For this blog category, “Countdown to Christmas: Our Travel Tree & Georgia State Parks,” each day between December 1 and 25, I take a pic of a state park ornament on our Travel Tree and briefly highlight that park.
Red Top Mountain State Park is a lovely densely forested park located on 12,000 acre Lake Allatoona north of Atlanta. The name “Red Top” comes from the high iron-ore content which causes the soil to have a rich red color.
Our cabin (with me trying my very best to figure out how to open the door) followed by the cottage we rejected …
Kidding … t’s the 1869 Vaughn Log Cabin behind the park’s visitors center.
We stayed at Red Top during the height of the pandemic, so we laid low around the cabin for most of our visit. Joyful quietness.
Here I am, looking slightly crazed, but adding to the already existing totems in our cabin’s back area leading down to the lake. Sending healthy thoughts and energy to all.
May we be Happy. May we be Healthy. May we be Safe. May we be at Peace and live our lives with Ease.
And here are some beautiful images Robert captured. (I thought about claiming that I had taken them. But you know my impeccable standards with TIB—Truth in Blogging.)
1. Robert’s hasselback potatoes the other night. Yum!
2. Always having enough water. And being aware of always having enough water.
3. The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra’s holiday concert, Christmas with the ASO last night.
The orchestra warming up. I had no idea at this moment about our big surprise honor just ahead.
The Atlanta Symphony Orchestra Choir, the incredible Morehouse Glee Club and the Gwinnett Young Singers joined the Orchestra to get us all in the holiday mood. Beethoven, Bach, Vivaldi, Tchaikovsky mixing it up with contemporary composers. And “Hallelujah!” special thanks to Handel.
But that’s not all, Blog Fans, I have some Very Exciting News to share with you about last night. News which, if I know you like I think I know you, will make you even prouder of me than you already are. Are you ready? Maybe you should sit down.
Robert and I were SPECIFICALLY INVITED to sing “The First Nowell” (their spelling, not mine) and to be backed up by the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra! Seriously. Little us from Savannah. Can you imagine how thrilled I was the moment I realized that Robert and I were being asked to sing?!
[I’ll pause and give you a couple of minutes to try.]
I’ve always thought I had a terrible, adequate, good, stellar voice, but I was just so very humbled yet honored to be asked. I am so glad I wore a sports coat and put a little Suave Professionals Styling Gel in my hair. I tell you my my knees were shaking when we stood up to walk up to the stage and sing. And the performance was, in my unbiased view, nothing short of festively spectacular.
P. S. Robert is insisting that I include this minor and inconsequential (if you ask me) “fact” (according to his definition) from the above concert program …
Well, “we” did get an invitation.
4. Visiting Callanwolde Fine Arts Center in Atlanta. The Gothic-Tudor style mansion was built by Coca-Cola president/zillionaire Charles Howard Candler in the 1920’s as a private home. Each Christmas they have a neat beautifully decorated Christmas extravaganza.
Do you see what I saw on the holiday garland to the left of Robert? Pine cones (HUGE) from my favorite tree, the Longleaf Pine!
For this blog category, “Countdown to Christmas: Our Travel Tree & Georgia State Parks,” each day between December 1 and 25, I take a pic of a state park ornament on our Travel Tree and briefly highlight that park.
Yesterday, I wrote about Fort Mountain State Park. Cloudland Canyon is just a short drive away, so we took a day trip over. This state park, just south of Chattanooga, Tennessee and on the western edge of Lookout Mountain, boasts stunning views of craggy hills and waterfalls along three beautiful trails.
Two features are especially memorable at Cloudland Canyon: waterfalls and lots of steps.
Sometimes there’s a price for beauty. Imminent danger awaited me at every turn …
For some reason (the high altitude?), Robert wanted perfect strangers to take his picture at this state park.
“Robert, look at all the steps up this way! Come on up, slow poke!”
Robert’s response …
Thank you, State of Georgia, for establishing and preserving our Sensational State Parks!
For this blog category, “Countdown to Christmas: Our Travel Tree & Georgia State Parks,” each day between December 1 and 25, I take a pic of a state park ornament on our Travel Tree and briefly highlight that park.
“Fort Mountain State Park sits at the southwestern end of the Cohutta Mountains near the Cohutta Wilderness in northwest Georgia. Sitting at 2,850 feet above sea level, Fort Mountain is a great destination for hiking and history lessons alike. The area in and around the park was home to the Cherokee Indians for hundreds of years, and their legacy is still felt throughout North Georgia today.” (Park website)
This was one of the more beautiful parks we have visited in Georgia, or anywhere.
