To Amicalola Falls With Gillian

After two weeks on the road I was getting kind of antsy to get home so, on Monday the 27th, I left Paul's and Lee's with one more stop on the way home - Atlanta. It was a fair day's drive, through Durham, then touching base in Burlington, Greensboro, Salisbury and Charlotte. I had hoped to meet Anne for lunch in Charlotte, but I had neglected some planning details and ended up getting gas in Charlotte and skipping lunch. Then it was a straight shot through Spartanburg and Greenville to Atlanta, where I spent a day and a half with my daughter, Gillian.

We took a page from our old book and spent a fair portion of the day in the North Georgia mountains. Near the center of the picture above, you can make out the very top of Amicalola Falls. In the old days - about 25 years ago - the view showed considerably more of the falls. Of course, the trees have had a few years to spread out since then. I always said these were my favorite falls, because you could drive to the base of them, then climb in your car and drive to the top.

As with so many other memories, they're close but not exactly correct. At the base of the falls there's a reflecting pool which, in the day, actually reflected the falls. And the lower parking area provided spaces right near the pool. I guess that's why I remembered being able to park at the base of the falls

You can see that the reflection is still there, which is nice for photographers, but the line of sight from the pool to the falls is blocked now and you have to take into account a brief trek from the pool along the creek to the actual base of the falls.

The creek itself offers the possibility of interesting images, though we're asked to remain on the trail and otherwise mind our p'sand q's.

I made about half the trek before finding a bench to sit on, and I gave Gillian the videocamera and sent her on ahead as my proxy. I stayed put within a few steps of the bench and kept busy shooting the surrounding forest.

Since I hadn't any recent pictures of Gillian, I took this one as she returned with some near vertical video of the falls. They'd added some wooden walkways at the base of the falls since my last trip there. I suppose it keeps visitors from wandering around too much, a middle course which probably makes it easier to keep the creek and the visitors in good shape.

More park upgrades included a second parking area part of the way up to the top. That confused me for a while, but we eventually made it up to the parking area I remembered and the very short walk to the falls overlook. This view too (above) suffers a bit from the encroachment of nearby trees. The old view, while still close, offered a much larger window than today's vista. With little choice in the lighting, save for choosing the time of day, this might be a good opportunity to use HDR. I'll have to explore that after the fact.

I left Atlanta about midnight and broke up the drive home by leaving I-20 west of Jackson, MS by veering south onto the Natchez Trace Parkway, crossing the Mississippi at Natchez, making my way across Louisiana's middle to the Sabine River and Texas. From there it was an easy drive west to Austin. The point of this excursion was that the Trace, middle Louisiana, and this particular section of Texas were all new ground for me, and you can never tell you'll find down a new road.