Day 5 of a 9 day road trip through the southeast. This morning, my goal was to hike in a National Forest in Georgia. I know that is a stretch for my quest of visiting a "National Park Service Property" in every state, because the National Forests are not operated by the National Park Service - but I did it anyway - and eventually, I will need to go back and visit a bona fide NPS property in Georgia. I am pretty sure I did this in Arkansas too, so maybe I'll hit both on another trip someday.

But... back to today. The Tallulah Gorge State Park is a state park that is completely surrounded by the National Forest, and it is beautiful! The thing here is that it is a GORGE, so it is very deep, and has a great waterfall, but to see it, you really need to hike down the 310 steps on one side of the gorge, across the suspension bridge (that is STILL pretty high up), and then up the 347 steps on the other side. It was only about 2 miles, but it was TOUGH!! And beautiful.

After I caught my breath, I went down the road to the National Forest Service visitor center, where a nice lady told me about some easy hikes. She did not give me good directions - just said "its written in this brochure" and gave a wave of her hand in one direction down the road. I put it in the GPS, and headed over there.

Once I got to the place, which was about 7 miles down a switch-backy road along a river, where you could only drive 10 mph, I couldn't find the trailhead. I walked along the river a bit, but it wasn't really a hike - I did, however, pick up a rock for my backyard here. It was a pretty spot, but I definitely have to come back to Georgia.

#Georgia