ON THE ROAD WITH THE EVERHARTS NOVEMBER 26. 2012

ON THE ROAD WITH THE EVERHARTS

     Georgia….”2,700 feet up on a narrow curving steep
road with no way to turn around.  Not exactly the easiest way to find an
inexpensive state park campground in Georgia.”  Bob & Sheila are on
the road for a performance tour in Florida, and are meandering through
Georgia. “I would never have gone up that mountain,” Bob said, “but
there was no way to turn around.  It’s called Fort Mountain Campground,
and it’s cheap, only $18 a night, but I didn’t think we’d make it to the
top.  Even more was the fear instilled in me of coming back down it.
What if the brakes gave out, got hot, burned out, how would I keep this
heavy rig on the road or prevent it from hurtling over the side
thousands of feet straight down.  Needless to say I had a not-so-good
sleep night.  We decided to try to go back down early in the morning
while it was still cool out, hoping it would help prevent the brakes
from getting hot.  As it turned out, I managed to keep the rig in low
gear, and after what seemed an eternity of braking and not braking, we
managed to get back to the bottom.  From now on we will definitely refer
to the Woodalls RV guide instead of just reading stuff of the
internet.  Wow, what an experience.”
     “It was very high,” Sheila added, “and on top of that,
the warmer nights had prompted the Rangers to post notices everywhere
that black bear was all over the place.  All kinds of warnings, how to
deal with garbage, etc.  We heard all kinds of snuffling and grumping
and sticks breaking through the night all around our campsite.  Our
little dog just about went crazy with all this going on, but we managed
to get back down, the brakes didn’t burn up, and we didn’t get gobbled
by hungry bears.”
     “I kind of enjoyed the mountain trip,” Bobbie Lhea the
Everhart’s daughter said.  “Nothing happened except dad got real
nervous, and then he took us for a tour through the Jack Daniels
Distillery.  Maybe that helped settle him down.  Can you imagine
80-million gallons of Jack Daniels whiskey aging in oaken barrels in
huge 7-story buildings, all around where the main distillery is?  It was
a very interesting tour.  The county where the distillery is located is
a dry county, so you can’t buy any whiskey there even if you wanted
to.  Be that as it may, dad drove to Lynchburg where they were having
some kind of weekend celebration with lots of folks dressed up in old
colonial style costumes.  We found a neat bar-b-que to have lunch, and
believe it or not, we managed to eat sparingly and can legally call it a
budget lunch, even though I was still a little hungry when we left.”
     “We have a national park passport book,” Bob added,
“so we took a side-road to Alabama, and finally located the Russell Cave
National Mounument.  This is not a ‘huge’ cavern, but it is an
important one to the survival of early natives in the area.  It was
named a ‘national’ park by John F. Kennedy, so we got the correct stamp
for our passport book, and then visited the cave.  Not huge, like I
said, but it offered fresh water, climate controlled protection in the
winter months, and all around quite a lot of natural food available, not
the least being nuts, grains, even a rice-like plant, which the natives
collected. We’re getting close to our next gig, so we’ll camp at the
Lake Alatoona Landing private campground near Atlanta.  They are having a
30% fall discount, so we’ll stay three nights, and then it’s off to
Decatur for our next gig.”

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