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spring break spontanaeity

I've been feeling rather alliterative of late. Hopefully it will not spill out past the title.

Kate and I had planned to go to Mammoth Cave NP, KY and take one of the more difficult cave tours that involved headlamps and knee pads. However, in April they only offer such tours on the weekends and by the time Kate called Friday to make a reservation for Sunday, any tour remotely exciting and off the beaten bath was booked. So we decided to change directions and headed south with the vague intentions of hitting Georgia state parks and the beach, with the possibility of the FSU Flying High Circus thrown in.

Saturday morning, we packed up my car, threw in our bikes and headed south towards Providence Canyon State Park, billed "Georgia's Little Grand Canyon." I was prepared to be underwhelmed. We took a detour to Buena Vista, GA hoping to see Pasaquan. Unfortunately, it now costs $100 for a group of 4 to tour it, so that idea was quickly nixed. We did however pass through Preston, GA on our way back to Providence Canyon, where I discovered that while I had my camera with me, its memory card remained in my laptop at home.

Upon arriving at Providence Canyon around 3:30, we learned that they had only backcountry camping, which we were not prepared for, and that the only 2 nearby Georgia state parks had no open campsites. Since the park closes at 6, we decided to go ahead and hike the 3+ mile loop. As my expectations were so low, I was rather impressed with the canyon. "Little Grand Canyon" is a bit of a misnomer- Kate said it was much more like Bryce which I haven't seen to agree with. While years ago, it had been greatly defaced by tourists, they've done a good job of ending that destruction and much of the graffiti has eroded away. It only began as a canyon around 1850 and is now 100 feet deep- I'm not sure if it is still deepening, but that means at least 8 inches of deepening a year!
We headed out of the park around 6 and headed for Alabama. My GA/AL map indicated that there were a number campsites on the border, near Eufaula. The first we actually found was Lakepointe Resort State Park, right on Lake Eufaula, so we stayed. Our camp site was right on the lake and we sat and read on the beach until it started raining. The next morning was a beautiful day and we rode our bikes to the marina and poked around before heading south again.

Days 2-4 to follow...

Labels: travel

posted by CP @ 9:54 AM 1 thoughts