Throwback Thursday: Cars Over the Cliff

This adventure takes place near Dahlonega, Georgia,   1960, probably about February or March.  

North of Dahlonega several miles is a fork and a big pile of rocks.  There is an old folk tale about an  Indian princess’s body is under all those rocks.  Travelers, for good luck, would toss a rock onto the pile and that is how the rock pile grew bigger.

The only way this adventure utilizes this pile of rocks is for directions:  “You turn left at the fork that has a big pile of rocks”.

Turn left and not far away are big curves going up and around a mountain.  On the right is the mountain and on the left is a cliff.

At the bottom of the cliff were a lot of cars that went over the cliff, so it was said.

Larry heard about this cliff around this curb and that is why we were there at 1am on a Saturday morning., about four of us.

We looked  down and couldn’t see anything but black.   We decided to build a fire to keep warm and wait until day light.  Larry brought along plenty of rope to climb down the cliff and tie the auto parts, then we could savage and hoist them up with the rope. 

A lot o cars have went over that cliff, so  they said.  Magically no one was hurt, but they all got insurance money from their crashed cars.  Isn’t America wonderful?

Also, I need to put in here so you will know the full story, I had too much to drink only a few hours before.  That will play into this adventure before I’m finished.

Like I said, we were on a lonely mountain road on the edge of a cliff and decided to build a fire in the middle of the road.  What could go wrong?

We had a good fire gong from some dead tree branches we found by the road.  Larry is an expert of building fires.  He has made fires many times.  We sat around talking and keeping warm.

Then we heard a the sound of a truck motor far away.  The motor sound got louder and louder.  We could hear it's gears changed as it went up and down hills.  We finally figured it was going be upon us within a few seconds.

OH SHIT!!

We ran into the woods.

The truck was a high truck.  Not an 18 wheeler.  It was the kind that would make big deliveries locally; like the Atlanta Journal & Constitution truck that would drop off bundles of papers to carriers.

 It rounded the bend and probably did not see the fire until he was on it.  We heard no sound, like breaks, of him slowing down.  He wisely plowed through the fire at full speed.  Sparks and red cinders flew all over the road.  It is a wonder the mountain's vegetation and wildlife lived beyond our visit.

The truck disappeared going around the next bend.

I think we probably left and returned at daybreak.  It would probably had been unwise to stick around in case the truck driver reported the fire in the middle of the road.

When we returned  we could see several cars at the bottom of the cliff.  There were not as many as Larry heard, just two or three.

Larry tied a strong rope to something sturdy and we began lowering ourselves down.

Dumbly  I climb onto the rope not too many feet after the late Jenky Latimer.  As I was lowering myself the rope was not still, it would wobble.  It weakened my stomach.  The alcohol in my mind and stomach started doing its vertigo thing.  I threw up while swing back and forth. 

I don't remember how we had a grip on the rope but we did.

If I thought I was in bad shape for vomiting and swinging on a rope probably over 100 feet from the ground, remember Jenky was directly under me being vomited on. He couldn’t let go of the rope either.

When we did reach the ground and the wreck cars they were already stripped of anything of value. 

Unfortunately Jenky, a Georgia Tech student, a few months later,  was killed in a wreck either at the end of May or the first week of June.