A New Era – Our Journey Begins

We had planned on beginning the new era after the upcoming weekend but the forecast called for snow, so we loaded up Freebird and we’re leaving now. Our journey begins at our daughter’s house in Maryland to show off our new rig. Then south to North Carolina and our first official camping trip of our tour.

Kerr Lake Recreation Area

Kerr Lake is a 50,000 acre reservoir that straddles the Virginia-North Carolina state line. On the North Carolina side, there are seven access areas, making up the Kerr Lake State Recreation Area. Kerr Lake is popular mainly for it’s fishing and boating, although there are several easy hiking trails and Satterwhite Point has a defined swimming area with bath houses.

Camping

Five of the access areas offer a range of campsites, from RV hookups to tent sites to group sites. Of these camping areas, only the J. C. Cooper area is open year round, so that’s where we ended up. Sites are well spaced and would be fairly private if the leaves were still on the trees. There are a lot of sites on the reservoir edge.

Of course, without the leaves, we witnessed some spectacular sunsets.

Kerr Lake is close to our son so he loaded up the kids and his camper to spend a few days with us, doing some fishing and enjoying the campfires.

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Vogel State Park

After visiting some friends in South Carolina, we started heading west. We spent a few days at Vogel State Park near Blairsville, Georgia to visit another friend. Vogel is situated at the base of Blood Mountain, the highest summit on the Appalachian Trail in Georgia in the Chattahoochee National Forest in the North Georgia Mountains. There is plenty of hiking opportunities nearby, with 17 miles of trails accessible from the park. The Appalachin Trail passes by here. I took the opportunity to hike the width of the trail. I’ve now done that in 3 states. There are also hundreds of picturesque water falls just waiting to be photographed. Some are easy to get to. Others require steep climbs and bushwhacking. Guess which ones these are:

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There are several facets to Dukes Creek Falls so it gets its own section:

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And for those not into the camping/RV thing, there are cabins in the park with heat and air conditioning. Not only that, but linens and housekeeping are provided, as well. Just supply your own food.

Regrets already

The original plan was to put my motorcycle in the bed of the truck, but for a number of reasons, it got left behind for this trip. Driving to Vogel State Park on GA 19\129, I’m already regretting that decision. This road is an epic motorcycle road, with all it’s twists and turns through beautiful Neel Pass. There’s one of these signs about every 500 feet on every road we drive. I’m already planning on a return visit on our next motorcycle tour.

Helen, Georgia

Helen, Georgia is a Bavarian-themed town nearby. It has only 430 full-time residents but is the third most visited town in the state. So we drove over to see what all the fuss was about.

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If you want a less traditional method of arrival, you can park outside of the village and get an inner tube to float your way down the Chattahoochee River into Helen. It’s a bit chilly in December so that really wasn’t an option for us.

There are more than 200 shops and plenty of dining options with traditional German fare to classic southern. We chose Big Daddy’s. The special was a meatloaf sandwich. No need to look at the menu after the waiter gave us the description. Absolutely delicious!

And we couldn’t leave town without a piece of apple strudel from Hofer’s. They certainly didn’t skimp on the apples!

Cathy says I don’t post enough pictures of the two of us. So without further explanation, here’s one:

Randon photo:

Our time here has come to an end. We’re off to chase the warm weather and sunshine further south and west. Follow the next part of our adventure here. See you there!