I am being watched

I am being watched as I sit outside and drink my coffee!

Once More to the Great Smoky Mountains

Today I took advantage of the fact that Anna's off work for her Fall Break to go out for an all-day adventure on one of my favorite drives: up U.S. 441, through north Georgia, into North Carolina, through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and on to Pigeon Forge, TN--and then back home again.

In one day.

I left this morning at about 9:20 and didn't get home until fourteen hours later*; frankly I wish I'd stopped at the NC/TN border--Newfound Gap in the GSMNP--and then headed back home. Three-hundred and eighty miles is a little too much for a one-day round trip (especially when I don't head out in the morning until over an hour after I'd intended too).

But still, I had a great time, and I took lots of pictures. Here are the ones I texted to Anna and the girls as I went:

(Tallulah Point Overlook, a place I always look forward to stopping at, has moved. I didn't see its new location.)

(The picture above and the two below show Gatlinburg from the bypass.)

(This was at that big year-round Christmas place in Pigeon Forge. Since Elyse collects cardinals, I thought she'd like it. (The picture, I mean; I didn't buy it.))

* If you compared that timeline with the time stamp on this post, you'd have to conclude that my arrival home is still in the future. I'm actually creating this post the next day, on Friday; it's actually "yesterday" I'm describing, rather than "today." Don't tell anyone.

The Greenville Zoo with Mommy and Elyse

Today, Anna and Elyse drove 125 miles northeast to go to the Greenville Zoo--Elyse was just desperate to go somewhere and do something, and a zoo is a fun and relatively safe outdoor place to be, and Anna was excited about going to a new zoo. (Jessica didn't want to go and it seemed contrary to the spirit of such an adventure to force her to participate, so she and I stayed home.)

They did have a good time on their adventure, in spite of the fact that the amount of time it took to go through the whole zoo and see everything was less than half the time it took to just to get there. (That sounds like a word problem, so I'll put it more plainly: they drove two-and-a-half hours for an hour's walk through the zoo. But they enjoyed it, so it was worth it.) (Frankly we're a little spoiled, living fairly close to a great zoo like Zoo Atlanta, but that doesn't mean we can't appreciate other zoos.)

Here are some of the pictures they texted me throughout the day, starting with one from a McDonald's where they stopped for breakfast:

(No, a cardinal isn't usually a zoo animal, but they thought it was amusing that it was helping itself to the ducks' food.)

(That's not an ostrich, it's a rhea.)

On the way home, since they still had plenty of time, they stopped at Tugaloo State Park in Lavonia, Georgia; they didn't stay long, but did send me a couple of pictures:

(That's a rather neglected miniature golf course.)

(I think that's Lake Hartwell she's wading in.)

The Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center with Jessica

Today Jessica and I went to the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center to walk around and take pictures. I've been there a couple of times before, but this was the first time I've been there when the visitor's center was open (it was closed for a few months because of the pandemic):

We were fortunate enough to be allowed inside the center's Chesser-Williams House, an 1850's house that was donated to Gwinnett County Parks a few years ago, moved to the Gwinnett Environmental and Heritage Center, and restored:

The house is beautifully adorned with folk art painting, both the front porch and inside in one of the rooms (including on the ceiling!):

(That's the ceiling!)

The rest of the house isn't so lavishly painted, but is charmingly furnished and decorated:

(The eggs and apples above, and the food on the table below, are all plastic.)

Unfortunately, the upstairs isn't restored yet so we couldn't go up there, but we could look up the stairs:

Before we left the center, Jessica sat down to take a picture of the sky (and to rest, I think):

Bibliosquirrel

 

Bibliosquirrel

Grayson, GA

October 8, 2020

Pencils on my desk

 

Pencils on my desk

Grayson, GA

October 7, 2020