A Walk in the Woods, a Ride Along the River, and stuff

We enjoyed attending Connect church at the Goliath Wall at SAU last Sabbath again.  Fall was in the air - it felt so good to need a jacket at last.

We went straight from church to the VW hiking trails for a nice hike last Sabbath morning.

I put together a couple of pillow shams this week to match the quilt I made for our bed several months ago.  I had been thinking about that possibility since I finished the quilt.  The motivation came when I found a navy dust skirt to use on our bed with the quilt, so I got the quilt off the closet shelf and put it on our bed.  

Wednesday morning this week we took our bikes to the TN Riverwalk and biked from Riverview Park to the Walnut Street Bridge.  It was a beautiful fall day for the ride.

We can't bike it straight through without a butt break from our bike seats!

Amy and Jeremy - you should recognize these t-shirts.

It felt enough like fall to motivate me to get out my fall decorations.

 

The Beautiful Gibbs Gardens in Ball Ground, GA

Ken Ford used to post his amazing pictures of these gorgeous gardens that I've wanted to visit for years, and since it's only about 30 minutes from Bald Ridge Campground, we finally got there.  The best part is we bought a pass for a year so will get to see the gardens in the various seasons for a year!  It's about 1 1/2 hrs from home, in Ball Ground, GA, northeast of Atlanta.

There are 16 garden venues with the four feature gardens - daffodils, Manor House gardens, Monet waterlily gardens, and the Japanese Gardens.

The rose gardens were in full bloom!

This is a rose arbor - that would be beautiful when in bloom.

The Japanese section of the gardens has over 1,000 Japanese maples that will be amazing especially in the fall.  Randy loved the handcrafted Japanese lanterns throughout this 40-acre section.

The Monet Bridge replica is a focal point in the waterlily gardens that has 140 varieties of waterlilies that bloom from late spring through fall.

There are several coleus varieties up by the Manor House that added so much color, like these.

Their cleome were better controlled than ours.  Instead of being as tall as we are, these were down around 2-3 feet and so much nicer.

This is the pool beside the Manor House where the Gibbs still live.  Jim Gibbs developed the land for more than 30 years.  It began as a 300-acre private family estate in 1980.  It's so cool that there are chairs on the deck around the house and pool that visitors can use.

This was the coolest garden gate I've ever seen, up by the Manor House.

There are seven terrace levels of gardens around the Manor House.

The hydrangea garden peak was past but some were still in bloom.

There's a Grandchildren's Sculpture Garden with several cute sculptures like this.

Other flowers in the gardens are daffodils (20 million!), azalea, rhododendron, crape myrtle, daylily, wildflower, cherry blossom, and dogwood.  

Bald Ridge Creek Campground on Lake Lanier

Sunrise at site #40 our first morning at Bald Ridge

Many of the sights have nice grassy areas in between - most are spread apart nicely.

We enjoyed a lot of great sunsets.

We arrived on Labor Day so there was a LOT of boating activity to watch.

The busy tablecloth hides the game pretty much - but he whipped me at several Splendor games.

Site #40 is on a peninsula along with a few others in the 40's that are first choice sites.  How blessed we were to get it for 3 nights when we didn't reserve it even a month out.  It's a very busy campground, but was quiet during the week.  The weekend brought in lots of younger folks and their loud music, etc.

He likes to roast my s'more marshmallows and does a good job.  We used pine cones in our fires.

At site 31 for the last 4 nights, we had a lot of trees between us and the water.  I took my chair right down to the water and used a fallen tree for my foot stool.

Site 31 was in the woods, also on the water but not as clear a view

The clouds did produce some rain shortly after this picture!

Site 30 just to the right of our camper is Randy's favorite spot in the whole campground, because it has its own little beach area. Folks who were on it had a Sea Doo and had lots of fun in and out of their little beach.  And then the next couple who came had a pontoon boat they tied up down there.  In between when the site was vacant we took our rafts down to float - that was our "watercraft" for the week, and it was very relaxing. 

We both enjoyed some good books while there. 

On an early morning walk before we left for Honeycomb campground on Guntersville Lake in Alabama. This peninsula has some nice campsites on the water too. Can't wait to go back to Bald Ridge to enjoy some more camping.  Too bad they close down for the season on Oct. 18.  It's an Army Corps of Engineers CG which means we get half price camping with our geezer pass to the Natl Parks.
 

They could charge for zoo admission to this RV!