Georgia - Day 15 - Covington and Milledgeville

Little River Park Campground, Milledgeville

Friday, 7 April 2023

This morning started out in an absolutely ghastly manner.

First, I overslept, by about an hour.

Then, I discovered that during the night, Jimmy had pooped inside the carrying case they spend the night in, and the 2 of them (mostly Jimmy) managed to spread it all over the case.  It took ages to clean out and still isn't completely clean; I'll have to work on it more later.  The problem was that some of the feces got into the mesh that covers most of the case, that allows them light and air and a view.  Not a place that's easy to wipe clean of feces.

Later, when Bucky was doing his usual game of shoving the water bowl around, he spread water all over the floor, which of course I had to clean up, floor space being at a premium.

Then Jimmy threw up a hairball - yet another mess to clean up.

Because the campsite started out as being sloped, and because gravity enhances the slope over time, I was dealing with all this on a tilted floor with everything in the cabin tilted.  Not to a serious degree, but it all added to the stress.

And for some reason, today was a bad day for my asthma-caused cough, so I was contending with that while I was bending over to clean.  

Note that all this was before we'd even left the campground.  I decided I'd better be very careful while driving, in case my luck wasn't operating today.

On a brighter note, apparently it rained during the night and I didn't hear a thing.  When Dext and I were out on our 2nd walk, another camper said to me that the rain had "certainly been spirited" which I thought was a nice way to put it.

today's route

The section of the campground I'd been staying in ran alongside the lower portion of the Towaliga River, and it looked more like a creek along there.  Just out of the entry gate though, the road passed the upriver source of the creek: the falls that are the basis for the state park's name - High Falls.  They're more cascades than waterfalls, but they're pretty and I stopped to take some photos.

The upper photo is on the upriver side of the bridge, showing the water coming over the dam and flowing down to the bridge the road uses; the lower video shows the water on the downriver side of the bridge.

About 10 miles from the campground was the town of Jackson, est. 1826.  I spent so much time in the western US that these earlier dates in the east can still catch me by surprise.

The drive took us through lots and lots of trees.  With some frequency I passed groupings of nice houses that didn't appear to be in any town.  They didn't look like farmhouses, they weren't a housing development - they were just 6 or 10 houses fairly near each other, fairly large and well kept.

The South River and the Yellow River are surprisingly close together and both were wide and full.  I was curious about their placing and learned online that those 2 plus the Alcovy River join at Lake Jackson to create the Ocmulgee River which eventually flows into the Atlantic Ocean.

And I arrived at the town of Covington.  I came here because I thought I'd read somewhere that Sherman's March to the Sea included this town and then went on to Milledgeville, where I'm staying tonight.  Now I can't find the source for that, but I'm still glad I stopped here.  The City Park and Visitor Center had some surprises.

For a minute, I thought I'd come to the wrong town -
was it Covington or Mystic Falls - and even wondered if I'd
somehow crossed into Virginia.
Then there was the upside down 1822/2022 sign.

Then I saw this sign
outside the welcome center.

Still a little befuddled, but I had Dexter with me so I couldn't go inside, and instead we walked over onto the big green shaded lawn.  And that's when I found this sign:

I still didn't have any idea of what they were talking about, so we just kept on walking and soon all became clear.  Here's what we found:

These are just a sample.  Each of these signs had a different movie or TV show on the back side, and these aren't even half of the posts there.  I grant you the town's picturesque, but this is an incredible selection of shows to have filmed here.

And that vampire tour - The Vampire Diaries ran on TV from 2009 until 2017 and had a spinoff or 2.  But it's quite obviously still popular, because while I was there, I took a photo for 3 young women at the "Welcome to Mystic Falls" sign who were in town to see the vampire sights/sites.  And off they went walking around town with the map they'd gotten from the visitor center.  I guess that's what Momma and I were missing by getting our TV shows only over-the-air instead of paying for it.  Oh well.

I drove around town a bit (and amazingly got lost yet again, thanks to Google's less than clear directions), but I found the county courthouse.

Newton County Courthouse
I  took this because I thought the clock tower was neat, but
apparently this building is of great significance to the vampire folks.

There were also some very nice old houses in the Covington Historic District.

