courthouse on the left.

We got our selfie with this sign that was painted on the side of a building.

Here’s Patti in one of the many antique shops. There must have been 20 of them located around the square.

The Ellijay River runs right past downtown. It’s a bit muddy right now, probably because there’s been a lot of rain lately.

We ended the day with a 2-mile River Walk which was pretty. A number of people were getting their exercise walking the path. Here’s Patti with the river.

July 1, 2023 – Saturday: Amicalola Falls Sate Park

We decided to go to this park today and do a 5-mile (one way) hike that I found on AllTrails. If you like to hike and don’t have the AllTrails app on your phone you could try it, we’ve used it a lot and like it.

“Amicalola Falls State Park & Lodge is an 829-acre Georgia state park located between Ellijay and Dahlonega in Dawsonville, Georgia. The park’s name is derived from a Cherokee language word meaning “tumbling waters”. The park is home to Amicalola Falls, a 729-foot waterfall that is the highest in Georgia.”

For years we’ve been intrigued by the thought of hiking the Appalachian Trail and today we walked some of the Approach Trail, then we peeled off onto the trail to Len Foote Hike Inn.

It was a pretty hike through the woods.

At places there were stepping stones going up.

We stopped at some rocks along the trail for lunch. We made sandwiches this morning.

At places there were boards to walk on, probably because the area gets flooded during rains. Patti handled them confidently. She had her hiking poles with her today.

We got to the Len Foote Hike Inn Lodge at the end of this trail. It’s an interesting place to stay. On their website it says:

“A backcountry lodge, a gateway to the Appalachian Trail, and one of Georgia’s most distinctive state park destinations. From the experienced Appalachian Trail “thru-hiker” to the family seeking a unique weekend getaway, the Hike Inn’s secluded location allows a wide range of people to enjoy the peace and beauty of the mountains without the trappings of modern life. The Inn — open year round — is a sustainably designed Georgia State Park facility nestled in the Chattahoochee National Forest, just a few hours north of Atlanta. Its four main buildings offer twenty private guest rooms, hot showers, fresh linens and home-cooked meals. The Hike Inn’s mission is to make experiencing nature easy, and help protect it through education and recreation.”

Here’s a picture from their website. Maybe we’ll stay there some day.

We hiked back along the same trail. I found this hike to be very grueling, not sure why that is. Maybe because we haven’t done any hikes in a while and I’m out of shape? Or, I’m just getting older?

July 2, 2023 – Sunday: Carters Lake

Yesterday was a fairly strenuous hike for us and this morning we were feeling some pain in our muscles, joints, and ligaments. So, we decided not to do a long hike today but rather do a shorter hike at a local lake.

First, we went by one of the many Apple Houses that are around here. Ellijay is known for its apple production. We went to the house that was recommended by the woman at the welcome center, Panorama Orchard, Farm, and Market.

It was a large building with all kinds of home-style things to eat including the famous fried pies which we’d never heard of before but which seem to be very popular around here. They look like this.

This was before lunch and we decided to come back later to sample the pies. We drove up into town to get lunch and ended up at a pizza place on the square which was good. Then we drove out to our chosen hike at Carters Lake.

“Carters Lake is a man-made reservoir located on the Coosawattee River in the Blue Ridge Mountains in Gilmer and Murray counties in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the state’s deepest lake. Carters Lake, owned by the US Army Corps of Engineers, is a man-made lake without private docks or houses along its shore.”

We had decided to hike the Tumbling Waters trail.

Tumbling Waters probably refers to the little river that runs into the lake here. Here’s Patti with the tumbling waters.

They were very pretty.

Here’s our selfie with the waters.

We’d been watching the kids out playing on the rocks and Patti suggested that I could walk out on the rocks to get my picture taken so I attempted to do that, but ended up falling in! Luckily, I just had mild bruises on my right forearm and tailbone and a little water got into my boots. My pride was the biggest casualty. Guess I’m not a kid anymore.

