Category Archives: Georgia

Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North America, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia

Rock City: I Can See Seven States… Maybe

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On this week’s video we visit a famous roadside attraction near Chattanooga, Tennessee called Rock City. Rock city is located on the Georgia side of the border, on top of the Lookout Mountain Ridge.

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Rock City became a tourist attraction back in the early 1930s, at the site of a community called Fairyland, founded by one Garnet Carter and his wife Frieda. These rock formations happened to be inside the Fairyland community, and it was Frieda’s idea to develop this part of the property into a great rock garden, with all kinds of plants, trails around the rocks, and statues of gnomes and other fairytale characters imported from Germany. They claim that you can see seven states from the top of the mountain: Tennessee, Kentucky, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. While on a clear day you can see the Smoky Mountains, that’s still the Tennessee side. I don’t have hard evidence of this but I have read that Kentucky, Virginia, and South Carolina are below the horizon, so the only way you could see them is if the Earth was flat.

In Rock City we also enjoy the music of Matt Downer – Old Time Traveler, an Alabama native and Chattanooga resident. He plays the fiddle, the banjo, and the guitar, and he has dedicated his career to the preservation of traditional music. He has studied the repertoire and techniques of many of the elder Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia musicians, so he is the real deal. What a treat it is to listen to his music.

As we continue towards Nashville  we run into some trouble climbing the Cumberland Plateau , also known Monteagle Mountain. The car started overheating on the long 5% grade. While technically not a mountain, Monteagle got it’s popular culture name due to a Johnny Cash song describing this treacherous portion of the road.

Without further preamble, here’s the video.

Great American Road Trip 2016 Part 2 – Rock City: I Can See Seven States… Maybe

Florida, Georgia, USA

Great American Road Trip Part 1: The Long and Not So Winding Road

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GART1 FL-GA Thumb2This is the first part of our Great American Road Trip, a series documenting our trip to Chicago in the late spring of 2016. In this first installment there is a lot of driving involved, as we want to get as far away as possible from South Florida. We start driving on a Friday afternoon, as far north as we possibly can before going to sleep. We manage to make it all the way to Orlando. On the following morning we continue pushing north stopping several times along the way. We make to to the Florida-Georgia border at around noon. We take a quick break at Valdosta, and then drive through downtown Macon. We continue north through secondary roads through the Piedmont National Wildlife Preserve until we arrive at the outskirts of Atlanta, and have dinner with family members. We spend Saturday night at the Walmart in Marietta. In the morning we continue driving to the northwest, along the foothills of the Appalachians, until eventually, at around noon we arrive at Rock City, where the real adventure will finally begin.

This is just an introduction to this two-week “Great American Road Trip”. I will try to post videos weekly as follows:

  • Rock City Gardens: I Can See Seven States
  • Nashville: Music City
  • Kentucky: Caves, Bourbon, and Horses
  • The RV/Motorhome Hall of Fame
  • Chicago
  • St. Louis: Beer, Barbecue, and Frozen Custard
  • Memphis: Elvis is Alive
  • Destin: Vacation From Our Vacation

As always thank you for watching my videos and see you on the road!

Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Roadtrip, South Carolina, Virginia, Washington

Road Nomad Special – East Coast Road Trip (Full Video)

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We drive from Miami to New York, passing by Jacksonville, Savannah, Charleston, Wilmington, Washington, Baltimore, another Wilmington, Philadelphia, and eventually make it to New York.  We spend Christmas in the City, and then drive around Manhattan and other not so touristy neighborhoods.  On our return trip to Florida we try our luck at Atlantic City and re-visit Washington DC.