Saturday 3rd December – Three states in one day

It was somewhat chilly and overcast today but it had been a while since we’d been for a bike ride together so there was no excuse.  Until about 5 minutes into the ride when Simon’s chain snapped!  Here’s a photo to prove he joined me for some of the ride, before having to walk his bike back to the RV nearby:








Not wanting to have my exercise taken away, I still went out to explore the park and make the most of the bike trails.

To give some idea of scale - our campsite was right at the tip of the pale green area, the lake system was huge!

We hit the road about 1130 am and within the hour we’d experienced the confusion of crossing the State Line into Georgia, crossing back into Tennessee, bypassing Chattanooga (Choo choo!) and suddenly losing an hour as we jumped forward to Eastern time! 



 

Since realising we could try and reach all 48 of the main landmass states we have been keeping a close eye on our route to ensure we don’t miss any.  Today was one such example.  Instead of making a bee-line straight towards our next goal, Atlanta, Georgia, we had to make a slight detour east so that we didn’t miss North Carolina.  I feel we need to apologise to North Carolina – we managed to miss its eastern shoreline to visit Kitty Hawk.  Now you know how much of a fan of planes Simon is, it is such a shame we missed the very spot that the Wright brothers made the very first controlled power flight in 1903.  Maybe next time we tour America?!  So instead we spent about 15 minutes maximum in the South West corner of North Carolina before readjusting our compasses due South towards Atlanta.
This map of the massive system of dams over six states shows you how they interlink and how we were able to do these three states in one day:

It also served us up some beautiful scenery to drive through.  

We only drove about an hour into Georgia to the Vogel State Park area near Suches, where we reached the Wildcat RV Park as it was getting dark and starting to rain.  In the RV office they managed to sell us a Saturday night treat to share…  Moon pie, which has to be eaten with an RC Cola (right). It’s kind of like a Waggon Wheel in the UK, with biscuit and Marshmallow. We both liked it, but thought that they over-sold it somewhat so it was a tough review to live up to!  

Here’s the view we had from our site on the hillside: