Rabun County, Georgia

Today we were in Rabun County, Georgia. Rabun County is known for three things: 1) my ancestors came from there; but for those not familiar with my ancestors, it's also known for 2) the Foxfire books, which were originated from and published from there, and are based on interviews with Rabun locals, and Foxfire still retains a museum there; and 3) Deliverance, since both the book and the movie were inspired by the whitewater rivers of Rabun County (especially the Chatooga) and the movie I believe was filmed there, at least in part. [Update: Indeed it was filmed on the Chatooga, and the results did not sit well with many of the locals who had appeared in bit parts in the movie. So Rabun County's other reason for fame, Foxfire, interviewed many of the locals for posterity. This I learn from a book bought today at the Foxfire Museum, called Hillbillyland: What the Movies did to the Mountains and the Mountains did to the Movies, and which devotes a whole section, naturally enough, to Deliverance.]

It's high country; in fact three different watersheds originate in those mountains: the Little Tennessee, part of the Mississippi basin, rises there; so do the headwaters of the Savannah, which flows into the Atlantic, and the Chattahoochee, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico. It's lovely mountain country with gorges, waterfalls, and cool weather. One of their mottoes is "where spring spends the summer," meaning you don't get the usual southern heat. (Kind of cutesy, but I guess it is better, anyway, than "Welcome to Deliverance country." Or worse, "Come enjoy the Deliverance experience!") Bear in mind I'm not making fun of Rabun here. It's where my roots lie, or at least one stage along the migration. It's also spectacularly beautiful country, like the Great Smokies without the traffic and crowds.

After brief stops here in Franklin, NC at the Nikwasi Mound, and then the Macon County Historical Society, and then we were off to Georgia. Outside Mountain City we visited the Foxfire Museum, which is hidden up winding and only partially-paved roads in the mountains, and consists of a bookstore and numerous reconstructed or moved cabins and outbuildings. Sarah tired of the cabins but fell madly in love with a 10-week-old Westin terrier named Artie, a cute little white pup. Sarah has been working on us for some time for a dog, and this one and his family walked along with us for a while and at one point I thought she was going to get in their van instead of ours. For the rest of the day, it was a constant chorus of how much she wants a dog. We have made clear we need to make some infrastructure changes, including fencing, cleaning the mess around the house, etc. before we are dog capable.

Next stop was Tallulah Gorge State Park, where several successive waterfalls pass through a deep gorge; this was once a favorite summer vacation spot reached by a railroad from Atlanta; today it's a Georgia state park. It was a bit hot, everybody was a bit down, and by about the third overlook Sarah started pouting, then I got mad, and we had a little blowup. We finally got over it, but we were all too tired to do more of the park after the first overlooks from the visitor center.

To make peace, on the way back we stopped at Goats on the Roof, a touristy store mostly noted for having, well, goats on the roof. I'm convinced I'm still compensating for all the reptile farms and tourist traps my Dad wouldn't stop at when I was a kid. Anyway, the website I just linked to is a little confusing and may not tell you much, but there are goats on the roof and a bicycle-powered Rube Goldberg contraption to raise food up a conveyor to them. You buy the Goat Chow or whatever and pedal the bike to get the food to the goats. I assume they designed the gadget themselves, or do you just go to Home Depot and ask for a bicycle-powered dervice to feed the goats on your roof?

We then drove east from Clayton Georgia along Warwoman Road (I love that name, referring to a Cherokee female leader, which precisely being discussed a bit here), to show Sarah where some of my ancestral connections had lived when the Cherokee town of Tuckaleechee still stood. Then we crossed the Chatooga to look at it, putting us in South Carolina, turned around and in about 15 miles were in three states: from South Carolina to North Carolina on highway 28, via the pointy northeastern part of Georgia where it sticks in between the Carolinas. Here's a Google Maps explanation of what I just said. OCTOBER UPDATE: Google maps has changed the route I originally put in, for some reason, so clicking won't shed any light.]

Then on to Highlands, NC, a chi-chi mountain resort town where I assume businessmen ftrom Atlanta and bankers from Charlotte summer; gated communities, fancy restaurants, etc. Then, after stopping for a late afternoon taco at a burrito shop, we took a wrong turn and almost ended up in Cashiers, NC instead of where we wanted to go, the Cullasaja Gorge.We'd done this a couple of times before, but Sarah was too young to remember the last time we were here. There are three great waterfalls between Highlands and Franklin on this 20 mile stretch of road. This time was a disappointment: the first, Bridal Veil Falls, normally has a stretch of road where you can drive under the falls, but this year it was nearly dry, just a few trickles of water coming down the rock face. Obviously they've had a dry summer down here: we saw churches with their signs praying for rain.

The second waterfall, Dry Falls, is fun because you can walk behind the falls and look out through the water. But this time the parking lot was torn up and blocked off and there was no access to the waterfall. Only the third waterfall, Cullasaja Falls, was more or less itself, and it's one you can't really stop at because of the dangers of the mountain road: you just look quickly.

We got back to Franklin about 7:30. On day one, Sarah had discovered the Sprinkles Ice Cream Parlor behind our hotel, even before we checked in. She's been every day. We feared it would be closed as we were so late, but it's open till 8, and so she got a cone. We went to the grocery nearby to get some staples and while discussing dinner decided that -- given the fact that many southern restaurants close early by Washington standards -- we were all tired and had both a refirgerator and microwave in the room. Sarah thought microwaving frozen dinners would be the greatest fun imaginable, so we ate in the room.

Yesterday's Sights

That's today. Yesterday, foreshortened in blogging by the then-stuck "s" key, was largely spent around Cherokee, NC. We'd intended to be in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, but hadn't packed a picnic lunch and there are no dining places in the park so we came out to Cherokee for lunch and never went back. Instead Sarah spent time waiting at Oconaluftee Islands Park in the Oconaluftee River, having fun till Dad was getting the worse of the heat, mosquitoes, and gnats and persuaded her to leave. Also in Cheroke let me recommend the Talking Leaves Bookstore, for Cherokee and other native books, including some even the National Museum of the American Indian bookstore doesn't stock. Talking Leaves doesn't seem to have its own website.

Then we made one of the few indulgences to Dad, visiting the Judaculla Rock, which is literally in the middle of nowhere. Last time we were here we couldn't find it, but that was before GoogleEarth. Its a soapstone boulder covered with now-faded petroglyphs. Googling it will find you plenty of crank interpretations from UFOs to weird decipherments, but it's presumably paleo-Indian. It was sacred to the Cherokee. It is in the middle of nowhere at all (but nice mountains) and hard to find. And when you get there, your daughter says "Is that it. We came all this way to see a rock?" I hear my Dad's voice in her, from all those times I dragged him down twisty mountain roads to see some obscure site.

That was yesterday, anyway. I may blog more later on these two days, but wanted to get this down while I can remember.

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