Cwopinger's Trail Limo Build, Travels, and BS Thread

Thanks Dave, I am very much enjoying it! Great to see you dropping by.

 

Blevin

 

Good morning John and Shane.

 

You too

 

Le Pinger!!!

 

John, el Stocko. Morning gents, hope it’s a terrific Friday-Eve for you guys!

 

The Georgia Traverse

Day 1
Several weeks ago while talking to one of my old detectives, Randy, he mentioned wanting to do the off road route known as the Georgia Traverse. It’s an “overlanding” truck camping route across north Georgia from the South Carolina state line west to the Alabama state line. It’s billed as 390 total miles with 226 miles of the route unpaved. The unpaved sections are primarily Forest Service roads through the National Forest areas. We kicked around a few dates and settled on the week of April 18th for our trip.


GA Traverse track

After meeting up on the morning of the 18th we started our 7 hour interstate slog to get to the start of the route. I’ll save you most of this boring day and just say it involved an on-the-fly re-route around a fatal traffic crash and the inevitable Atlanta traffic jams on ALL the interstates that connect there. We finally reached our exit near the SC line and turned off. We stopped at a small convenience store to top off and headed toward the start point.


It was nice to see that SC gas prices were almost normal, too bad GA didn’t see it that way

Not far from the start was a small park called Stumphouse Tunnel Park. The park contains an incomplete 1850s railroad tunnel, sounds like something cool, let’s go!

Hand drilled and blasted into solid granite the tunnel is 1/4 mile long. It was supposed to be over a mile when completed. Lack of funds and the Civil War brought an end to the operation.




Cheese factory?? (Courtesy of the internet, I forgot to take a picture of the back side)






End of the tunnel, guess this was the cheese factory My flashlight didn’t illuminate the back wall when looking through the gate so it still goes a good distance in.



After checking out the tunnel we drove a few more road miles and turned off onto onto the start of the route. Randy had been on a failed attempt of this route a few months ago so he knew where some dispersed campsites were in this area. About 5 miles in we turned off the main road and down a side trail to our spot for the night. After a quick supper we both hit the sack shortly after sundown for a peaceful night by the side of a stream.





We were up early and after breakfast hit the trail for the first leg of our adventure. Not too far from our campsite we came to a cemetery that was marked on the map. I like to check out old cemeteries so I called a stop. A short walk up a steep and rutted old trail lead us to the Harden Family cemetery.


About 20 graves, many marked with just a stone.


They have been here a while. It’s nice to see someone has been maintaining the cemetery.


Thank you for your service Pvt. Harden, end of watch November 30, 1917.

After a short stop it was back on the trail. We spent the next few hours on nice FS roads, crossing back and forth into North Carolina and Georgia several times.




I didn’t know we were going to be in @six5crèéd neighborhood. I tried to call him but I didn’t have cell service so we went on.


It’s not the eastern sierra’s but it’s pretty nice.




Lunch spot. I wish I had a fly rod with me.

A few miles upstream form our lunch spot the creek widens out and there is a legit water crossing to continue on the road.

Crappy screen grab since I can’t link the video.

We eventually popped out of the mountains and onto some local roads toward our next dirt section when I realized we were pretty close to the highest point in Georgia. How could we pass this opportunity up? As we were near Helen, GA we had some cell service so I punched Brasstown Bald into Google maps and took the lead.




Looking back from where we had driven today. Boring, hazy sky make for uninspired compositions.

By now it was late afternoon and we headed back onto the route. We checked out a couple of spots that were marked on the route as possible campsites on the flanks of Trey Mountain. The first one was kind of small and right on the road. The second was about 300 yards from the road and had a creek flowing beside it. Yep, that will do.







It was another peaceful sleep with the creek gurgling in the background.

Day 2 coming soon

 

Booger Hollow, that is me!!!

Great pics, sounds like you and your friend had a great time, waiting on the rest

Maybe a Hobbsquatch was spotted on one of the days

 

Thanks, it was a very good time. Working on it.

I LOL'ed when I passed the sign, knew I had to get a pic.

 

I lol'd when I saw it, thanks for taking the time to take it and share it

 

Amazing!! Thank you for sharing!!

 

This is fantastic Blevin! Sounds like a great trip!
I am looking forward to more...

 

Happy Birthday Pings!!!

 

Happy Birthday @Cwopinger , enjoy.

 

Happy birthday @Cwopinger

 

Thanks guys.

 

Happy Birthday Blevin!!! I knew you could do it!

 

Happy birthday @Cwopinger !!