Fall Colors

Driving home this afternoon, I noticed that the fall colors are starting to show.  The weather finally feels like fall; glad to see that the colors match.  Last year for our anniversary, we drove up to Cherokee, North Carolina and enjoyed a little cheap gambling and a great meal at Paula Deen’s.  On the way up and back, we knew that we had to come back in October to see the colors.  Once the cooler weather hit, we drove up to the mountains and decided to turn it into an adventure, which isn’t uncommon for a road trip with me.  We stopped at the Georgia start to the Appalachian Trail.  We picked up some new maps and looked at the signs of locations of the area.  The one that caught our eye this day was Brasstown Bald.  Along with several other areas, Brasstown Bald claims to be the highest point in Georgia.  The drive to Brasstown Bald was beautiful along a two lane highway filled with twisty turns through the mountains.  The first stop was an old grist mill.  It was a short, flat hike back to the mill.  The building was very old, but very fascinating.  We went through all three stories and then walked along the creek back towards the truck.  We continued down the road and eventually found the road heading back towards Brasstown Bald.  It was an extremely difficult drive.  We arrived at the parking lot to find the shuttle closed for the day.  Okay by me, but not so much for the wife.  She has been on my adventures enough to know to question me before we start.  I told her that we hadn’t come that far to drive home without checking it out.  She knew what that meant, but she loves me and followed me anyway.  We headed up the trail and almost immediately passed a gift shop.  She asked if we could just get the t-shirt and go back to the truck.  She knew better and continued to follow me.  This path was paved, but it was extremely steep.  We moved slowly up the trail.  Everyone passing us on their way down the hill said it was worth it, but then again, they were walking downhill.  We continued up the trail.  It was slow going but the views from the trail were amazing.  Every 1/10th of a mile there was a bench.  We stopped at a few of them, but I really wanted to keep us moving as much as possible.  We were almost to the top when we stopped and talked with two park rangers.  They informed me that all around the trail were grouse, but most of the bears were further down the mountain.  After a short conversation, we continued to the top.  At the top was a concrete 360* viewing platform.  We walked to the top of the platform and were disappointed to see how cloudy the day was at this elevation.  We could still see for miles and the colors were as amazing as expected.  We took our time at the top to look at the lakes and houses that we could see in the distance.  Apparently we were looking at North Carolina, South Carolina, and Tennessee.  We could only see a few small cities but millions of tree tops.  We came down the platform and walked the circle around the bald.  No grouse were seen, but you could tell that this was an area that they would like.  Thick cover, steep elevations, berries and fruit trees along the mountaintop.  We headed back down the trail.  This was a quick, but more difficult walk than one would expect.  It is a weird angle to be walking on for your knees and ankles.  No complaints though; down was much easier than up.  After the two and half hour round trip, we arrived back at the gift shop.  We stopped by and made our quick purchases…always need a t-shirt and two much needed bottles of water.  We got back into the truck and enjoyed the drive back to civilization always wishing that we could stay where we just came from.