Soon after we arrived, we hiked over to the Cool Springs Overlook.
Later on, a cool little family told us about the unique Blue-Ghost Fireflies, which live in mature woodlands with high canopies, especially around mountain laurel and rhododendrons. They said to go back up to Cool Springs Overlook about dusk because Fort Mountain was one of the few places in southern Appalachia to find them. “But you have to look carefully; sometimes they show—sometimes they don’t!” Never ones to turn down an adventure, we headed back up to the overlook a little before dark …
After about thirty minutes, Robert started getting a little antsy about being out in the woods after dark. (He had probably seen Deliverance years back.) But I really wanted to see the bluish lightning bugs. Also I had wanted to bring a glass Mason‘s fruit jar to put a couple of them in. But it’s 2021.
Looking all around, scanning every inch of the darkening sky, I became more and more desperate to see a firefly. “Robert! Look, LOOK!” I finally screamed, pointing, so excited.
“Neal, that’s the moon. And please stop yelling.”
We really did see the fireflies when it got completely dark. But it was too dark to photograph them. Google Blue-Ghost Fireflies. They’re fascinating.
*********
Now, listen to this: there’s a HIDDEN HEART at Fort Mountain! Really.
It seems that during the Great depression, the Civilian Conservation Corps built a fire tower at the very top of Fort Mountain.
Well, one young stone worker named Arnold Bailey missed his love back on the homefront so much that he carved out and sneaked in a heart-shaped stone and placed it smack dab above a prominent window.
And if that story isn’t cool enough, listen to this: Arnold and Margaret were married 59 years until Arnold died. He died from kidney stones.
Okay, TIB (Truth in Blogging): I made up his cause of death. I couldn’t find out ANYTHING about how Arnold passed away, and it seemed just so boring to end the story with “… Arnold died.” Kidney stones seemed to fit the rock theme. Sorry. I know how important it is for bloggers, like politicians, to always tell the truth.
I asked Robert if one day he would do something for me, long lasting and commemorative, like Arnold had done for Margaret. He just stared at me with no expression. But I can read Robert’s expressions, even the blank ones. This particular one said emphatically, “Just putting up with you is a heart-shaped, rocky monument.”
For this blog category, “Countdown to Christmas: Our Travel Tree & Georgia State Parks,” each day between December 1 and 25, I take a pic of a state park ornament on our Travel Tree and briefly highlight that park.
We stopped by Reed Bingham, just north of Valdosta, on our way back home from a trip to west Georgia. Named after the man responsible for securing the land to establish the park, it is a feast for nature lovers, with hiking trails meandering down sandy paths and through seemingly never ending waves of saw palmetto and wire grass, all underneath my beloved, scattered Longleaf.
We actually saw a gopher tortoise, but he scooted down his hole before we could take a picture.
For this blog category, “Countdown to Christmas: Our Travel Tree & Georgia State Parks,” each day between December 1 and 25, I take a pic of a state park ornament on our Travel Tree and briefly highlight that park.
Our first pandemic Georgia State Park trip, back in March of 2020, was a simple weekday excursion an hour and a half up the road to Magnolia Springs State Park near Millen. We reasoned that few people would be around during the week, and we were right. We had the park almost to ourselves.
We liked the park (and getting out of the house) so much that this short venture started our recurring overnight pattern of heading to a park on Monday, renting a cabin and returning before the weekend crowd arrived.
TIB (Truth in Blogging): Today’s countdown post is sorta long, so you might want to grab a snack and change into comfortable shoes. I’m incorporating three Magnolia Springs trips into one post.
The park website: “Beautiful Magnolia Springs State Park is known for its crystal clear springs flowing 7,000,000 gallons per day, and a boardwalk spans the cool water, allowing visitors to look for alligators, turtles and other wildlife near the springs.”
“Yeah, right, they’re just saying that about the big bad alligators,” I thought haughtily, standing in the sun by the springs, staring out at the water, daydreaming about our upcoming picnic lunch and my special sandwich.
Oh. My. Goodness …
Jeff Bezos couldn’t pay me enough to fish, feed or approach.
The Longleaf Pine’s distinctive orangish, peely bark.
As I I have mentioned before, Robert and I love the Longleaf Pine, which excessive logging has cut to the brink of extinction, but is now making a bit of a comeback. Magnolia Springs has quite a number of majestic, mature specimens. (And so unlike with the alligators, I am simply not afraid of the Longleaf.)
I LOVE hiking through a forest replete with the beauty and aroma of Longleaf Pine.
The Longleaf pine cones are huge.
Oh, here’s my new walking stick. I MEAN HIKING STICK!
Our cabin (and the goings-on inside and out) at Magnolia Springs. Come on in.
And looky here, it’s me leading a little impromptu (and free!) “Everyone is Welcome—Morning Yoga and Mental Cleanse Workshop.”
Even Robert didn’t show. He chose (non-supportingly) to sleep in.
But here he is, gay-ly, pridefully starting a fire.
I need to end this post, don’t I? It’s getting out of hand.
We really do love our nearby Magnolia Springs State Park.
For this blog category, “Countdown to Christmas: Our Travel Tree & Georgia State Parks,” each day between December 1 and 25, I take a pic of a state park ornament on our Travel Tree and briefly highlight that park
Located in northeast Georgia near Elberton, Richard B. Russell State Park borders 26,650 acre Lake Russell.
Lake Russell served as the practice site for rowing during the 1996 Summer Olympics.
A meandering lakeside nature trail leads to one of Georgia’s oldest steel pin bridges. Come on, I’ll show you.
One thing that gets on my last nerve about Robert is that when we are on our daily walks, he will often stop to take yet another picture and forget (?) to tell me that he has stopped. He thinks I should “pay more attention” (uh huh, right) and notice! Isn’t that foolish? As I am often in a blissful world of my own, I continue walking until either A: I hear him yelling somewhere behind me in the distance, “Neal, where ARE you going?” (like it’s odd that I’m actually walking on my walk) or B: I forget that he is with me and have a jolly solo saunter.
I can’t remember when or where we found each other after the above separation at Richard B. Russell. But I do remember what a cool state park it is.
However …
I hear a few of you asking, “Who the heck is/was Richard B. Russell? Well, the story darkens considerably with that question. But it needs to be asked and answered.
Russell served as Georgia’s 66th governor, followed by nearly forty years in the U.S. Senate. He was also “a founder and leader of the conservative coalition that that dominated Congress from 1937 to 1963. He was for decades a leader of Southern opposition to the civil rights movement.” [Wikipedia]
Oh gosh.
Several questions come to me:
* Why does this juxtaposition frustrate me so very much: that I can have such a fun time at this beautiful state park and then be bamboozled by the racist legacy of its name?
* Should Robert and I even hang this named ornament on our Travel Tree?
* Is it possible to love the park yet find its name both negative and problematic?
* How/why on earth do difficult issues of race, equity and historical documentation find their way even onto our Travel Tree?
Each December, Robert and I LOVE watching the old animated holiday classics, reminiscing of yesteryear. Last night we pulled out The Muppet Christmas Carol.
My capital “F” Favorite song in the movie is “Bless Us All,” sung by poor, sickly little Robin/Tiny Tim and the rest of the Cratchit crew. It always gets me choked up (until I realize that, as a “grown man,” I am crying over an anthropomorphic, singing, cloth-born frog puppet).
“Bless Us All” is actually a beautiful, prayerful meditation, expressing both gratitude for all we have (the sun, family, each other, etc) as well as supplication for greater good outside of our individual little worlds.
I invite you to take a couple of minutes out of your Saturday for a quick listen …
Muppet Truths …
“No place on earth compares with home.” (Of course, “home” can have various definitions for us.)
“We have so much that we can share with those in need we see around us everywhere.”
“Let us hear the voice of reason singing in the night.” (Oh my goodness, yes.)
1. Realizing there’s nothing like the old classics …
Saw this (and bought it) in one of the boutiques at last night’s Design District Holiday Walk here in Savannah.
2. Robert wearing his Christmas Bear sweater in near-70 degree (!) weather for the Design District Walk.
3. Making our first holiday treat—an ICEBOX FRUITCAKE (you’re yelling “YUM!” right?) using my mother’s time-tested recipe (okay, with a few healthier upgrades).
Robert’s “important” part of the process …
Ready to go into the oven … I mean refrigerator!
The next morning …
(It sorta looks the same as before it got put into the oven refrigerator. Except upside down.)
Here’s me taking a picture of the finished Yum! while Robert takes a picture of me taking a picture of it. Whew.
And here’s me looking frazzled and absolutely exhausted thinking about the possibility that I might actually write and photographically document SO VERY MUCH about a */!§£{¥ FRUITCAKE.
Seriously, it’s just delicious!
4. Helping ex-wife Donna decorate her Christmas tree.
Btw, I’m still waiting on someone smarter than yours truly–i.e., everyone reading this blog–to give me a better word or phrase for “ex-wife”
5. The knowing knowledge that we are alive right now in this very moment. We are alive.
Have a Fabulous Friday and First Weekend in December!
NealEnJoy 