Our Vacation - The Last Chapter !

I know you all are waiting for the last chapter of our motorcycle ride/vacation:) So perhaps I should get this posted while still fairly fresh in my mind!

Of course the weather turned beautiful again on our last morning in Savannah. We angled our way up across Georgia through small towns and the back roads. As long as we weren't trying to beat the clock to anywhere in particular, we stayed away from the four-lane roads and big cities. Another scene that almost looked like snow were the cotton fields along the way. In many places they were still harvesting (picking?) it. I wasn't able to get a picture but we saw combines similar to the ones we see harvesting corn and wheat but set up for cotton. This old farm girl stills finds it interesting to see the crops along the way. (Daddy would be proud!) We left the flat farm lands and came into the mountains of northern Georgia. We spent the night in the interesting college town of Dahlonega, a very pretty mountain town that is the location of the first major gold rush in the United States. We browsed through a few of the little shops that were still open then picked one of the several nice restaurants for dinner. The next morning we headed out over some of the prettiest roads we'd traveled so far to Helen, Georgia. It was still early and of course D was anxious to get back on the bike so we only stopped in the motorcycle clothing shop. This little town and the whole area would be worth a trip back. Back in the 60's, in order to bring tourism back to the area, the town underwent a face lift of sorts. Everything was re-modeled as a Bavarian village. Pretty neat!

Next stop, Hiawasee. Located almost to the North Carolina state line, this is another town that would make a great destination. Looks like the lake that is nearby, though it is pretty low, would be a great place for fishing, boating and camping. And guess what! They have a quilt shop!! And my biker hubby let me go in and spend some time here at Log Cabin Patchworks ! Of course I bought a few things that I really didn't need, but might someday (you quilters know how that is!) and I enjoyed visiting with one of the owners.

Back on the road. One of my first posts last year was about our trip to Chattanooga and our foggy ride over the Cherohala Skyway. Since we were in the area again, we decided to try it again so hopefully we would have clearer skies and better views. No such luck. Not quite as foggy, but this year we had the added challenge of light rain. The trees I'm sure were quite pretty as we could tell from the spots where the fog lifted a little.

An interesting addition to the ride were the abundance of hunters in the area. Evidently it was BEAR season! One lucky hunter strapped his unlucky prey on the back of his pickup truck. This guy was huge! Poor Smokey, guess the fog wasn't good enough camouflage for him.

Well, this is all of the highlights of the trip. We made it as far as Cookeville, Tennessee that evening. Then Saturday morning we drove the rest of the way home in the coldest weather of the trip. For the most part we were lucky with the weather. I don't think we could have found any better for this time of year. After the challenge of bike repairs to begin the trip we had absolutely no problems the remainder of the week. We were glad to have made the two major purchases before we left of our new Nolan full face helmets and our new rain gear. The helmets are so much warmer and comfortable (once broken in!) with the integrated microphones and speakers. Of course, our American Legend trailer was great to have along so we could carry extra gear (some of which we didn't really need!) and fill with souvenirs (which we didn't!).

Thanks for joining us on our trip! Back to more quilty posts in the near future. Also, check back in a few days for Baby J pics! With the holidays coming, you know fun times are ahead!