August 14, 2002

Riding in the Georgia Mountains

After our day of resting we were ready to head out into the Georgia Mountains.  The area surrounding Clayton is just gorgeous and so long as you are going any direction except south the rides and scenery just can't be beat.  If you are going south, well, it is straight and boring, but you would have known that on the ride up so it won't be a surprise. 

Tonya and I looked at the maps and decided to spend the day in the Georgia Mountains, riding through the 'Chattahoochee National Forest.'  It is a very nice area, but like so much of this part of the south it has the absolutely stupidest sounding names.  "Chattahoochee" sounds like something made in a still by a couple of yokels - but don't let the name dissuade you.  Lots of motorcycles, great roads and friendly people are everywhere to be found in this part of Georgia.  I also took the time to dial in to the office (as pictured here) to check on things, much to the pretended ire of my wife.

Another note of interest is that the resort offers a free breakfast, and it really isn't bad.  Normally 'free' when combined with words 'breakfast' and 'hotel' conjures up images of stale bagels and little plastic containers of orange juice.  Breakfast was actually quite good, fruit, coffee, scrambled eggs, the works.  We also got a chance to see a convoy of golfers as they took their little electric carts (and there must have been 50 of them) out to wage a subdued war on a little white ball.  Here is a picture I snapped, right after breakfast as we were getting ready to head into the Georgia Hills.

The north Georgia Mountains are really fantastic for motorcycles.  They are full of scenic roads, with tight turns, and fairly decent pavement.  A word to the wise though, if your bike is not capable of, say, turning then this isn't the right place for you to be.  We saw plenty of BMW's, lots of rice burners, and not one single Harley the entire time.  The trickier the roads got, the fewer 'cruisers' we saw.  I would ride behind Tonya for a while, then zip off ahead of her to take several corners at pretty close to breakneck speed - then I would pull over and have her catch me.  I think next year, when she gets her own BMW I won't always be in the lead - the Suzuki is a great bike but I think we have reached its limits.  Here is a shot I took of Tonya while we were riding.

One of the places we went in Georgia was Brasstop Bald - the highest point in the state.  I have to tell you, as high points go I wasn't that impressed from the parking lot.

On the other hand, once we parked and I started attempting to climb to the top (they have a trail) I became IMMEDIATELY impressed - wow, you'd think a gym freak like me would have ran right up to the top of the mountain - you'd be wrong.  We stopped and wheezed more than once, and on the following day I noted with some amusement that my butt muscles were sore.  Here I am wheezing but trying to look cool.

Here are a couple of pictures we took from the top of Brasstop Bald.  Really the fun in Georgia isn't the heights, it is all the neat roads between the hills.

And yet another of Tonya

After the visit to Brasstop Bald we rode around even more - found a couple of neat out of the way towns and the like and just generally enjoyed the day.  We were too busy enjoying ourselves to take many pictures though - so just take a moment and imagine us riding the bikes in great scenery with crisp weather, terrific roads and friendly people . . . .

Once you 'come down from the mountain' it gets hot fast.  I still find changes in temperature to be fatiguing.  Once my body adapts to the cold I am ok, and once I adapt to the warm, I am ok, but the fast switcheroo from 'a tad nippy' to 'WOW it is a steambath here' makes me want to just fall over.  We found a place, stopped, ate some fantastic bread with home made apple butter along with out meal, and then headed back to the Resort.

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