Go to the Mountains to Tell it

Morning did not dawn bright today, nor early.  The non-early part is normal in our schedule, but the non-bright has been unusual these four months.  The three hour drive to Clayton, Georgia, was to be in misty, and a few times foggy, rain.  But before the drive, the DUMP.

Hey Tim Gibble! Thanks again for the nifty filter hookup
you made for us!

As we’ve noted before, we can go up to 7 days with full, though not long showers, and regular cooking, washing of dishes, etc, between dumping our black and grey water tanks and refilling our fresh water.  But we often don’t go quite that long.  It just depends when we are going to be on the move.

Today we drove about 5 miles to a very exceptionally clean RV park, Chattanooga Holiday Trav-L-Park, in East Ridge, where they let us use their dump station and water fill, and topped off our propane as well.  This has become an easy and rudimentary job by now, though as with all of the tasks associated with the RV I don’t want to be forgetting a part of any process.

Forgetting to hook up the sewer hose tightly to the RV drain before opening the valves on both tanks would mean a river of …. All over the parks drive, and all over me. Forgetting to lower the TV antenna could mean a new antenna for about $400.00. Mona and I remind each other regularly. This is a tag-team lifestyle.

When we arrived to dump we were surprised to find we would be clearing the tanks in a battlefield area.  We should not have been surprised.  All of Chattanooga, just like many other Southern cities, are built in battlefield areas.  Or they were the battlefield itself. 

Here in November, 1863, the 84^th Indiana waited to be deployed south several miles to the battlefield at Chickamauga.  They were some of the last troops to arrive so were immediately placed on Snodgrass Hill, the rear guards last hold out against Bragg’s Confederates, where they promptly lost almost half of their men in killed, wounded or missing.

Our drive took us through Ringold again, where Mona got to speak with Judd at his produce stand. He said he hadn’t had a chance to see our blog yet so she showed him his photo with her and my comments about him on her Droid.  MAN, was he thrilled!  He said, “I don’t do any computer stuff.  I leave that to my Mama.  Boy will she be surprised to see this!” That was cool.

We drove across Northern Georgia and up rte 76, called the Appalachian Foothills Highway.  And gradually those foothills became mountains.  Not the Rockies, you know, but considerably older than their younger cousins and very beautiful, even in fog and mist.

The rolling green hills rising around us as we climbed altitude; the leaves noticeably more colorful as we rode up and up. Then we turned left at Clayton and took the last mile north and up a VERY steep hill to the top where the lovely and very new Clayton FIRST United Methodist Church has welcomed us for a couple of days.  Thank you Mia (office administrator), trustees, and pastors!

We learned that this Saturday the town of Clayton hosts its annual FOXFIRE MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL.  We will be well on our way further east by then heading for Edisto Island, below Charleston, South Carolina.  But tomorrow we look forward to seeing the full Foxfire Community, just a couple of miles away from our camp.

And we are in the very middle of the Chattahoochee National Forest so we are surrounded by falls, trails, mountains and more.  Who knows what tomorrow brings?

-Ken