Tuesday

Today was a very interesting and productive day. We woke up in our tent around 9 o’clock after having survived what seemed to be monsoon winds. Seriously, our tent literally blew away and I had to chase after it for a solid 20 yards. Our solution was to put large rocks inside and it worked gloriously. Foggy eyed and cold we made our way to my car, which was coated in mud and filled with food. We made ourselves some cream cheese bagels and began our day. As with any day at the campsite it began with a hilarious ride down the mountain. See the campsite happened to be at the top of the Tray Mountain off-roading trail, which was full of boulders the size of futons and ditches big enough to hide said futons in. This resulted in quite a bumpy ride, but that didn’t stop James from trying to sleep in the passenger seat. I almost crashed on multiple occasions because of how hard I was laughing at James flop around beside me with his eyes closed. Miraculously, he did actually manage to sleep, which still boggles my mind. Once we made it down from Tray Mountain we made our way over to the base of Bell Mountain in Hiawassee, Georgia. The road up to the summit turned out to be another off-roading trail. I put my Jeep in 4-low and made it up three quarters of the trail. I had to park it when the train became so rough that some of the ditches were over four feet deep and too steep for me to even walk down into. We walked the last half-mile of the trail and made it to the top by 12:45. The top of Bell Mountain is like nothing I have ever seen before. It had 50 feet of sharp white rocks, which were covered with colorful graffiti. We climbed up the rocks to get an amazing view of the numerous Hiawassee lakes. I used my wide lens to capture view and also the graffiti rocks in the same picture. I also used my telephoto lens to take up close pictures of the lakes. From there we climbed/slightly fell of the rocks and went back to the car and on to Brasstown Bald, the highest point in Georgia. It was an incredibly steep ride up to the peak but once we got there it was worth it. From viewing platform on top of the mountain you can see for miles, even North Carolina is visible. I used the same photography techniques from Bell Mountain and the pictures turned out great. After coming down the mountain we went into Helen, Georgia to pick up some friends who came to visit us while camping. Also, Helen might be the worst town in America. For some reason the city planners decided that Helen should be an alpine Bavarian town instead of a normal city. This was a bad decision. Once back at the top of Tray Mountain I did some astrophotography and called it a night.