Side Trip: Last Chance Thrift Store of Lithia Springs, GA

Somewhere between Georgia and Alabama, I began to feel like a stranger.

I'm not sure what tripped my foreignness detector. It wasn't the roads I drove--interstates, US routes, and even state routes are labeled with remarkable consistency across this country--but it could have been my utter unfamiliarity with the lay of the land they covered. It wasn't the small towns, either--Virginia's got plenty of those, and they all look more or less the same--but perhaps their names: Dahlonega, Chattahoochee, Eastaboga, Wetumpka, showing off a much stronger Native influence than my home state's sedate, largely Anglicized names. It wasn't the churches, but maybe the churchiness that seeped into billboards and bumper stickers and background music; everywhere I looked, Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior was exhorting me to Choose Life and mind my Eternal Destination. Motorcycles and white cars proliferated. Spanish moss grew on the roadside pines. The accents ranged from adorable to near-unintelligible.

All this, mixed together in the summerlike warmth of deep-Southern May, left me with a prickling sense of culture shock. I was the funny-talking stranger down here: the wide-eyed tourist, the confused out-of-state driver...

...and, yes, the only white girl in the Georgia thrift store.

Highpoint #9: Brasstown Bald, GA (4786')

I pulled into the gravel lot at the Jack's Gap trailhead around 10 pm that night. All the way there I'd looked for a campground--well, as long as the sunlight had lasted--but, it being a Saturday night, the only place I'd come across was full. So here I was. My itinerary had me camping a mile downhill from here along the AT, but it also had me arriving before dark, so...

After a brief look outside,

I decided the most prudent course of action was to stay in my car. I made some space in the backseat, then cuddled up beneath a blanket to wait out the night.

Hmm, I thought as I drifted off to sleep. This ain't so comfortable. How can I make the night shorter? Why, by waking up early and making a sunrise hike of the Bald! I set my phone's alarm for 6, figuring that would be more than enough time to hike the mile and a half to the summit before the sun came up, then conked out.

Now, if you've ever been to Brasstown Bald, particularly if you've hiked it, you might have noticed a mistake in that last sentence. You're absolutely right.