Friday, March 14, 2008

Double Bubble MicroCar Museum

If you love cars this is a must, it’s the Double Bubble Micro Car Museum, it’s located about 4 miles south of the city of Madison GA. On US 441. The museum is only open Tuesday through Thursday from 1pm to 4pm. Donation of $5 per person, which goes to the local Humane Society After WWII the airplane factories in Europe were banned from building aircraft so they retooled there factories to build cars, but since fuel was so costly the designed micro cars with 1 and 2 cylinder engines that got up to 80 miles per gallon and a top speed of some where around 60 & 80 KPH. I’ll just post the pictures with a little description if I can remember anything about the car.













These are all real cars that where driven on the street, mostly in Europe but some in the USA.













The small one is a pedal car





















Rainbow row



A real Police Car from Germany



















Notice that there is only one front tire on the red car.









the engine on this dragster is really larger the the original car body,










The police and Traffic can be pretty tough down here.













This is what the curator of the museum drives, go figure.

Anna Ruby Falls,a dirt road and the Grave

Did a little drive over to Anna Rudy Falls and hiked back up to the falls, it’s a very good thing that they had benches every 100 yards or so because we put them to real good use.

The falls is really two separate falls formed by two separate streams that just happen to come within 50 feet of each other before they form the falls.














We did a scenic drive along the ridge of the mountains, we ended up crossing the Appalachia Trail three different times and then we came to the ‘DIRT ROAD”. The dirt road, why there’s nothing wrong with driving on a dirt road, even when it turns into a tiny little dirt road. Even when it turns into a tiny little dirt trail, which when you round the bend it stops at a creek, you look across this 25 foot creek and see that it comes out on the other side and continues. I should mention that two days earlier we had an all day down pour where we got about 2 ½ inches of rain and this little creek was running pretty damn fast and maybe a little deep. After a few seconds of thought I figured why not the road goes right through it, I started to inch out into the steam and when I felt the rear wheels enter the creek I also started to fell the front wheels sinking, doing what any macho man would do I put it to the floor and pointed it straight ahead, about 3/4 ‘s of the way across a wave of white water washed across the hood and I held it to the floor until we were launched out of the creek onto the other side. I pulled up about 30 feet and stopped to let the steam escape from the front of the car and to unwind my nerves, I got out of the car and saw a BIG Jeep pulling out of the stream, it was the mail lady, she stopped and told me that she wasn’t going to try crossing the stream today because the water was too high and too fast, but then see saw me make it and figured she wouldn’t have any problem, then she told me that there was a little bigger steam to cross a few hundred yards down the road, then just like that she smiled and drove away. OK now we’re approaching the second stream and I figured that I would take a good look at it and give it a thought or two, The trail made a sharp right turn and the bank was high enough that you could not see the stream over it so I decided to make the turn and see what it looked like, big mistake, it was wide, it was fast, it was deep, no way, nota, not me, I’m going to show a little sense and back up out of her and tackle the stream that I have already conquered. Wrong, I put in reverse and all it did was slip on the steep rocky embankment (damn front wheel drive) it actually started to slid forward so macho man to the rescue again, Slam it in first gear and stomp it to the floor again, this time when we reached the ¾ mark, with the familiar white water wave coming across the hood the front end didn’t start to sink instead the entire car started to slow, all I can say is that I’m not divorced so we made it to the other side. A few more miles and we were at the trail head for Helston’s Falls.


This is the Lower Falls, two years ago I was standing right in the middle of these falls and I was dry (right about in the middle of the picture where the water is shooting straight up) this shows how much a big storm can increase the water flow.









This is the upper falls which is about 50 yards up from the lower falls.













This is where I walked out a little bit to look over the top of the lower falls, if I was brave I would have slide down the falls.






What better place to end today’s adventure then at a grave, as long as it’s not mine, this is Trahlyta's grave and you can ready about it in the photo of the sign.




Click to enlarge and read











Toccoa Falls and Easy Company

Time to do some catching up on what we’ve been up to while in the Georgia Mts. Other then trying to stay warm, we did manage to get in a few road trips on the sunny days.

The first day we headed over to the city of Toccoa, to visit Toccoa Falls, which is located on the campus of Toccoa Falls College, there is a small charge to walk back to the falls but it’s worth it. Read the sign below to find out about this killer falls.



60 feet higher the Niagara Falls, it's just a short walk from the gift shop.










After leaving the falls we drove into town and stopped at the old Railroad Depot, which has been turned into two museums. The first is a museum about the county, which has a very interesting history; it was surprising to see how many famous people have come from this little town. But then we passed through the doors to see what we really came for The Currahee Military Museum; this covers the history of Camp Toccoa, the Paratroopers Training center for the 506th, 501st, 511th and the 517th. This was the home camp for Easy Company better known by the name of the movie that was made about them “A Band of Brothers” This was one of the best little museums that we have been to in a few years, they have done an excellent job of collecting and displaying numerous artifacts from the soldiers and their families.

After leaving the museum we did the driving tour which took us to the location where the original camp was, the still have the foundation of the front gate and have placed a monument on it, also back down the road in the fields you can still find the fire hydrates and some street signs that are left over.


These T-shirts were issued to the soldiers that trained here, this is the only known original to exist, since the soldiers wore them when they went of to battle, they were all destroyed and thrown away. This one was given to a girlfriend in town and that's why it's still around.







The Movie Band of Brothers was based on soldiers that trained here. This is a picture of the cast from the movie.










Easy Company (Band of Brothers) held their 60th Reunion here.













Click on this to enlarge so you can read it, it tells about the stable in England that was converted into a barracks for Easy Company to use while they were staging for D-Day. The museum has one of the original that they had dismantled and shipped here.













