North Georgia and Hot Cars

10/28/07
I left work and headed to North Georgia. I went to the Five Guys hamburger restaurant. Their fries are awesome and so are their hamburgers. This was on Tom Hill Sr. Blvd so there were a few yuppies. There are a few still left to shop on that side of town though Tom Hill is slowly deteriorating.

I got coffee at Dunkin Donuts and gas in Forsyth. I went up 675 and 285 but didn't bother to find out if Interstate 985 were off 285 or 85. I missed the 85 turn so I headed up 53 to Dawsonville.

Before I got to GA 53 the truck got hot again so I turned on the heater and rolled down the windows. I thought this problem had cured itself but I guess I'm no mechanic. I got gas and went to a nearby Kroger in Dawsonville off 19. I put a little drinking water into the reservoir in a desperate attempt to solve this issue. Of course it didn't work but I was too stubborn to realize this. The reservoir fluid was murky. I still think it is a bad thermostat.

I should have stayed in a motel in Dawsonville but instead decided to mosey over to Dahlonega. There were no vacancies at the motels because of some special occasion and what one desk clerk told me were three weddings. So I know how Mary and Joseph felt.

I went to Cleveland and saw nothing but the Gateway Inn. The Best Western in Gainesville had nothing but the Days Inn had a room. It was 3 AM and I wasn't too concerned about the need for renovating the room.

I was very hungry and thirsty by the time I hit Ma Gooch's in Cleveland. It is to me a mandatory pilgrimage as their chicken is excellent. And I mean chicken! They must raid the henhouses at Gainesville for their little birdies. Never will I say "I'll eat it all". This isn't 1981 when I could eat up the Hardees on Pio Nono every morning. I went to Blairsville and stopped on the way at Helton Falls.

There is a one-lane road which is paved for approximately a mile before reaching the Forest Service's unpaved path to the falls. These falls led people in the Seventies to try and scale them with deadly consequences. The man whom my dad worked with ran the Neels Gap trading post in the Seventies and told us the GDOT ripped the pullover for the falls as a consequence.

Helton Falls was so beautiful! The short-needled pines and the leaves in their halfway transition from green to bright colors made it even prettier. The rocks were polished by the aqueous buffing of time and I loved the water! It was cold and one puddle was deep enough for someone to bathe in.

I went to the Sorghum Festival's last weekend. A guy named Nix played bluegrass music behind the civic center in a Fort Sorghum compound. A rusty sorghum press with its white female mule was no longer needed to squeeze the half-grassy, half-cane looking weeds for their tart, sweet sugar. I bought two small bottles and one large bottle of syrup. I am sure this was the only real sweetener available for years to the mountain residents near Union County until trucks could bring sugar and make it affordable to all. I know of no other area in Georgia or below Kentucky which grows a sorghum crop.

The time came to leave and fight off the overheating truck (the light came on, the needle moved to the extreme, and the truck ran a little sluggisly so I can't conclude little else). I was the only nut on the road with the heater on and the windows rolled down.

It bothers me that I don't have but a few people to speak to. Maybe it's that I am a happy batchelor and everyone else is married. I have hangups that preclude me from doing so much with people and everyone my age is busy doing whatever they do. I try to network with people on the net but it isn't helping. I need something to help me out of this rut I am in.