The Old Stovall Mill

Posted on April 30, 2025 by Editor

The old Stovall Mill Covered Bridge at Sautee Junction, Georgia. Click on any of the images for an expanded view.

Fog wrapped the taller mountains in a soggy embrace along the Russell Scenic Highway as I made my way to the historic old covered bridge near Sautee Junction, roughly another 30 miles away.

This area of Georgia is part of the Russell-Brasstown Scenic Byway, which itself is part of our National Scenic Byways that dot this big country of ours. All told, there are 184 National Scenic Byways scattered throughout 48 states.

This one is in the beautiful Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest. Brasstown Bald is somewhere off to my left.

The bridge is a popular spot for graffiti and seems especially popular for young lovers who need to declare their affinity for each other in chalk. The river is scenic here as it is elsewhere.

I have on a long-sleeve summer sun shirt, a T-shirt over that and then a leather vest — all topped off with a blue jean jacket. It’s border line enough clothing for motorcycling at these elevations and beneath this overcast, foggy sky.

But the sun returned as I reached the turn-off to Helen, Georgia, a tourist trap along the Chattahoochee River, which many people mistakenly believe is the river from the movie “Deliverance.” But, no, that’s the Chattooga River.

And while on “Deliverance” trivia, the rundown town in the movie wasn’t actually in Georgia at all. Those scenes were filmed in Sylva, North Carolina. Same thing with the movie, “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Montana” — another cinematic wonder also filmed in Sylva.

Anyhow, the Stovall Covered Bridge isn’t much to look at.

There are picnic tables at the bridge along the beautiful Chattahoochee though, and it’s a nice stop for a snack and a break from the saddle — especially for motorcycle riders, who need more butt-rests than auto travelers might.

I had bought a root beer and a chocolate bar at the Old Sautee Store a few miles back, so I sat at one of the tables, snacked, and enjoyed the view for awhile along with the mid 70-degree day. The chill of the higher mountains long gone.

On the day I visited the mill fiber optic cable was coiled on the ground ready for stringing by crews hoisting it to poles.

The Old Sautee Store and Market make for an interesting if not critical stop for sightseers. There was a father with his two-month-old baby sitting on the porch during my visit. The little boy, wide eyed and smooth skinned as wee ones his age are, worked his month like a guppie and waved his arms like a sea amoeba as I walked by him.

Which gets to my sole bit of advice for the day: Never trust anyone who can walk by a new-to-the-world child like that one was without smiling.

I’m unsure why we always smile at seeing the very young, perhaps as a small way of rejoicing at the world renewing itself, replacing us wrinkled and mostly worn out old versions with new ones.

A Different Sort of Enemy

Posted on April 14, 2025 by Editor

The Yoknapatawpha at a dock outside Bayboro, North Carolina.

“The sea is a different sort of enemy. Unlike the land, where courage and the simple will to endure can often see a man through, the struggle against the sea is an act of physical combat, and there is no escape. it is a battle against a tireless enemy in which man never actually wins; the most that he can hope for is not to be defeated.” — Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage

Alfred Lansing’s book on Sir Ernest Shackleton’s adventures in the Antarctic was on my mind as I made my way on my motorcycle along the Hiawssee River and into Tennessee.

I miss my old boat, the Yoknapatawpha, and the days and nights when she and I were alone on the sea or anchored off an inlet while thousands of stars pierced the blue-black night. The gentle swaying as she rode the current; the popping sound of shrimp against the hull.

A bird call far off in the night.

A motorcycle is a poor substitute for sailing, but it is a substitute, a stand-in of sorts. There is wind in both, but vastly different winds.

If you’ve been to sea alone on a small sailboat you’ll know what I mean. If not, then not.

A boat at sea will test you every day in a way a motorcycle never will. As Lansing said, there — aboard a boat at sea — you often face a kind of physical combat where the best outcome you can hope for is a draw.

And then there are the calm, clear days where the winds smile and the sky and water are the same impossible shades of blue. Dolphins leap. A sea turtle surfaces off the bow and looks at you with deep dark eyes more ancient than time itself.

The combat and the calm, both are what makes sailing the grand reward it is.

Motorcycling ain’t bad either, but it’s not sailing. Not by a long shot.

On the Road Again

Posted on March 30, 2025 by Editor

Six days after the launch of Spring 2025 the feelings of unremitting illness molted like an outgrown snake skin and fell from me long enough, at least, for me to take the motorcycle out for the first time in two months, maybe three.

Who can remember? Winter and sickness are alike in being oppressive to the spirit as well as the memory.

On Thursday, the 27th, I rode to Blairsville, Georgia. But on Friday, I took the bike through the Nantahala Gorge, which I’ve seen described — accurately — as one of the more scenic drives in the country, and then on through Asheville to Fletcher, North Carolina.

Once again I was astonished at the still present damage left throughout the Asheville region by Hurricane Helene when it came through North Carolina in late September. The storm flattened huge swaths of forest at Fletcher, Asheville and elsewhere as it barreled through on its way to Tennessee and beyond.

Homes and businesses in that section of Appalachia will take years to recover, the forest decades; those who lost family and friends will never fully recover.

In spite of the damage and what it represented, though, the unremitting early spring sun had a way of burning off the loss — at least for me, unscathed by Helen like most everyone in the Murphy area. The damaging center of the storm moved east of us.

The upholstery shop where I was dropping off my stock seat to have recovered had been swept away by the storm, but Diana, the proprietor, had salvaged enough to continue her small business out of her home, which — higher up a nearby hill — had escaped much of the damaging floods from Helene.

On the way back I rode through downtown Asheville, past wrecked and gutted businesses along the creeks — almost all of which were turned into deadly raging rivers by the hurricane.

And then it was back home again — 287 miles later — where I marveled for the umpteenth time how a peaceful motorcycle ride can so easily reset one’s compass bearings.

Well, This is a Pisser

Posted on February 21, 2025 by Editor

With eight years of experience of winter in my section of the North Carolina mountains, you’d have thought I’d seen every version of cold this section of country could offer.

It ain’t so.

There’s cold and then there’s 2025 cold. So, yea, it’s been cold this year and cold during the tail end of 2024. Lots of cold to go around.

North Dakota cold.

But maybe some of it is my older bones. The late 70s tug on a man the way the late 60s haven’t yet learned about. In your late 60s, given a bit of luck, you occasionally can feel young and even carefree.

I can’t remember the last time I felt carefree.

My motorcycle hasn’t been out of the basement in two months, and, looking ahead, I don’t see a day on my calendar with temps anywhere near warm enough to break that gloomy streak.

You gotta account for sickness in all that. For 23 days I wallowed in the Asheville hospital with a collapsed heart, a superbug infection that go-carted through my blood like freaks on Fentanyl. I had the flu, the blues and no appetite.

I came out the other end weighing 20 pounds less than when I went in, battered, beaten, bruised. Alive.

Life. It’s a pisser.