Our next week was spent in the beautiful Georgia Mountains and the Gainesville area. My former sister-in-law Susan, or as I like to call her...my friend-in-law, lives in the tiny town of Dawsonville, GA and it was a chance to see Susan and her husband, Greg, once again. They were wonderful tour guides for our week and such fun to have time together. We camped at Bolding Mill Corps of Engineer Campground, an absolutely beautiful park with a lakeside site and the friendliest hosts ever! The sites are huge with plenty of greenery for privacy. After one of my small errors in directions, Paul had to navigate some tiny curvy and steep roads to get us out of the neighborhood and back to our main road. After setting up, it was time to make the 20 minute drive to Susan's for dinner. We made plans to meet up the next day for a hike to Amicalola Falls with them and our first chance to get close to the Appalachian Trail.
The walk to the falls was a lovely wooded trail with some interesting tree formations.
While we were at the top of the falls we watched as a crew climbed down into the falls to do some trimming and removal of bushes and trees. Susan said it was an amazing difference...you could actually SEE the water falling as we hiked down the 600+ stairs.
Susan and Greg
The "new" view
After leaving the falls we drove on to Dahlonega where Susan teaches at the University. Such a darling small town with quite a mining history. It was the site of the first major US Gold Rush and now is also the heart of the Georgia Wine Country. After a delicious lunch we walked around town and toured Susan's campus and office. This is such a sweet part of Georgia.
Saturday we did a few errands in Gainesville and also visited the newly opened branch of the Atlanta Botanical Gardens just north of town. It was stunning, REALLY, REALLY HOT, but beautiful!
One area has a tiny railroad garden
Thank goodness there were shady rockers to sit a bit.
Sunday we met up with Susan and Greg again to visit another beautiful garden, Gibbs Gardens. All designed and created by Mr. Gibbs who was sitting at the entrance welcoming visitors. You don't see that very often!
The Japanese Garden had such striking trees and sculptures.
The gardens change about every three weeks as new flowers come into bloom. While we were there, the day lilies were just beginning to open up.
We walked on up the hill towards the Gibbs residence where we could sit and enjoy his private patio and gardens surrounding the house. Not sure I'd want strangers sitting near my pool and on the yard furniture but it was a nice place to get out of the heat, I think the temps had climbed into the high 90s.
The next day we took off by ourselves to visit the little Alpine village of Helen along the Chattahoochee River. We loved taking advantage of the warm day for a float on the river, such fun even if I was wearing a skirt. Floating and an ice cream...perfect afternoon.
About 15 miles north of Helen are the pretty Anna Ruby Falls and this fun tree sculpture. The hike to the falls is just a 1/2 mile paved trail, nice and easy.
Again, another beautiful short hike to see the falls and as the sunny skies became cloudy we got caught in the downpour on our way back.
Tuesday we drove near Dawsonville again to see the Georgia Racing Hall of Fame. Though neither of us are really race car fans, Paul does like cars so he visited the museum with tons of racing history. There were about two dozen cars from all eras of racing.
This is a land of so many waterfalls and I wanted to see as many as we could while here in the area. Next on the list was Tallulah Gorge State Park and Falls, a little northeast of our campground but a fantastic day to drive with the top down on the car. We try taking only small back roads when we're in the car, can't always do that with the RV, and the slow pace of back roads is wonderful.
It's a spectacular canyon two miles long and about 1,000 feet deep. We hiked the rim trails to the overlooks and then to the gorge floor but not into the water...that needed a permit we didn't have.
Stairs , stairs and more stairs!
The suspension bridge sways 80' above a very rocky bottom with great views of the river and waterfalls. Tightrope walkers have crossed the gorge twice and we could see the towers left many years ago by Karl Wallenda. Fun!
It was hard to find paved biking trails anywhere near our campground, but there was a small city ride in Gainesville so we tried it out. Fun little ride with covered bridges over the creek that runs through the park
After a wonderful week it was time to move on into South Carolina for a few days. We were slowly moving north, leaving my fresh flowers with our sweet campground hosts.
Still so much to come back for in these beautiful Georgia mountains, but ohhhhhhh....so much more to see everywhere!
It didn't take long to make the drive from Georgia to Twin Lakes Campground just south of Clemson, South Carolina, another beautiful Corps of Engineers Park. We had site # 5 right on the lake, a wonderful large pull through site. The park was busy with lots of families camped together but we were on a small loop that few cars traveled down making it peaceful and so relaxing. Lake Hartwell surrounds many land pieces jutting into the lake so there are lots of lakeside campsites. Ours was in complete shade, so necessary with the high heat each afternoon. And, using our National Park pass we had four nights for just $52. 
We stopped to tour Fort Hill, the home of John C. Calhoun and later Thomas Green Clemson. It's right in the middle of the campus. Clemson, the university's founder came to the area in 1838 when he married Anna Maria Calhoun, daughter of John C. Calhoun. When Clemson died he left most of his estate (which he actually inherited from his wife) in his will to be used to create a college that would teach scientific agriculture and mechanical arts to South Carolinians.
