Day Fourteen: Beech Mtn to Warm Springs, GA (607 mi)

The temperatures were in the low 50s when we left Beech around 8 this morning (Friday, Oct 14), but in the upper 70s when we finally stopped for the night at FDR State Park, near Warm Springs, GA.  Our primary destination for the day was the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library in Atlanta, GA, which we reached at 2:30 p.m.  This museum and library were part of a larger complex called the Carter Center, dedicated to the promotion of peace and resolution of political conflicts around the world.  The Carters are, without a doubt, among the most activist (doing humanitarian things), if not the most active, ex-presidential couples our nation has ever seen.  As an example, they have carved out time, for twenty-five consecutive years now, to devote a week to a Habitat for Humanity house-building project at various locations around the country.

The weather today was just spectacular.  We drove from NC to TN, then back to NC in order to get to where we needed to be, stopping on the TN/NC border (the 2nd place we crossed it!) to enjoy the views pictured among today's photos (see right column).  Color along the highway for most of the day was simply brilliant.  We added the state of South Carolina to our list of states visited as a school as we headed for the Peach State (GA) and Carter Center.

I had forgotten that there was now a national historic site in downtown Atlanta that includes the famous Ebenezer Baptist Church, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthplace and childhood home, and the burial site for Martin and Coretta, along with a Civil Rights Museum.  Since this was only a few minutes from the Carter Center we added a quick visit to the MLK Historic District to our day's itinerary before fighting rush hour traffic on our way south and out of Atlanta.  It was an addition I was glad to have make.

As we were looking at options for where to camp tonight we quickly realized that we were not going to get too far from Atlanta before needing to stop; at this point we saw that FDR's "Little White House" at Warm Springs, GA was not much of a detour so we headed that way.  It was a bit of a stretch and we ended up arriving after dark.  This was our first time to have to set up camp after dark, but we managed fine; we would not have been able to do so at the beginning of the trip, but we're old pros at this camping business now so it was not a problem.  Turns out, though, that we picked the week-end of some big annual foot race that has over 1,000 participants; the starting point is in the park, and at 5 in the morning!  As a consequence of this, in spite of this park being the largest in the state, we got the very last available site.  Another example of the lucky star we've been following this entire trip.

Following that lucky star, this is Veritas -- discovering our world, making a difference.