On the way home we stopped at the Apple House and got fried apple and peach pies then stopped at the grocery for vanilla ice cream. Back home we ate our pies and ice cream and played cribbage.

There was a power outage here this evening that lasted a couple of hours. Since we’re on well water here the water was out too. But our host brought over a couple of gallons of drinking water and before long the power was back on.

July 3, 2023 – Monday: The Appalachian Trail!

We both have thought about hiking the Appalachian Trail, maybe not the whole thing, but at least a little bit of it. So, today, we made a picnic lunch and saddled up. It wasn’t that long of a drive in miles but the last 6.5 miles was on the gravel Forest Service Road number 42. I was apprehensive about driving on it since my Prius is very low to the ground. But, 42 is actually the answer to life, the universe, and everything so we risked it. That’s a reference to Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy in case you didn’t recognize it.

But, it turned out to be fine, well maintained with just a few small potholes and ruts that I was able to avoid, by driving 10 mph and being very watchful. I stopped the car and got out a couple of times to move a branch or look at how deep a rut was. Here’s Patti and the Prius on FSR42.

We parked at the trailhead parking lot and there were only a couple of other cars there.

At the edge of the parking lot a turtle was laying eggs. That was fun to see.

First, we walked about a mile to the southern terminus of the A.T. (Appalachian Trail).

It wasn’t a difficult hike.

There were a few rocks to climb over though.

Patti is very sure-footed on the trail.

At the southern terminus there were lots of people getting their pictures with this famous plaque, so we did too.

As we were standing around there a guy came down the trail and knelt at the plaque and cried for about 5 minutes. It turns out his trail name is “Raptor”, and he was just finishing up the entire trail. He did it in pieces over 7 months.

Here’s Patti with Raptor.

Several of us gave him a hug and congratulated him.

We also talked to a father and son who were going to spend 7 days on the trail, and a family of seven who were going to spend two days on the trail. It was an energizing place to be. It seemed like most of the people there were doing a bucket list item and were very happy about it. We hung out there talking to people for about 45 minutes.

After that we hiked up to the intersection with the Benton-MacKaye Trail and hiked that trail in a loop for about 5 miles.

“The Benton MacKaye Trail or BMT is a footpath nearly 300 miles (480 km) in length in the Appalachian Mountains in the southeastern United States and is blazed by a white diamond, 5″ across by 7″ tall. The hiking trail was created and is maintained by the Benton MacKaye Trail Association, and it is named for Benton MacKaye, the Massachusetts forester and regional planner who first had the idea for the Appalachian Trail in 1921.”

It was another nice trail. Here’s Patti with the plaque memorializing Benton-MacKaye. The clouds were flowing over the mountain at this point so it was misty.

We stopped for lunch at the Owen Vista, here’s the vista.

And here’s our lunch spot. It was just a few rocks with a view.

I liked these little wildflowers, I don’t know what they are.

Also, these fields of ferns were so lush and green.

We crossed the same creek several times and I kept my camera on Patti at the crossings in case she fell in, but, as usual, she did not provide me with that entertainment.

This fungus we saw covering a dead tree trunk was cool looking.

We finished up the hike back at the parking lot and headed home. Here’s an interesting quirk of using Google Maps for all my navigation. I had googled the map to get there, but the map was closed when we started our return 6 hours later, and we had no cell service, so I couldn’t google a return route and I hadn’t memorized it on our way there this morning or taken a screen shot. So, when we got to the paved road I just navigated westwards on the country roads until Patti’s phone got a signal and she brought up a map. In the old days, my paper maps would not have let me down like that. We depend too much on our “cell connection” I think, without even thinking about it.

July 4, 2023 – Tuesday: The 4^th Of July

Our muscles and joints were still sore this morning and we decided to take it easy so we drove into town for the Ellijay 4^th of July Parade. Amazingly, we got a parking spot right next to the main parade route. Well, in Cincinnati that would have been amazing but maybe in Ellijay it’s more expected because there’s not that many people around her. Families were already lined up along the street in their folding chairs.

