Up in the Hills

Be sure and click on the pictures - the out door scenery looks more overwhelming that way.

We rented a cabin in the north Georgia Mountains between Ellijay and Blue Ridge for a few days. We went up Monday and came back Thursday.

To get to the cabin we had to travel about 7 or 8 miles on back unpaved roads. Although they were unpaved they were covered with gravel.

We drove up at least two mountains which the narrow road was very steep. With gravel on the road and you are on a very steep incline… you have to keep up a fairly good speed of inertia energy… I found out too quickly that if you start to slow down going up a steep inclined road the power of gravity overrules the inertial energy and you start backsliding.

When we reached our destination my odometer said 74 miles. That doesn't seem very far, but it was as far removed from what we usually face, it could have a million miles away.

I just played it by ear and angling my wheels and gearing and eventually wiggled ourselves up the final incline. Going up the final incline I told Anna I didn’t think we could make it. Then, over to the right was the cabin we rented. We had reached our destination! Yes, there is a God. And he/she likes to play tricks.

The cabin was decorated as a cabin that overlooks miles of Blue Ridge hills and mountains should be: fireplaces, decks, outside grill, hot tub, and high a-frame ceilings. Things are expertly placed to make one believe they like to rough it. That is rough it providing you have hot and cold water and good video reception.

We had satellite TV, a DVD/VHS player, dishwasher, washing machine, an air ball table, and no telling what else.

However, it only had one bathroom. Talk about roughing it! Wow! It is wonder we survived… we are used to such hard necessity living.

On the coffee table was a book that was sort of like a journal of the visitors to make entries. There were three or four entries of seeing a bear on the deck… then someone entered they saw 10 bears in the bedroom. Then someone else mentioned they counted 28 bears in the whole house. Actually, we counted 29 bears… there were little bears here and there all over – even a Yogi Bear… little statues of bears, framed pictures of bears, rugs on the walls with bears, bears, bears…. It sort of reminded me of the piggy banks and such in BBQ restaurants.

This bear skin hanging on the wall has features more of a giant teddy bear than a raging black bear.





One journal entry was written by Mark and Frank. They came to celebrate their 2nd anniversary. They said they brought their two dogs and let them run around without a leash. They also enjoyed the hot tub on the deck. Love is beautiful and innocent.

Also in the journal type book the first several pages were torn out. We wondered if the first several groups complained and the agency came by, read them, and quickly ripped them out?

I was thinking about adding an entry that would go something like this:
To Whom It May Concern: I am being held against my will in this cabin. I was kidnapped for a ransom but my parents refused to pay the money. Now, out the window I see the two men who grabbed me off in the woods digging a big hole.


The second day we tried watching a DVD movie and something went wrong – after all you have to synchronize 3 remotes - the TV did not work. We called the agency and complained. The agency man said he was sending the maintenance man up that happens to live on the mountain.

The maintenance man was a gray bearded guy. He said he didn’t mind plumbing that didn’t work, or a step that needed replacing or other general maintenance stuff, but electronics totally confused him. It was a hit or miss thing.

He was telling us he wasn’t that happy having to correct the DVD player or satellite or TV. He added, “Don’t get me wrong, usually people come up here to the mountains to do other things than watch TV.”

We jumped in and said it had rained* since we have been there. He changed his tune and got to work on it. And before he left it was all working. The key secret was swap the DVD player with the cabin next door (also the agency controlled), which happened to be vacant that day.

I noticed he had a southern accent so I asked him if he was a native. He said no, he moved there nine years ago. He said he was from San Antonio. When his son moved to the area with his job he followed his son and his grandchildren. He said after he bought some land and got settled his son got transferred back to Texas. He looked at us and shrugged.

I mentioned to him of the vast huge acreage in form of mountains in front of us – and only one time have I seen a light out there in the blackness. He said, “It’s nice isn’t it?” He was right.

He was one year younger than I am. He is just a pup.

He was the only human we talked to face to face from Monday until we placed our order at Colonel Pool’s BBQ on Thursday.

Anna told me she saw in the bathroom a framed picture of an outdoorsy scene resting on two hanging hooks in the bathroom. When I took my bath I noticed them too. After my shower and I dried off I hung my towel on one of the hooks. Then I bent over to get deodorant or something on the floor underneath the picture and while bending over the picture toppled over and hit me square on the head.. Shit!!! That hurt!!!


But it did not do any damage.. no gash on my head. It just knocked me koo-koo for a brief moment. No problem, I have been there before.

Early the last morning I was looking over the journal entries again and counted three different families or couples that said they actually saw a bear on the deck. Before dark I took Willow out to use the bathroom, as I did the past two mornings and didn’t think anything about it. But, this time, with the journal entries fresh on my mind I got the creeps… I imagined a big black bear watching us, licking his or her chops.

Although no bear visited us, on the deck we were constantly checked on by hummingbirds, a hawk, and a butterfly. Down in the woods below the deck early in the mornings an owl would hoot at us and all during the dark hours crickets would serenade us.




As I mentioned it rained every day. It seemed all the mountains in front of us were always in a process of shooting out vapors from the rain. It reminded me of a huge million gallon Lava Lamp constantly changing shapes.















*In fact it rained so much Chatsworth Road in downtown Ellijay was flooded.