Well! Following those interruptions, let me show you how we spent our last day camping at Cloudland Canyon State Park in northern Georgia.

We’d been noticing signs for Lookout Mountain, pointing north from the road our campground was on. We pictured a big mountain with wonderful views and figured that could be interesting.

So on our last day of adventuring we decided to find it. I put “Lookout Mountain” in my gps and off we went. Along the way we saw very large homes perched on the edge of the canyon and we wondered what would happen if you happened to be playing catch on the deck or your basketball took a bad bounce.

Somewhere down there, we were sure, were a whole lot of lost balls.

Anyway, after about thirty minutes my gps said we were there. But where, exactly? The streets had become very narrow and curvy. The houses were large and likely built in the 30s or 40s. They were beautiful.

But where, exactly, was Lookout Mountain? More on that later.

We saw a sign for an Incline railroad going down to the valley floor, so we parked and went to investigate. It was a tram, of sorts, that ran on a rail way down into a town.

I’m not sure what town, but they said we could see downtown Chattanooga so maybe that’s where you ended up. The woman selling tickets said a very wealthy man who owned a bank down there, and a house at the top of the mountain didn’t like having to walk to work, so he had the incline built.

I tried to do some research and all I could find was something about a worker, building the incline in 1886, being killed. But at least that give us some idea of the era the original incline was built. I thought when I was there that there should be a whole display about the history of the area and the incline. But it’s just about impossible to find out anything.

We stood on the observation deck and watched one tram go down the steep incline and then the other tramp came up.

It looked kind of fun, but not $22.00 worth of fun, so we bought some fudge and wandered the neighborhood.

There was a big empty lot next to the Incline tram where obviously there used to be a home. What a view it must have had!

We were amused by a sign on a tree by the road that must have been there a long time. I guess it was the place to be if you wanted to picnic back in the day!

Wandering further down the street we enjoyed the fences….

….and gates along with the gardens.

Eventually, at the end of the street was another state park, this one dedicated to a battle during the Civil Warm. We went inside the park building and talked to the ranger who finally enlightened us about where Lookout Mountain was.

It was right there. We were standing on it. The entire ridge was Lookout Mountain and in fact our campground was on Lookout Mountain too! He pulled out a 3D topographical map and showed us how it all fit together.

And then we went into a big room which described the civil war battle that had been waged there so many years ago. The huge painting was fasinating in it’s detail.

We explored more that day, looking for a local potter who’s sign we had also seen on the main road. After making a couple wrong starts (and almost ending up in a private home accidently) we headed down a beautiful shaded road…

…which took us to a corner with another sign pointing the way.

Unfortunately the potter wasn’t around when we first arrived, so we explored the outside of his studio where there was plenty of interesting stuff.

Lots and lots of interesting stuff.

More stuff outside than what was inside we learned, when the potter arrived. He hadn’t been making anything for awhile, so we just explored the outside a bit more and then moseyed along.

We ended up at a local diner for lunch/dinner. I think people have misconceptions about camping. Yes you can bring all your food with you, and get ice for your cooler every day, or have a camper with a fridge…but you can also go out some of the time…which we have done on previous trips too. It’s a nice break and you often meet interesting people.

Our four day Georgia mountain adventure had come to a close. In the morning we packed up, glad that it hadn’t rained at all and everything was dry.

We stuffed it back into our vehicles and said goodbye at our now empty site. It’s always a little sad to wrap up a good camping trip. But for me, well, I had two days of driving through farm country ahead.

And you know what that means!

Stay tuned.