Jim and Shawne's spring flower trip, April 2006
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Part One: Great Smoky Mountains Park
Shawne and I threw our stuff together and got on the road early Monday May 8. We used a different routing (Rt 360 and 460 west) to get to I-81 near Roanoke. Nice driving on nearly expressway-type road, then on to Sevierville TN just outside Gatlinburg and the GSMP. Took about 8 hours.
Our resort had completed a new section and we had a bird's eye view of most of the Pigeon River valley north of the park. On Monday we went to the park and tried to find the wildflowers that we had seen on previous trips. We started with a short ranger-led walk to Cascade Falls near Sugarlands Visitor Center. We have visited the park often but this was the first time we saw this waterfall...it was a good one that gets missed because it is so close to the visitor center.
We were a little late for most of the flowers in the known areas. We had always been a little early for pink lady slippers which we found in bloom along Porter's Creek Trail. The yellow lady slippers were just starting to wither along Ash Hopper Trail. We also tried the Old Settlers Trail off the road to Ramsey Cascades but that too yielded only a single jack-in-the-pulpit. We saw trillium, dog hobble, and Solomon's Seal in bloom but that is way short of our normal viewing in April. I guess we need to be there in April to get the full bloom.
On Wednesday it looked like rain. We did get to the Sugarland Center for another ranger walk...wildflowers...but rain threatened and we had been on the same trail the ranger was to use and there were very few wildflowers in bloom. So we skipped the walk and focussed on handcrafts. We visited a pottery and our favorite artist shop to see if she had painted the lady slipper yet...she has a continuing series on wildflowers. And we got lunch at a British pub in the crafts colony.
Part Two: Adam and Melanie and southwest Georgia.
We left Sevierville about 8:00am on May 11, heading for Albany GA to see Adam and Melanie. They would not be home from work until 6pm, so we took the scenic route of 441/129 to Macon then I-75 and 300 into Albany. We literally went from mountains to piedmont to costal plain...and most of it was in Georgia which is a very large state. Driving the Interstate Hwy the whole trip would have been a little longer distance but shorter time. We arrived Albany at 6pm with Adam there to greet us.
Adam and Melanie are renting a small home in the northwest section of Albany. The neighborhood is also small homes, most without garages, and big trees including magnolias which were in bloom. Their house has two bedrooms, two baths, a large eat-in kitchen and living room. Melanie has decorated well to give it their personal mark.
Adam took the day off Friday to show us around the area. We chose not to do the long drive to the Florida coast that Adam was eager to show us, but found a wonderful state park...Providence Canyon...about an hour from Albany. This is a site of 150 foot deep canyons formed by erosion started by poor farming practices about 150 years ago. The colors of the canyon walls reminded us of our trips out West to Canyonlands, Arches and Mesa Verde National Parks. We spent about three hours hiking a trail that was rated as a two hour hike...mostly because we were taking a lot of photos.
We stopped in the local town..two traffic lights and a stop sign or two...for a barbecue lunch. Then back to Albany, stopping again to buy some local produce (Vidalia onions, peanuts, pumpkin butter, onion and peach salsa).
In Albany we wanted to visit the Riverquarium and Radium Spring. But we got there too late for a good tour of the aquarium, so we walked the river walk which had recently been redeveloped and landscaped. Albany had gotten a lot of rain the previous week and the water was being released from the dam north of Albany on the Flint River. Adam and Melanie had often canoed and boated the Flint (Adam's local professional interest) but we could not with the water high and cloudy. As we returned to the car, it stated to shower.
That night we picked up pizza from the Harvest Moon cafe, a jazz cafe in the heart of the redeveloped area. Good pizza and great sounds. More relaxed atmosphere than the Harvest Moon brew pub in New Brunswick NJ. We then ate our pizza while watching a DVD of King Kong.
