Misty morning in Georgia

Misty morning, a photo by Adrian Zissos on Flickr.

Charlotte & I came down to Georgia (for the first time) to take part in the US Orienteering Champs. We're staying on for a bit longer to explore this part of the country and check out the music scene, the civil rights history, and the civil war history. We've been quite surprised at how pretty it is here and how very nice (and normal) the people seem to be. They may have a back-woods Southern reputation, but they are pulling away from that so far as I can tell. Not to say there haven't been some dreadful experiences, such as at the coffee shop in Dahlonega when I asked for a latte and the "barista", to use the term lightly, squirted two blasts of brewed coffee into my cup then added some steams milk - yuk, the worst drink ever. And we were amazed at the Southern optimism and complete lack of reality as we hiked the 7.5 mile approach to the start of the 2100 mile Appalachian Trail - here we met all kinds of "through-hikers", people planning to take five months to hike the entire trail. One guy was on his fourth (!!!) day hiking and still had over a mile to go to get to the start of the trail (what was he thinking?) and that was just one example. We read that 83% quit in the first 20 miles - how is that for being prepared???

Now we're in Nashville having a bit of fun wandering around the Honky-Tonks and heading to the Grand Ole Oprey tonight