Laura's Retirement Journey

Our great trip ends in Sarasota /Longboat Key. Checking on Mom (she is doing great), accounting, changing my mindset and getting ready for going home. 

We were meant to come to Dahlanega ... Our last stop belore heading to Florida and storing the trailer. Somehow we found Esther, a fiddlin', banjoist, cello player who came to Dahlalenga via New Haven. Esther introduced Keith to John, who arrived from West Texas and Anne who arrived from somewhere and brought old time music with her. Anyway playing on the porch (and in my case talking with Kathy in the garden) was the perfect end to our 6,000 mile journey. (Hear here my sigh of total contentment.) Now we head to Florida for a few weeks and home.

America's first gold rush wasn't in California. It was in in Dahlanega, GA and it was some of the purest gold the world's ever seen. It would have been great to have been there early on. Nuggets were literally lying around on the ground begging to be picked up and polished. And in the early days Mint was built in the town to press coins. More recently a University building costed it's room with Dahlanega gold. Now it's a charming mountain town and home of U of North  Georgia.

So what if it's still summer. It's in the American South. And makes zero sense at all. Let's turn our town in the mountains into a cartoon version of a Bavarian village and have an ongoing Octoberfest. People will come from far and wide. Buy thousands of yodelling hats and cause a run on German beer.  I only wish I had a pic of our neighbor who brought his lederhosen.

Sorry to say we only had one day in Chattenooga. But it is a lovely town nestled in the mountains on the Tennessee River. Parks were beautiful. This bridge was erected in 1891 and closed to traffic in the 1970s. After a decade of disuse, someone had the truly brilliant idea of converting it to a footbridge. We met up with these folks from Georgia. They are Democrats ... Just sayin. 

No matter where you go in Tennessee, the crime rate is amazingly high. Small Towns. Big towns. The rule applies. Apparently it is the combination of guns and drugs.  www.nashvillescene.com/tncms/asset/editorial/dbf4ba85-29a4-52f8-a199-803593c86fdb Perusing www.realtor.com, it appears real estate prices have doubled since 2019!!!!  Houses are comparable in price to Guilford, CT.