I’d like to start by apologizing for making these vacation posts so drawn out. I have been super busy as of late and haven’t had a ton of time to sit down and knock out some solid posts. I am back in Missouri now after 2 1/2 weeks, and I’m taking care of Curry, who got his wisdom teeth removed on Friday. Between changing his gauze and being a slave at work, I’ve been on the go a lot recently.
Anyway, on to the actual blog.
On our last day in Atlanta, we went to the Archibald Smith Plantation. We toured the Swan Mansion (as mentioned in the previous post,) but it wasn’t a plantation home like we were thinking, so we were excited to see the real deal. The Smiths had about 30 slaves that helped around the house and lived on the premises, but the rest lived out by the cotton fields, which were around 5 miles from the house itself. Those buildings were no longer intact. We were only able to see one slave cottage, but it had been re-done, so it wasn’t in its original state. The tour was interesting. What surprised me the most is that the plantation had a room on the back side of the main house that was open and unlocked to traveling strangers. Guests would let themselves in and would stay as long as they needed. The slaves would check the room everyday for visitors, and then would care for them accordingly. In this day, it’s hard to imaging just leaving your house open to whoever wanted to come in.
Front of the Archibald Smith Plantation house.
Plantation flower garden. You can see the corner of the slave cottage to the right of the stone building.
Slave Dwelling
After the tour of the plantation, we headed toward the cabin we were renting in Blue Ridge, Georgia. It was no easy task getting there. We put the address into our GPS and followed its instructions. The Garmin took us on an extremely windy mountain road. We were doing hairpin turns most of the time and couldn’t do above 30mph most of the way. We were all looking forward to getting off the highway and were relieved when the GPS told us to turn. To our dismay, it took us on an equally windy GRAVEL road. This road was the epitome of sketch. We had to ford a couple of rivers that were across the road. I was positive that it was going to lead us to some shack in the woods where we would make a real-life sequel to Deliverance. We eventually came to the most rickety, shady bridge I have ever see. We all held our breath while crossing. Eventually, after what seemed like days, we finally reached Blue Ridge, GA. When we picked up the keys to our rental cabin, the office people assured us that our cabin was only about 5 minutes away and that we were close to town. HA! We were 12 miles outside of town, literally on a mountain. The incline getting to the cabin was probably a 45 degree angle or greater. We had finally reached our destination, though, so we were content to stay put.
The cabin was really nice. Everyone got their own rooms, except for Jen and I had to share. We were excited about all the arcade games, the pool table, and the hot tub.
Front of the cabin in Blue Ridge, GA
Driveway leading to the cabin
Fire pit on the back side of the house
Outdoor fireplace
Front entryway to the cabin
Living room. (The taxidermy fox was my favorite part, haha.)
The other side of the living room
The kitchen and dining room area
The room my uncle stayed in upstairs
The view from our porch
The basement
Jen and Kristin racing on the arcade games in the basement.
The hot tub right outside the basement door
Jukebox and bar in the basement
There were a TON of wild turkeys around the place
Honey bee and some wild flowers
As always, visit my Flickr to see all the photos from our vacation by clicking: HERE!
Stay tuned for more posts. I’ll try to be more timely with the next one!
Holly Hildreth Photography 