Smarr Sign One of the first things we took a picture of was this sign.

Departing early from Naples and stopping only to pick up Claire in Gainesville meant that we could reach Georgia by lunch, and still have time to oggle the roadside signs. There seem to be ordinances that prevent advertisers from putting up overmany billboards, but Georgia does not subscribe to this approach. Apparently, the lawmakers of Georiga want drivers to have as much reading material, in the form of advertisements for outlet malls that sell towels by the pound, Duckhead pants stores, and cheap hotels, as possible. It's always a good thing to get out of Georgia. We managed this in good time—while eating lots or raisins—and made it to Katie's college, Lee University, before nine and in time to visit a Steak and Shake with Katie and her boyfriend, Kirt. We passed on the steaks and shakes and had a plate of French fries with cheese on them instead. Surprisingly, they weren't bad.

And, a brief annecdote within an annecdote, that evening while we were chatting in Katie's room with her roommate I was offered a nilla wafer, and at the time a nilla wafer seemed unaccountably good. Katie suggested I put some peanut butter on it, which I never have done, and I was very reluctant about this, but Katie very much wanted me to try. While I was waffling and trying to avoid putting peanut butter on the nilla wafer, but to also humor Katie, Claire broke in and said to Katie, by way of explanation, "Lindsay doesn't like change." She said she'd been around me long enough, one day she realized this, and in doing so she realized more about why I do things. Or why I don't put peanut butter on nilla wafers. For the record, I did put peanut butter on the nilla wafer (only on half, though), but the point is that it's nice to have known people long enough that they've got, if not all, then definitely most of your number dialed. Thanks, Claire.

The next day we spent with Katie and Kirt, driving up a road that followed the Ocoee River, which was, for those of you who haven't comitted recent Olympic venues to memory, the site of the white water events in the 1996 Alanta Olympics. However, before we got to the white water portion, we stopped at a TVA-constructed dam. The Ocoee was dammed to create a big ol' lake which we could see from the road. The dam itself was big, and cementy, and it was a cold day, breezy and bright, to be standing outside in the wind looking at a dam.

As we continued, we pased many small waterfalls trickling down rocks on the side of the road. But it was cold enough that ice had formed at the base of the flow. Farther up the road, the water in the Ocoee was even lower than it had been below the dam, but later in the season when the dams are opened, it's a white water rafting attraction. We stopped at the Olympic venue, a large red-roofed building that is now under the auspices of the National Park Service. We walked across a bridge to the other side of the river, poked around a little, got cold, and followed Kirt's example of lying, lizard-like, on the rocks for warmth.

After we recovered from the bout of lizarding, we had lunch in the car (away from the weird guy from Georgia who talked to our group, and then only to me because everyone else trickled away) and continued to the top of the mountain, where, after standing at an overlook that gave a view of the river and dams that we had passed on the way up, we decided it was too dang cold to go on a hike to a waterfall. So we piled back into the car—which was actually a Four-Runner and therefore not a car at all—and went back to Cleveland.

Dam Our first stop saw us looking at this.

Huh? The dams featured informative signs explaining important dam concepts, such as that they hold back water. Everyone may have such a strange expression because it was very cold outside and we wanted to get back in the car.

Lake-Thing Above the dam the Ocoee widens into a lake-ish river. Islands that used to be hills on the river's floodplain stick up to make funny-looking islands.

Country Roads The road that took us up the Ocoee River. Here we have stopped to oggle...

Roadside Ice One of many deposits of frozen water.

Ooo Kirt scuttled across the road and broke off our very own ice formation.

Ocoee Bridge The building in the background is the Olympic building. Note how low the water is.

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