Hanging out in Georgia for a While

High Falls State Park is SUCH a nice place to pull over for a few days.  When we pulled in on Saturday, the park was almost full, but by Sunday afternoon we were almost entirely alone in the park.  Honestly, I don't think there were four other rigs in the whole place.  On Saturday we just kind of hung out in the park, went for a walk and hit the sack early - it was a pretty long two days of driving and neither of us slept well at the Walmart outside of Knoxville.  But Sunday was beautiful!  We went for a long (probably 2 hours) hike along the river and the falls.  The falls themselves are not very tall, but they are really pretty.  The terrain is fairly rugged, so it's a fun hike, with lots of climbing up and over and around.  Brandi LOVED it!  I'm attaching a few of my pictures, but probably have about three times as many that I'm not.  After our hike on Sunday we drove about ten miles to visit another state park in the area, Indian Springs State Park.  It was ALSO a very nice park and another place we'd definitely consider spending a few days at on future trips.  We have had great experiences over the year with the Georgia state parks - they are very pretty, well-maintained, and have really spacious sites.  Monday was do-your-own-thing day.  I actually spent a few hours doing some Kerkstra work but still had more than enough time for another nice long hike on the other main trail in the park.  Dave spent most of the afternoon doing some fishing - didn't get anything but he always enjoys dropping a line in a pretty river!  We had great campfires both Saturday and Sunday nights, and did hot dogs one night and hamburgs the next night.  I know - NOT very healthy, but what the heck...we're camping!  And after we leave here, we'll be staying in RV resorts for December and January, which is definitely NOT camping - and there will be NO campfires.  So for now we're just enjoying the option of having fires and eating bad food.

On Sunday Dave did his normal firewood "scrounging" thing - he collected a LOT of leftover firework, including a big hunk of wood that he then chopped all up with his wood splitter,  Just for fun I'm posting the "before" and "after" pictures of his prize chunk of wood - hey, it's cheap entertainment for him plus is good exercise, right?  Overall, we had a really nice little three day layover here at High Falls...!

On Tuesday, I did the weekly Kerkstra conference call and then we packed up and headed out to head further south.  It was a pretty easy drive because we only planned to drive as far as Adel, GA with a stop at Reed Bingham State Park.  This is another park we always enjoy staying at for a few days.  The only problem we had (and it really wasn't an issue at all...) is that it pretty much rained all day today.  We don't LOVE driving in the rain, but since we only had about two-and-a-half hours to drive it really wasn't an issue.  We have a great site here at Reed Bingham and are looking forward to temps tomorrow in the high 60's.  There is a very nice hiking trail here too, so that's probably what we'll do tomorrow.  We plan to stay here until Friday morning, have a couple more campfires and then we'll finally head down into Florida. 

In the meanwhile, as a VERY weird way to entertain ourselves, we went into the local grocery store here in Adel and took pictures of the food.  OK - I KNOW that's really weird sounding, but HONESTLY we are just amazed at the food they people down here eat.  We try very hard to be socially accepting of other "cultures", but do you REALLY eat this stuff???  So Dave's picking stuff up in the store and going "Oh my God, look at THIS!" and I'm using my I-Phone to snap pictures so I can post them.  REALLY rude, huh?  So even though we had hot dogs and hamburgs over the last couple days, we are feeling really virtuous and healthy now!  (Plus, I've re-started my running program so am feeling absolutely saint-like at the moment.)  So here's some pictures of the culinary delights available at your local southern-Georgia grocery store (and, inc ase you can't read the labels, these are "country cured neckbones", "country cured pork hocks" and "country cured jowls", in addition to the all-time favorite "fried out port fat with attached skin."  And we wonder why we have an obesity crisis in this country?