The Ellijay fire truck was at the beginning of the parade.

A couple of Senior Living community vans followed along behind. The seniors inside were waving, they seemed to be having a good time.

The Lions Club was looking spiffy on their trailer.

Patti was wearing her new patriotic socks today. Here she is with a patriotic float.

This was my favorite float. These old submariners looked like they were having a good time.

This was another interesting one. I’m not sure I fully get the significance of it.

After the parade we got Udon Noodles for lunch at a little restaurant right next to where we’d been standing. It was a charming little place with local artwork on the walls.

After lunch Patti wanted to do a little shopping so we went by CVS and Beall’s and Ingles then headed home.

This afternoon Patti did some chores like laundry and packing and I worked on our laptop which has been acting squirrely lately. I ran the utilities diagnostics and a full virus scan and it started behaving better. Then I did some catch up computer work like updating this travelogue. I think we should get a new computer before we go to Norway.

I texted our host here to let him know we’re leaving before 11AM tomorrow morning and texted our Housesitting host in Columbia to let her know about what time we’ll be arriving tomorrow.

Ellijay Summary:

We had a nice time here. Ellijay is a charming town with lots to do in the downtown area and there are lots of hikes, rivers, lakes, and hills to enjoy nearby. Our Airbnb was very peaceful and we enjoyed being a little closer to nature than we’ve been for a while. We watched the fireflies in our backyard and the birds at the feeder.

Future Plans:

• July 5 – 11: We’ve got our second House Sit scheduled in Columbia, South Carolina. We’ll be taking care of two dogs while their owners go on vacation.
• July 11 – 12: We’ll be staying with friends of ours at their house in Bonneau, South Carolina
• July 13 – 14: we’re stopping by Sarasota to put our domestic travel gear back in the storage unit and get our international travel gear. We’ll be spending two nights in a Quality Inn Motel.
• July 15 – 16: we’re driving over to my brother’s place in Mulberry, Florida to see him and his wife and drop off my car which they will keep for me while we’re out of the country. We’ll pick up a rental car at the Avis place in Lakeland.
• July 17: we’re driving to FLL (Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood International Airport) and taking a Norse Atlantic flight to Oslo, Norway. Ticket cost is $1,022 for both of us one way.
• July 18 – 26: We’ve got Airbnb reservations at an Airbnb in Oslo
• July 27: we’re flying Norwegian Airlines from Oslo to Longyearbyen.
• July 27 – August 2: we’ve got an Airbnb reservation for a place in Longyearbyen.
• August 2: we have flight reservations on SAS to go from Longyearbyen to Tromsø.
• We’re thinking we’ll stay for a few days in Tromsø then head south down the coast of Norway. We’ll make reservations as we go.
• October 17 – December 3: no plans yet.
• December 3 – 9: I’ll be participating in research in Durham, North Carolina at the Med-El facilities there. Med-El is the company that made my cochlear implant and they’re going to put us up in a hotel and I’ll spend 9AM to 4PM for 5 days that week being a lab rat. They say they will test various new programming options for my cochlear implant with the goal of improving their systems. It should be fun, I’m looking forward to it.
• December 9: we’ll drive to Bradenton, Florida
• December 9 – 31: we’ve reserved a cabin at Horseshoe Cove RV Park in Bradenton, Florida, where we stayed last year around this time. We’re looking forward to singing in the Christmas Choir again.

2024

• January through April: we plan to travel through Belize, Costa Rica, and Panama. We don’t have any reservations yet.
• May and June: we’ve reserved a cabin at Horseshoe Cove RV Park in Bradenton, Florida again and we’ll spend these two months getting our yearly medical stuff done and visiting with family and friends. May and June are “off-season” here, and the rate is $56 per night for these 61 days, which is pretty good for a place like this in this location. In season, January through March, the price doubles.