Obey River and Tullulah George State Park

After spending a few more days that were pretty boring, I am ready to go home.  That’s a good thing, because ready or not, it’s time to get back to “the real world” but first we will stay a couple of days at Obey River Campground, another beautiful and inexpensive place built by the Army Corps of Engineers on yet another huge man-made lake.

Obey River Campground in Monroe, TN had large,flat,concrete campsites. No sewer hookups at our site (there is a dump station) but it didn't matter- the next place we go will have it. This is beautiful and the weather to match!

We were given the opportunity to check out the sites and see if we liked one better than what was reserved.

After setting up on our huge, flat and semi-private water view site, we relaxed and set up the kayaks so we could try them out at night.  We also discovered that a local man comes around delivering firewood.  A half "rick" for $20.00.  That's sounds great, but what the heck is a "rick"?  Up north firewood is measured in "cords".  I asked the man to explain, and he was vague about the dimensions of a rick.  We didn't care, it was beautiful wood ( only a campfire/fireplace enthusiast would ever consider chopped and split firewood "beautiful") and very inexpensive. This guy even stacked his dry, hardwood  at your campsite!  We can only burn so much in two days, and we have consistently found it is illegal in most if not all states to transport wood from one area to another because of the danger of spreading local tree-destroying insects.

After he left, I Googled what a rick is, and it is in fact, rather ambiguous in its dimensions.

These kayaks are amazing and such fun!  We just threw some cheap flashlights into the hull, and we had instant, visible kayaks for night sky viewing and eerie paddling. No motorboat could possible not see us!

Norm happily set up his fire, and was in his glory.  That night we carried our light-weight kayaks lit with flashlights down to the water.  We could hear nearby campers say " wow! Look at those kayaks! They came in a little box!"  We had great fun as we cruised around the cove, glowing in the dark, looking up at the stars.

We have been scouting out places to take a group from our local RV club that would offer a variety of activities, so we  headed toward Georgia when we stopped half-way at another lovely campground on the water and had dinner with an old classmate of Norm’s and his wife.  They recently started RV’ing, so they came to see ours.  Since they were fascinated by our kayaks, we assembled one so they could get a good look at them.  They are lovely people, and we hope to go RV’ing with them sometime and to have them over while they are in The Villages this winter.

The next day we drove to Dillard, Georgia as Norm once again took the scenic drive through the mountains. He certainly doesn’t let the size of our rig (or sometimes the speed of which he drives them) deter him from the smaller roads.  We just hoped there were not any low bridges along the way.  ( I will be buying a map that will provide us with important bridge information real soon ). We figure seeing large trucks coming the other way is always reassuring.

 I must say this large diesel pusher ( motor in the back ) simply floated up and down these beautiful narrow tree-lined roads. Since the trees had a hint of fall color, it made it even more stunning.

Norm and I have been staying in the more remote campgrounds on this trip, and haven’t had the capability of watching television for quite a while, so we were a bit out of touch with the world. When we saw a fleet of army tanks on flatbeds and other military equipment on the highway, we wondered if we were at war. Had one of our more out-spoken presidential candidates said something untoward and now we have to militarily defend ourselves? Was someone in our own country going crazy and we needed the national guard?  They looked really new, so our final guess was the right one.  They were just being delivered from a nearby factory.  Phew!  Isn’t it terrible we even have to consider or worry about  the negative these days?

  We were talking with Norm’s sister a little later, and she said her trip south was delayed due to the storm.  What storm?  Hurricane Mathew, a catastrophic class 4 hurricane was heading straight for Florida then up the coast! Yikes!  Thank goodness our next campground has all the amenities, so we can see what’s going on in the world, and if we or our home in Florida is in danger.

 Mathew became the first catagory 5 hurricane to hit the US since Felix in 2007, ( or was it Stan in 2005?) reaching wind speeds of 160 mph!

Riverview Vista RV Resort in Dillard,Georgia is about 20 minutes north of Tallulah Gorge State Park which I heard is breathtaking, so we are here to check it out. This campground is the more typical big rig resort with better than average facilities such as pool, hot tub, and games.  The community rooms were fantastic, and the much needed laundry room was lovely as well. The motorhomes were packed in there more than we like, and found that there was a lot of road noise at our site which was up against a road even though there were a lot of trees between.

The first thing we did when we got there was to check the weather.  The hurricane was a monster, in fact, predicted to be the worst in US history!  It's arrival in northern Florida/South Georgia was scheduled to be exactly the same time as we were to be there! We decided to head home after our next stop, which should keep us completely out of danger.

 The next several hours were spent trying to find an RV campground along our alternate route home. We knew there was a mass evacuation of the coast, but had no idea how many RV's that involved!  Almost every campground was full - even parks that had previously closed for the season opened up for these poor people in trouble. After about 10 phone calls, we finally found a place to stay half way home.

Tallulah Gorge State Park had a beautiful (and busy) Visitor's Center. 

The next day we headed to Tallulah Gorge State Park, where we discovered that the best hike (in our opinion) involves 1000 steps down to the Gorge! This would take seriously healthy knees, and there are not too many seniors that are blessed with those. There are easier hikes in the park, but after taking them we discovered the views were not very good and the viewing platforms were small.  This tends to be a very busy place when they release water into the dam ( which was scheduled for that day but was cancelled ) therefore we thought there must be a lot of jostling for a position at the rails. I would have LOVED to see the crazy people kayak down the falls! We just needed water!

No, this is not Norman.  Internet photo taken by Chris Gorman.  I was so disappointed they didn't release the water as scheduled.  I really wanted to see this! To watch a video done by the Discovery Channel to see how paddling this river can go so wrong, click the link

 At the end of the day we figured this probably is not a good location to take our group. I would recommend going on their website to see what great activities they are offering, call to confirm, and go if your knees are in good shape ( or your pain threshold is high )  It’s a lovely park.

There was not a lot of water flowing when we were there. I was told it was a beautiful hike down to the floor of the gorge, and it's only 1000 stairs to do it!  Check for when they release the water if you want to hike down.  You have to get one of the 100 daily permits, and it's not allowed when they release the water. 

My knee had suddenly started bothering me the day before, so Norm hiked down the trail a bit and came upon the tower that Karl Wallenda used to walk across the gorge in 1970. During his walk the crazy guy did two headstands!

The view at the Visitor's Center of Black Mountain. We were glad we decided to drive the car up since it soon began to rain.

On the way back we drove up Black Mountain to the highest State Park in the state of Georgia. Just because it was there.  We had a picnic lunch, checked out the view and hoped the breaks in the car were in good order as we headed down the hill. ( yes, I did put the car into low gear).  After a couple of other interesting brief stops, we went back to the campground.

Surrounding us were couples that live a little south in Georgia EXACTLY where we are headed next to check out other RV Club Rally opportunities.  I picked their brain, writing down suggestions.  How lucky! This is a small world!