I have looked and pondered the whitewater of the Tallulah Gorge in Georgia from the canyon rim. I have photographed some of the action on the Oceana Falls with my tele-photo lens and I have decided that I am too big a whimp to endeavor this run of river. There are somewhere around 100 boaters here that are doing it. I really don't think that it is the most challenging section of river in the East by any stretch, but it is labeled class 5 and it does contain the Thing at Oceana, which is a 15 foot tall ball of froth that results from the river pile driving down a 50 foot chute onto a rock. After hiking down 496 stairs into the canyon and then having no way out but the river one does not want to have a bad day. It is fun to watch though. They only release this water 5 times a year, the rest of the time it is diverted down a long underground tube to the generation plant and they only let about 50 cubic feet per second trickle through. Today they are releasing 500 cfs and tomorrow 700cfs, it is beautiful.

It has been raining for three days straight, which this area needs, so I am not going to wish it away, but I am longing for the sun again. We have only had about a dozen days of rain in our 9 months off so far, so we can't complain. We purchased a Nintendo Wii at Wal-Mart and we have been bowling and playing baseball in the back of the r.v. We have almost had a couple of disasters from swinging the controls around in such a confined space, but so far we are still married. We explored the "Alpine" town of Helen, Georgia today. It was in a nice setting, a little cheesy though. Evidently the town council voted in 1968 to make this town a little Switzerland to attract tourist dollars and it kinda shows still. We drank a couple of $7 German beers and bought a couple of small things in the Dutch import shop and called it good.

I am starting to sound like a boring high school girl now, talking about shopping and other unimportant #$@! I can't believe that I have been relegated to replacement cussing in my prose. Kim is such a prude and she is convinced that every one of our precious nieces and nephews is reading this by themselves, therefore I am being cool. Here are some pictures of a foggy, rainy Tallulah Gorge. Hopefully I will have some sunny ones soon.

New blogs coming quick now, since we are in beautiful country.

James

Note the perspective change once the kayaker is in the picture of the Thing on Oceana (3rd and 4th pics)