"There is a number"

 Oh my, where to start?

My odometer this morning

 Well, my favorite part of the day was the very end. I drifted to sleep looking at the stars last night.  The campground and surrounding forest were soooo quiet. I've never understood how a forest can be so full of life and yet so unbelievably silent.  Because the weather has been so perfect, I took a risk and didn't cover my hammock with a tarp. I awoke at 6pm to birds chirping and the bright sun.

 After lunch, we headed to Albany GA to find the fossilized sand dunes that Margie uncovered on the interweb somewhere. We both love geological oddities like that :) As we rode into downtown Albany on Hwy 82, we spied a wall of sand behind a strip mall. After a quick u-turn, we pulled onto Sands Dr to find a bunch of men, raising hell, racing four wheelers on the dunes. I made a new friend,  Michael, and I convinced him to take me for a ride on the dunes. I snagged a video of the first climb, I wish it weren't so damned shakey, but what do ya do?

          

One of the guys showing off

 I smiled a mile wide. And I got sand everywhere, my boots and socks, my arms were filthy. See, he let me drive, and I took both of us through mud puddles, slid around corners, and I MAY have gotten the four wheeler stuck trying to climb the big dunes. (Sorry again!) We wanted to get back on the road, so we probably only stayed for half an hour. I wonder if I could take the jeep down there? It's not that far from Athens, and I saw a lot of all terrain vehicles and dune buggies... hmm

Me at the top of the dune
visible from the road :)

 We rode Leary Rd on the way west. I only mention it because of the sheer lushness of the surrounding landscape. Swamps lined both sides of the road, and I saw four white cranes (it's possible they were egrets). In ancient literature, cranes represent wisdom. As spirit animals, they often guide the heroic figure on their adventures, cranes being messengers of gods- just something I thought was interesting. The road itself was probably ten or more miles with no curves, no hills... just straight (and no traffic to speak of...).
 One of the unexpected lessons I've learned is how to navigate without a GPS yelling at me. You can get pretty much anywhere by glancing at a map and then following the road signs. Since I use earplugs (and my tank bag won't stay on my tank and is therefore useless as a map holder) I haven't had a way to easily use GPS. We haven't gotten lost once (yet ;).  I like the freedom it gives us, Margie and I both are easily distracted  (sand dune whaaaaa?) so this style of traveling really suits us.

Coffee this morning

 We settled for the night at Falling Waters State Park. It was a lot of fun to introduce Margie and Stephanie to camping! We built a fire, and opened a bottle of wine, snacked on some almonds, hummus, and carrots. We switched spooky tales and stayed up laughing and carrying on into the night. I'm glad Stephanie could join us for the first leg of the trip.

 Falling Water State Park has a short hike back into the forest, it couldn't have taken more than 20 min to get back to the waterfall. The area has several sinkholes you can examine during your walk (probably around a dozen or more) and the waterfall plummets into a circular cavern and disappears into the ground. The leisurely hike had a lot to examine. I highly recommend you check it out if you are in the area.

 In case you don't know,  we are staying the night in New Orleans tonight (will you forgive me if I leave out some juicy details? ;)From here we head west through Texas, Arizona, and California.  Stay tuned for my fun adventures!

 Finally, an invitation-  Please get in touch with me if you know of a place we need to visit, a military base with servicemen and women who want to hang out, a veteran who wants to join us for a leg of the motorcycle trip, or if you think of something that we haven't even thought of!

~Amanda Terranova

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