Moon over the Mountain

Ceorgia Highway 180, Union County

One of the things that always surprises me about the rural highways in northeast Georgia is how deserted they are. This photograph was made on November 5, 2008, right at the peak of the fall color season. Yet there's no one around but me to enjoy the beauty. If this road were in or around the Great Smoky Mountains National Park the views would not be any more beautiful, but it would be packed with cars crawling along at five miles per hour. There are many beautiful places in the southern mountains, but apparently someone spread the word that the Smokies were the only place to go in the fall.

In 1984 our son Rob and his wife Bonnie moved to Knoxville, where he had a fellowship to work on his Masters degree at the University of Tennessee. In October we went up to spend a weekend with them and decided to go to the Smokies to see the fall colors. That was a mistake! The traffic was so dense it took us three hours to cover the four miles from Sevierville to Pigeon Forge. By the time we got there it was too late to do anything else, so we turned around and went home.

There are high mountains and gorgeous fall color in other parts of east Tennessee and north Georgia. Don't waste your time fighting traffic -- go where the roads are empty and the colors are full. 

This photograph from my limited edition book Georgia: A Backroads Portrait was made with a Canon 5D Classic digital camera and Canon 70-200 f4L lens. 

Photograph and text copyright 2022, David B.Jenkins.

I post Monday, Wednesday, and Friday unless life gets in the way.

Soli Gloria Deo -- For the glory of God alone

My book, Backroads and Byways of Georgia, is now out of print, although copies are apparently still available from Amazon, and possibly other sources. The second edition is now in the editing stage and is scheduled to be released in December.