Traveling North Through Georgia
April 11, 2025
The weather was still hot as we entered Georgia (near 90 degrees), but as the week went on and as we headed further north in the state, the temperatures dipped down to St. Paul, Minnesota levels (almost 😉).
Our first stop was Lake Juliette near Macon. The campground was solidly in the "ok" category, but it was fine for our three-night stay. One thing that was particularly annoying was that the driveway of our site was angled opposite the traffic flow. That made backing in a little more exciting than usual. We don't usually enjoy an exciting backing-in experience, but this one wasn't the worst we have had.
One basically has to do a backwards u-turn to get into this site --no small task with 50+ feet combined length
After the second point of our twelve-ish-point-turn to get into the campsite, we attracted the attention of the camp host in his little golf cart. He watched nervously as we came ultra close to taking out a (very small) tree branch. Spoiler--we spared the little branch and got into our site well before darkness fell.
The view for this campsite was out the front. (Our back view was the hind side of the bath house.)
Lake Juliette
On Saturday, we headed into Macon to go to church and walk around the surrounding neighborhood.
Historic St. Joseph Church
Historic neighborhood
We hadn't heard of Sidney Lanier, but he has quite a few things named after him around here.
The next day, we checked out the small town of Juliette where the movie "Fried Green Tomatoes" was filmed. Much of the town consists of the original movie set buildings and false fronts that have since been added onto and converted into touristy businesses. The antique shops were kind of fun to browse through (probably not so much for Rick), but we got the sneaking suspicion that much of the merchandise was procured from the local Goodwill.
The iconic Whistle Stop Cafe on the right (it's more exciting if you've seen the movie)
Interesting variety of merchandise at this establishment
Anyone need a creepy head?
A parting shot of Lake Juliette
The forecast did not look promising for our Monday travel day. Rain was predicted for most of the day, and it had rained most of the night before. However, we lucked out in the morning and managed to take down and do our business at the dump station in between rain spells. Shortly after leaving the campground, the deluge started up again.
The rain started just as we pulled out of the campground
We drove through pretty countryside that would have been photogenic but for the copious amount of rain. Fortunately, the rain stopped before we got to our campground on Lake Sidney Lanier, and we were very grateful for that.
Our lakeside campsite (taken on a sunny day)
The weather cooled substantially during our stay here. A couple of the days barely hit 60, but it was generally sunny. When it wasn't windy, it was quite pleasant to sit outside and take in the lake view. We didn't do much here except walk the campground loops each day and admire the scenic lake. This may be the only campground we have been to where every site is lakeside. It sure would be a great place for kids in the summertime, as there were many sandy coves with invitingly clear water in which to swim, float, or fish right from your campsite. Boating is probably really popular in the summer as well.
Dogwoods are one of Julie's (many) favorite trees
That's our camper
A very pretty lake
The following day brought some dramatic thunderstorms at the end of the day.
The calm before the storm
Julie was hoping for some more dramatic footage of the lightning, but this is all she got
The wind kicked up quite the whitecaps
The next couple of weeks we will be storing the camper and traveling to see family for Easter. Guess that means we will be "on vacation"! 😉
Gustav's got a girlfriend! 😉
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