The Stable/Barracks









Inside the stable










This is a letter written to one of the soldiers from his mother, when they were dismantling the stable it was found wedged between two of the planks.











If you follow the driving tour you end up out where the original camp was, the foundation of the front gate is still there with the monument on it. Down the road and in the woods you will find some old street signs and fire hydrants showing where the streets and barracks were.










This town is also the home town of George Washington Hitt, he was crippled and in a wheel chair, he had very little use of his arms and hands yet he had an incredible talent, holding a pair of surgical scissors upside down and using only his thumbs he cut out shadow pictures that are just unbelievably intricate in their design.



Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Leaving Chattanooga

We left Chattanooga this morning after a month’s stay, other then going to Michigan to visit with the kids, and shovel snow; we really didn’t do too much due to the very cold weather this year. Last year at this time we were running around in shorts and this year we were fighting over the extra blanket.

During our last week here we drove over to the library book sale at the mall and stumbled onto the Medal of Honor Museum. They were just recently forced to move from there other location which was about 5 times bigger the store front that they are in now, but even with this little space they managed to put quite a lot on display.


My favorite was a display of envelopes that a father did some art work to before sending them to his son over seas there were about 50 of them but this is a picture of my favorite one.

Cathy figured out that we were only an hour drive away from Winchester Tenn. So we drove over there for a day so she could do some research. On the way home we decided to take all back roads and as we normally do, we found some things.

Say hi to Sir John Templeton, of the Franklin Templeton Funds, he was born here in Winchester, which is in the county of Franklin, hence the name. He built a private library to house all his papers and it sits on the top of a small mountain over looking the valley and Winchester.







Just outside of Tracy City we found a park where they were hundreds of civil war era coke ovens, as you drove down the road the side of the road was nothing but coke ovens, they were everywhere. The close up picture of the inside of one show how hot these things got, the bricks are glazed over from the heat.






About another ten miles down the road there was a sign for Foster Falls, can’t pass that up, half a mile into the woods we parked the car and followed a nice trail about another 200 yards and found a very pretty falls, we stood on the observation platform in the snow to view it, and here I thought that we left all that white stuff in Michigan.

We broke camp in the rain, then drove all day through the mountains on little two lane roads in the pouring rain to our new location just outside of Cleveland, Cleveland GA that is. We set up camp in the pouring rain and then as soon as we got inside to have lunch the rains stopped and the sun came out. WE went into town for a little shopping and when we got back we found out that we had missed the first televised game of our beloved Tigers, that will never happen again. I hope.

Thursday, January 24, 2008

A day in Jacksonville

We started out the day by driving down Main Street from the north end to the St John Riverfront Park, where we walked around the park for about an hour and toured the Jacksonville Maritime Museum. Just a little place but it covers the history of the waterfront and shipping on the St John River.


After a little walk around the waterfront we headed over to Fort Caroline, this fort was established by the French in 1564 and lasted a year before being attacked and destroyed by the Spanish. It's not a very big fort but did have some nice views of the river and salt swamp.








On the way home we stopped by Fort George Island and walked around the Kingsley Plantation, this is out in the middle of nowhere. There is a very small plantation house, unlike the larger ones in Georgia that was built around 1814 when this was still Spanish Territory. The house is in pretty good shape and the are 34 ruins of slave cabins on the grounds.

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Jacksonville Day 2

T o day wes was goin tO jackysville gain an desided ta stap at da palce , I thunk its kalled it is wear threy…..mure abut ths a litle lader.


Next Morning.

OK where was I when I left off, oh yeah, yesterday we drove down to Jacksonville a took the tour at the Budweiser Brewery, this place is huge and all they do is brew beer, and give it away free when you go on the tour. They start you out with a short film giving you a bit of the history of the company. From there you go down a long hallway, one side is all windows so that you can watch them brewing and bottling the beer and the other side is a wall with a pictorial history of the company.

The building is five stories tall and each floor is a separate brewery, the one we were at had a sign saying that it bottled 1200 bottles of beer each minute. That’s a lot of beer, all of the beer from this brewery is for Florida and Puerto Rico and that’s all. At the end of the tour they leave you in the courtesy room where you may sample their ware, they have a bar with about 15 different beers that they brew and you may sample them, for the non-drinker they also serve soda, stop by the gift shop, pick up a souvenir keys chain and you’re on your way. It was about an hour but a very interesting hour.

A history of the pop-top Can







This is where the Beechwood aging is done. THe best count I got was that there are 68 of these vats here.

Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Discovery Gardens

This is a little garden just south of Tavares on Woodlea Road, look for the sign at the parking lot after turning off of US 19 or you'll miss it. This is an extension garden from the university and has over 20 different themed gardens and over 700 verities of plants with a lot of fountains and a butterfly house, a frost had hit the garden about a week earlier but there were still a lot of blooms.







































Guard of the Garden

2008

Another Whispering Giant
It's here and that means that its time for us to start moving northward, hopefully at a fairly slow pace. The first thing we did to start the new year out was track down another Whispering Giant, we found this one right down by the riverfront in Punta Gorda.

This one is named "Calostimucu" and is the only Whispering giant that has a carving of a face on both the front and back, the front has a more friendly face with an eagle and the back is a meaner looking face with a bear. I think the reason the Toth made this a double is that the owner of the hotel, commissioned him to do this one and left have room and board at the hotel (free) until he finished. Since it was winter and he was in Florida I think that it took him longer then normal to do this one thus extending his freebee stay at the motel.


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Another day long road trip
We did a little drive out to Gasparilla Island, it took a little to find our way out there but it was worth it. This island was one of the original gulf coast islands that the rich came down to for the winter. It's a very interesting drive through the neighborhoods and city to get to the State Park at the far south end, there is a small lighthouse and museum, a nice sandy beach but no swimming because of the currents.