Back on the road, I crossed the Alcovy River (heading towards contributing to the Ocmulgee River).

In somebody's yard I saw a sign that said: "I still oppose RIVIAN."  I'd never heard of this and looked it up.  It's a new American company, HQ'd in California, that's making all-electric vehicles.  And it's planning to build a manufacturing plant in Georgia.  If you're curious, as I was, here's their Wikipedia page.   https://en.wikipedia.org/Rivian

In Eatonton in Putnam County, I saw a sign saying it was the "Dairy Capital of Georgia."  Although I didn't see enough cows to constitute a dairy capital, I don't doubt them.

I crossed several bridges pretty close together, most of which didn't say what they crossed.  But a sign at another bridge said "Gregory Bridge" and that it crossed the Little River.

Finally I came to Milledgeville in Baldwin County, "Georgia's Lake Country."

This will sound dumb, but I first heard of Milledgeville in the movie Pretty Woman, because Julia Roberts's character says she's from here.  And I got the impression it was basically Hicksville.  Well, maybe it was when that movie was made, but these days it's bustling.  It has 17,000 residents and is home to the Georgia Military College, among other things.  During the Civil War, it was the state capital, which is why Sherman came through here.

I'd always heard that Sherman's campaign here was a "scorched earth" strategy, which in fact is the way it's described in Wikipedia.  But I'm not sure that's correct.  Over and over, including in Georgia Encyclopedia, I found a description of a military campaign designed to bring the war to an end as quickly as possible: by convincing Southerners both that the US military was far more powerful than they'd believed as well as that the Confederate troops couldn't protect them.  Which is exactly what this campaign did.  (Reminiscent of Truman's rationale for using the atomic bombs in Japan.)

You have your choice of articles here, each with slightly different information but all help explain the basis for the continuing perception of Sherman's brutality.    https://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/shermans-march-to-the-sea   https://www.battlefields.org/shermans-march-sea   https://www.history.com/shermans-march

Coming into Milledgeville, I passed Andalusia Historical Site, protecting the previous home of the writer Flannery O'Connor.  It's open for public tours.

I saw a billboard that showed a red elephant and said, "Let's address the elephant in the room - some people don't want to vote - we do.  Pledge to vote."  And it was signed "Black Lives Matter" and "Ben & Jerry's."

I was aiming for the center of town, and managed to get lost yet again.  But eventually I came to the town's library, which looked online like I'd be able to park there without getting into trouble.  And I was right.

I chose it because it was across the street from where I could find the former capitol building of the Confederacy, and while I was there I stumbled across some other interesting historic artifacts.

The entryway to the former state capitol
and the Georgia Military College campus.

The former state capitol (reproduction)

This plaque was attached to one side of the old capitol.

In a narrow median in a street by the library, I found this monument:

details enlarged below

The carving says this "tribute" to the
Confederate soldier was unveiled in 1912.

This carving was on the opposite side of
the statue

Granted 1912 was a time of flowery language, and granted statues like these were intended to glorify, still it seems a bit much to say the Confederate soldiers showed "courage . . . unrivalled since the dawn of civilization."  After all, they lost.

Apparently a sample of Georgia politics.

This stone was a block away from that statue above.

This building was back-to-back with the public library building,
except for the large parking lot between them.

I took Dexter around with me as I toured these points of interest, so he had a little walk.  Then we left the library parking lot and I immediately got lost again.  I really have been trying to follow Google's instructions but can't seem to find the streets it says are there.  Anyway, I finally got to the Valvoline place, and convinced them that my RV would fit in their bay if the clearance really was at least 11', which I'd been told it was when I called the other day.  And sure enough, I got in, they changed my oil and checked the other fluids, and very nicely directed me both in and out of the very narrow space all these places have.  (Fine for passenger cars, not so easy for others.)

I found the campground more easily than I expected, since I hadn't seen it when we passed that way into town.  When I pulled up to the campground office, it started drizzling - then turned into a full-blown downpour while I was inside.  And it let up right after I'd gotten us in the campsite and plugged in.  But at least that let me take Dext out without being in the pouring rain.

And I ended the day by doing a better job of cleaning the cat's carrying case so they can sleep in it tonight.