Visiting Vogel and Dahlonega

 I enjoyed being invited back to Vogel State Park to tell ghost stories at Possum Hollow (at the base of Blood Mountain) for a third year. 

We always stop at Penland Apple House to buy a few Evercrisp apples to take with us.

Vogel is a beautiful state park that I visited with my MYF and with my family as a preteen and early teen when we lived in Ellijay. We enjoyed looking through the arts and crafts tents at the Fall Festival there. 

The leaves are not in prime color yet, but still pretty.

We were early to arrive at "Possum Hollow" so we walked around for a while with the scores of Trick or Treaters going from ghoulishly decorated campsite to ghoulishly decorated campsite. Notice the "leg" sticking out of a door in the RV (upper left)?

 This is the tiny stream that flows past our storytelling circle. 

I opened the well-attended campfire ghost story session with a recital of "Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll. Then Melanie Knauff (above), Denise Mount, and I alternated with spooky tales. 

Afterward the three of us posed by the campfire for a commemorative photo.

Our friends Denise and Mike Mount had invited us to be house guests of theirs in Dahlonega so that we wouldn't have to drive back to Rome so late. We were happy to meet up with Troi again, here comfortable ensconced in her easy chair.

On Sunday morning we had "church" in the woodland behind Mike and Denise's beautiful rustic hillside home.

The rapidly expanding habitat of Joro spiders includes Dahlonega.

I asked about this wonderful offbeat birdhouse. I should have realized it was the creation of the father of our mutual friend and storyteller Melanie Knauff.

Sunday afternoon and Troi is once again making herself comfortable.

Denise and Mike are Trekkies and had this shirt hanging on a door. I had to record it to share with my Trekkie son-in-law. 

Hiking at Persimmon Ridge

 

It has become our custom to use the Thursday before the National Storytelling Festival to do something active, usually a hike of some sort. Today, with our storyteller friends Mike and Denise Mount, we explored Jonesborough, Tennessee's lovely Persimmon Ridge Park.

Note: the tentative botanical labels below are by this VERY amateur botany hobbyist. I mostly used the "Picture This" app. I will appreciate corrections if there are mistaken IDs.

Fan Clubmoss
Diphasiastrum digitatum

An interesting pair of intertwined tree trunks.

There were lots of relatively recent overturned trees. I asked Sheila to stand by this to give scale. Possibly the result of Hurricane Helene?

White Wood Aster 

Eurybia divaricata

Queen Ann's Lace (Carrot)
Daucus carota

Autumn Hawkbit
Scorzoneroides autumnalis

Mike approaches another overturned tree...

...the trees roots had found purchase through the soft layers of rock and clay in the soil. Some of the roots had grown very flat as they formed between the layers of rock.

A shelf mushroom

Pokeweed
Phytolacca americana

Oxeye Daisy
Leucanthemum vulgare

Frost grape
Vitis vulpina

Chicory
Cichorium intybus

Tall Goldenrod
Solidago altissima

Switchgrass
Panicum virgatum