More spectacular blue sky and lake

Carters Lake is in the southwesternmost Georgia mountains. It's a Army Corps of Engineers lake, built in the 1960s and 1970s.
We'd seen signs to the lake on the way to and from Atlanta, and wanted to see what it looked like.

The lake is gorgeous, especially on this bright sunny winter day, especially since it's protected from development. But even more spectacular:

The dam is a huge fill dam with one channel cut through the mountain to generate electricity.

Below the lake, a second lake was created to hold water to pump back up into the high lake for more generation power.



This is the very edge of the last of the Blue Ridge. Down there in the valley, Sherman's army marched and now I-75 from Atlanta to Chattanooga.

About 15 miles to the west, the Cherokee town of New Echota was built as the last capital of the Cherokee. It made it easy, I guess, to move them out through Chattanooga's Ross's Landing along the Trail of Tears. I'd read about New Echota and never saw a good explanation before of where it was. Turns out there is a state historical site there.

New Echota was at the end of the Coosawattee River, which formed this lake. A historic marker here says there was a Cherokee town called 'Coosa' near here, too, where DeSoto and his men camped on their trip north and west. (Historical signs marking DeSoto's path are along the highway near where we live in western Cherokee County, NC. Did they follow this river up the mountains and then the Nottley to the Hiwassee?)

A spectacular tree

Somewhere in north Georgia: this oak must be a couple hundred years old, so old the trunk has grown twisted.



This nearby farm has the best collection of red barns I've seen in a long time.

It's hard to believe, even looking at the photos, that it could have been that gloriously bright yesterday. Bluer than blue...but still pretty cold.

(And, OK, just had to pose by the tree...)

A walk in the woods

Another sunset

Floyd Jamboree

Those drawn to the area around Floyd, Virginia, will want to see Doug Thompson's photos of the Friday Night Jamboree, here and here. The Floyd Country Store was closed for remodeling for a month or so, so last Friday was the first in awhile. Might be worth a trip to Floyd to see the new, enlarged store, with music shop and soda fountain coming soon.

Sad news

The whooping cranes that stopped at Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge have been killed in the Florida storms, 18 of the eastern flock that migrates from Wisconsin each year. Seems they were confined to an area that flooded.

Super Bowl sunset, and cat blogging

Keeping warm.....

A brief change

Here's what we woke up to this morning. It was pretty thick about 5:30 or so but by 10, snow had turned to drizzle, so this probably won't last very long....

Hiwassee refuge: endangered?

Interesting posting on Knox Views about a new development next to the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge which may affect the whooping crane visits there.....

You know it's cold...

...when the rhododendron leaves look like this.


...and the edges of the branch have white decorations.


It was beautifully sunny, though, finally.


Rare view of the house from across the valley.

Sentinels

North Shoal Creek Falls

We'd seen directions to this falls, and heard them from the road once when we were exploring nearby. But saw them for the first time yesterday:










North Shoal Creek runs into Apalachia Lake just a few hundred feet past the falls.


Nearby, some huge rock formations with giant bonsai-like trees growing from them.

Hiwassee Dam Opry

On Friday nights, there's music at the community center, from local pickers and visiting bands. We went last night to see Ducktown Station, but there were also a great family of gospel singers, the Wilsons, and others.











(Apologies for the slight blurring but I can't bear to use a flash, so energetic fiddling or picking, or other movement, comes out mellow. No photo of the Wilsons here, too bad. They are cute kids.)

Sandhill Cranes

Once again, no new photos from me, so here's a link to someone else's:

Knox Views has R.Neal's photos of the sandhill cranes at Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge, and says they've just arrived. Take a look, the photos are great.

Good thing they're here, just in time for the inaugural cruise of Blue Moon, which has been delayed a bit....

Yes, it snowed

...but I didn't get any pictures. Dealing with computer problems so the most I saw of it was flurries along the road to and from the repair shop. We had only a little accumulation here, enough to coat the grass in the shady places in the yard, but that's it. There was much more in the mountains to the north and east of us, I hear.

Some really nice snow in Boone, though, according to Marie's recent photos on Blue Ridge Blog; Fred First and Doug Thompson also got shots of lighter accumulation in the Virginia mountains.

The computer? Still down but working on the backup laptop. Will try to get some new photos soon....

New Year's Day

Some pictures from the top of Brasstown Bald in north Georgia:


It was a beautiful morning, but you can see the cold front arriving.








Left from the Tour de Georgia race last year?




Couple on the trail.

I'm still devastated by Google's dropping of photo uploading software Hello! and Bloggerbot. I have tried uploading from Picasa using Blog This, and it won't connect. I can load each photo to the blog using Blogger (very slow!), or link to Picasaweb, but Picasaweb photos bog the blog down. So now I'm uploading to Flickr again, and linking directly. Next I'll redo the photos I loaded the other day.

New Year weekend

Very rainy today, but some good weather the last few days for looking at the mountains and scenery:

Downtown Hayesville, NC: the Clay County Courthouse and square.

Tiger Store.

Feels a bit Western.

Happy cows and a bit of rime or snow on the mountains near Brasstown Bald.

Brasstown Valley (Ga).

Even the view from our neighborhood dumpsters is great.