On Saturday, Adam who is the deadhead logging project coordinator for the State of Georgia had to fill in for a colleague at an Army Corps of Engineers public meeting south of Albany. Melanie took us to see her work site...Jos. Jones Ecological Research Center at Ichauway near Newton, south of Albany. This property was the former hunting preserve (28,000 acres) of Robert Woodruff (founder of Coca-Cola) who established the center with a very healthy endowment. The property spans the confluence of the Ichauwaynotoway creek with the Flint River.
Melanie supervises research technicians doing a variety of environmental studies. Her main project is a long leaf pine-wire grass ecosystem. This ecosystem needs periodic burning to clear the debris from the forest floor, to promote growth of the wiregrass whose seeds need fire to germinate, and to restrain the growth of hardwood trees which would shade out pine and also use large amounts of groundwater. Surprisingly the young long leaf pine plants survive the burn by protecting the growth bud of the plant through the fire. The wire grass keeps a lot of debris elevated from the forest floor and this space allows some rodents and other critters to scurry around beneath it all. Like snakes and lizards.
Melanie took us through the research building and the class building. there are even homes for resident grad students and a hotel for visitors. Jimmy Carter came to speak recently and she had lunch with him.
By lunchtime we had seen most of the property highlights and Adam was on his way back from his meeting. We rendevouzed at Georgia Fries in Albany. This place had a little of everything, fried of course. We settled for fried chicken breast strips, fried green tomatoes, sweet potato fries, and fried dill pickles. If you haven't had the latter, we got hooked on them in Nashville two years ago.
After lunch we visited the Riverquarium. This large exhibit showed several of the many different environments in the Flint River ecosystem which extends to the Gulf Coast. We even saw a "blue hole" spring like one we would visit at Radium Spring. The animals were in good condition and the presentations showed a lot of care to detail. They even had a huge alligator snapping turtle...and alligators of course.
We rested at their home until dinner which was a special reservation event at the local coffee shop. That sounds like there isn't much of a fine restaurant trade in Albany...there isn't actually...but this place was doing special gourmet dinners on Saturdays and appears in the recent issue of Southern Living as a rising star. It is called Perk Up Cafe. Anyway, it was also close enough to walk to from their home.
The coffee shop was transformed into a small bistro with latin music and a percussionist. We brought our own wine and the appetizers were ready after a short tour of the owner's new veggie garden. The main course was a stuffed pork loin with garlic mashed potatoes and grilled vegetables. Desserts were a selection of pastries and cake. It was good to have to walk home since the dinner did go on a bit.
Next morning we went to St. Theresa's for Mass. It is the oldest Catholic church in Georgia. The building was very new...in the round and had a lively assembly.
After church Melanie fixed a brunch for us and then we were off touring again. This time we visited Radium Spring, a spring hole bubbling through the limestone formation underlying the area. The spring itself was developed as a private club and has been closed to the public since the mansion-clubhouse burned several years ago. The State of Georgia now owns the site and plans to renew it and open it in the future. We got to see the blue waters flowing from the spring to the Flint River.
We then headed for Doerun Pitcherplant preserve, a boggy area full of pitcherplants. Well, actually, burned pitcherplants. Melanie had been there for a burn three weeks earlier. All the plants got fried, so all we saw were the standing brown and dead plants. But they will come back. The area had another interesting resident, the gopher tortoise. Shawne and I had seen their burrows at a Nature Conservancy center south of Orlando, so the huge holes were not a surprise. Adam and Melanie had come upon a tortoise on one of their bike trips along the Flint River. Anyway, the critters are large and threatened. Not to say that their roomates can't take care of themselves. A six foot diamond back ratttle snake was sunning itself outside a burrow. We got pretty close but the snake didn't seem to be bothered by us. It had a small rattle and a huge bulge toward its tail. Maybe it had recently eaten and was sleeping off the meal.
Melanie fixed a great mexican dinner and we watched a furious storm hit at dinner time. The sky got very dark, then strong wind, then hail the size of golf balls. Didn't last long but it was scary.
Next morning we saw Melanie off to work and Adam also left before we were off to Villa Rica and the Fairfield Plantation resort. We had a great stay with them and wish they weren't so far away.
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