Blue Ridge Georgia

As we continued our Thanksgiving weekend trip to North Carolina and North Georgia, we visited the town of Blue Ridge, Georgia on Saturday.

We started out early to visit Mercier Orchards - Even at 10 a.m., the crowds were starting to fill this gigantic store. 

Many varieties of apples cover the hundreds of acres of orchards.  All the apple processing is done at the farm, and the whole assembly line is behind windows for viewing.

Helpful signs explain every stage of the apple sorting, cleaning, and packing operation.

Apples, apples, apples - all sizes and varieties "on the hoof" available - or you can go to the attached bakery and select fried fritters, apple pies, apple bread, etc. etc.  We collected a variety!

Spices? Sauces? Kitchen gadgets? Wine glasses? Cookbooks? Appalachian Trail Maps and guide books?  We got some of all!
I loved this store!

Downtown Blue Ridge had a "Light Up Blue Ridge" celebration going on, complete with parade,

 

Ice skating rink,

Playground,

Street fair and vendors,

trendy coffee shops,

Interesting buildings

and shops featuring old fashioned penny candy.

We spent most of the day wandering around the shops and checking out the crowds.  We got home in time to watch "the game" (Alabama vs. Auburn) which really didn't disappoint!

Columbus, Georgia

Years ago, when I was stationed at Fort Benning, Columbus was a typical military town - pawn shops, dance clubs, cut rate auto dealers, tattoo parlors, etc.  Phenix City, Alabama, directly across the river, was even worse, and the entire city was off limits.  When I came back to the area after 50 years, what a surprise I had.  Even though Fort Benning has greatly expanded over the years, Columbus, too, has grown.  

All the old cotton gins along the river that were mostly abandoned years ago are either restored or in the process of being restored.  A walking trail winds along the Chattahoochee River, linking the university and the convention center and the arts building.  In the far background the building by the water tower has been developed into trendy condominiums.

With a gym and future shops planned for the ground floor, the condos on the three upper floors are in high demand.  The original foot deep walls and cement floors and exposed pipes add to the charm of the units.  Most have balconies overlooking the river and park.

The restaurant at the Marriott has a large outdoor patio eating area, so it is one of our favorite lunch spots.  The brick street beside the hotel has majestic old Magnolia trees in a row in the median.

The performing arts building always has a good slate of entertainment.

Different sculptures grace nearly every corner of the core downtown area.  

While there still may be a "military zone", the downtown area has definitely changed into a trendy financial and college district.

Fall Migration - Missouri to Georgia

Sunflowers along the road as we leave Iowa and enter Missouri.

Sheryl with their newest horse

We stopped to see Ron's sister, Sheryl and her husband, Jim, near West Plains.

If you need a saddle or tack of any sort, this is the place - Jim and Sheryl's tack shop in West Plains.

We left Missouri early in the morning on October 1 in time to see the sun rise on the Ozarks.  The windy twisty highway from West Plains, MO to Jonesboro, AR is very scenic.  The compass showed us going S then SW then W then N then NW, then worked its way back until it was showing S SE and SW again.  If we zoomed the GPS out, we could a snaky road for about a hundred miles.  On the road, we passed quaint villages, individual antique and junk stores, and miles of mountains and forests.  First stop, Arkansas, Mammoth Springs, just after crossing the border from Missouri.

In the early morning, the water was warmer than the air, and a mist rose off the spring pool before it dropped over the dam.

Tennessee is kind of a blur on our trip south - we just touch one small corner as I-55 meets up with I-40 in Memphis.

The highway from Memphis to Birmingham is nearly finished, so the trip through Mississippi after we left Tennessee is also a blur.  
We did notice that Kudzo starts here and we could probably have sighted something Elvis if we had taken time to stop in Tupelo.

We raced across Alabama, arriving in Eufaula at 5 p.m.  Eufaula is the nearest city to our home in Georgia.  It is a stately old city with streets of antebellum houses and stately oak and magnolia trees forming a well-kept median for Highway 431, the main road through town.

A few of the houses.  

The railroad bridge on Lake Eufaula/Lake Walter F. George, which is formed by a dam on the Chattahoochee River.  The river is the boundary between Alabama and Georgia.  We crossed the river into the Eastern Time Zone, and into Georgia at 6:15 p.m. EST, and were back at our Georgia house in time to watch the sun set.