Another day on the road

Thursday we left Atlanta in beautiful weather headed Northward to Chatsworth, GA. As many of you know, traveling the back roads means great scenery and quaint small towns. Ok, the one big junkyard wasn't so beautiful (unless you are wierd).
Chatsworth has a nice courthouse square. The courthouse is red brick with white columns. The lawn was like carpet and so green. Of course we toured a little of the town trying to find it and then wondered how we missed it. The front of the courthouse looks out on a beautiful mountain scene. Luckily, I got a pretty nice picture and even captured the large "Drunk Driving School" banner across the road!
We decided we needed to found out what Fort Mountain State Park was all about. Guess what. Nobody knows! Along the ridge of the mountain there are long row of stones stacked sorta like it would be a fortification. The Cherokee have more than 1 legend to explain it, dating back to the year 1120. Anyway, in the 1930's the CCC built a hiking trail (actually more than 1) to a tower that they also built. We went about half way up so that we were at the wall. A couple we met there let us know that you can no longer go all the way up into the tower and that there was a snake "guarding" the entrance. You have already guessed that I went no further, Don went alone. I know it was only a little black snake, harmless; but, well, snakes are snakes Anyway Fort Mountain is a nice park and the road up there has some lovely overviews.
Later we saw a sign for the Vann House Historical Site. By following the signs we found it. We went thru the museum and then saw a video telling the history (good thing, cause even after the museum I still only knew that an Indian built it). Chief Joseph Vann of the Cherokee was a powerful man. Not only was he a leader of the Cherokee, but was influental in Washington DC. He became very wealthy and built a mansion to show his wealth. By hiring a renown architect of the time and masons from the nearby Moravian community, he built a large home in the style of the times. Chief Vann eventually sucumbed to the lure of whisky and gambling and was
later murdered. His son Chief James Vann followed in his father's footsteps as being very influentual. However, he was not powerful enough to keep from being removed from his home and sent to Oklahoma. He actually was run out shortly before the Trail of Tears, settled in OK and built a home there. That home was burned during the War Between the States.
Back to GA now. We were taken on a tour of the house. Being the only ones there it was basically a private tour. The nice young man was knowlegable and gracious. He told us to take as much time as we liked looking over the house. The furniture there is period furniture, definitely antique; but there is no original furniture since it was taken to OK and destroyed when the house there was burned. This house was repainted into the original colors when it was restored. They are bright colors of yellow and blue and rust and green. The house actually has 4 columns, but is painted so that from a distance it looks like there are 6. Evidently the number of columns announced how wealthy you were. As a final note, President Monroe was a visitor there.. Can only begin to tell you the things we learned, it was fascinating.
Then we traveled on to (drum roll, please) Ducktown, TN. Bet most of you didn't know such a place existed. We headed up to the Ducktown Museum, which wasn't easy since it basically a dirt road. We got there about 20 til 4 and they closed at 4. We went in anyway. The people were so very nice. Good old small town folks. The man says 4 may be when they close, but they stay as long as some one is there. He was really nice and a wealth of information. Ducktown was a mining area. It was what is know as "Hard Rock Mining" meaning it is not as dangerous as coal mining where the coal is soft. They mined a number of different things including talc. Until mid-20th century it was a waste land. The chemicals used and released in the mining had de-nuded the landscape. I mean it is hard to describe the pictures they had of the land at that time. Absolutely nothing growing - nil - nada- zip - zero. Do you get the idea? When the gov'ment came in and started reforestation, people were almost sad to lose their unique landscape as many of them had never known anything different. Next to the museum is a collapsed mine than now holds rainwater. We noticed a yellow substance swirling on top of the water and wondered what it could be. Duh! it hit us both at once, of course it was pollen. You'd think with the amount of pollen we had already seen - on and in our car - it would not even had been a question.
We left there about 5 and went to our hotel in Murphy, NC having had a full day.
God bless, Pat