Brotherly Love in Tenn

We had a fabulous day with John's brother Eddie and his wife Arlene. They are a wonderful couple, two of the nicest people we know. 

17th President of the United States

We visited Greeneville, Tennessee home to the 17th President of the United States. Andrew Johnson (December 29, 1808 – July 31, 1875) served as President from 1865 to 1869. Johnson became president because he was vice president at the time of the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. 

We toured two of his homes.

The Snake and Shady Valley

Today we drove to Eddie and Arlene's in Shady Valley, TN. We love driving to their home - the mountain road to their town Shady Valley is called 'The Snake'. It goes over three mountains with 489 curves. This is a road motorcycles run for sport - very exciting, we find it thrilling enough in our Jeep. We always enjoy their small town of Shady Valley, a lovely country village. We went to Logan's Roadhouse in Johnson City, TN for lunch and commandeered a table for a couple of hours as we all talked about how everyone is doing.  

It was so great catching up with Eddie and Arlene, a wonderful day. 

Chuckey, TN

We rolled away from Unicoi Springs RV Resort and the Helen, GA area. We are very excited about our next stop, we will be visiting with John's brother and his sister-in-law. While we are in their neck of the woods, we will be staying at the newly opened Lazy Llama RV Park in Chuckey, TN.  We will spend time checking out the area and visiting with Eddie and Arlene (brother and sister-in-law).  The route was interesting, we averaged 39 MPH over the length of the trip here. Lots of back country mountain roads with twists and turns, ups and downs.  Beautiful ride, but slow and careful driving.  On the trip in we passed through Greenville, TN.  The old town was so picturesque, we planned to return during the week.

Last Full Day in Helen, GA

We started the day early with breakfast at Hofer’s Café.  John had a farmer’s omelet and I had a ham and cheese omelet, our food was delicious. John finished with a tasty German cinnamon pastry.  We walked off our breakfast with one last stroll through the village of Helen, we hit the road with the RV tomorrow. We stopped by the wooden toy store to get a sign that we will nail to a post in Watson Lake (more info on the sign when we get to British Columbia). 

Late afternoon we departed for

The Georgia Mountain Fair Grounds to attend the Montgomery Gentry performance.  In route we stopped for some good BBQ at the Wild Hawg BBQ in Hiawassee, GA. I love their BBQ and the catfish is good too.  Dennis Carmaichael opend the show, he is the nephew of Eddie Montgomery and has a terrific voice.  He and his band played for about an hour followed by the main show.  Eddie Montgomery was really good too.  He and his band performed their old hits and some songs from an album just released. The show was terrific. 

Chestatee Wildlife Preserve and Zoo in Dahlonega, GA

Yesterday, got out for a bike ride. Today, We started our day at the Chestatee Wildlife Preserve and Zoo in Dahlonega, GA.  The animals have been rescued from bad situations and can now live out their lives peacefully; they look well fed and cared for.  We talked to two ladies that work as care takes and they introduced us to the bears and the tigers by name, we could tell they loved working with the animals.   We walked up and down the rolling hills while watching animals wandering in mostly large enclosed areas.  It was a terrific visit. 

From there we went into the town of Dahlonega.  Nice place to visit.  Lots of history with friendly people everywhere.  

On the way home we stopped in Yonah for a quick meal at the Yonah Burger Restaurant.  Great burger and they have homemade peach and apple fried pies. John tried the peach, he said it was pretty good.

Stoval Mill Covered Bridge and Friends

Our good friends Sam & Joy drove three hours from Summerville, GA to visit. We saw them in March when they were traveling with their RV in Florida.   Sam was John's Tac Officer during his six months of training at Ft Benning’s Infantry Officer Candidate School. 

Sam likes good southern cooking like I do so we had lunch at Hawg Wild.

On the way to lunch we all visited the Stoval Mill Covered Bridge built in 1895 by Will Pardue. It is 36.8 feet long with queen-post truss that crosses the Chickamauga Creek. It was also known as Sautee-Nacoochee, Helen Bridge and Chickamauga.  An earlier covered bridge stood here but was washed away in the early 1890's. The bridge retains the name of the miller, Fred Stovall, Sr.; who operated the mill complex from 1917 for many years. It is said that this bridge is haunted. They say standing on the bridge at night, you may hear the sounds of horse-drawn carriages.

We also walked around the town of Helen and stopped of at Fred's Famous Peanuts for a little fozzen lemon-aid. 
Great friends, great day!