Dan informed me that the roosting egrets I saw last night were probably holes in the tree line across the water. Maybe...
We got on the road about 11 a.m. after a leisurely morning with breakfast and breaking camp. We haven’t camped for a while so it seemed to take a long time.
We stopped in Americus for lunch at Dingess Magee’s, formerly a bank building.
We stopped in Lumpkin, GA to check out the 1836 Bedingfield Inn (closed). The town has stores on either side of the courthouse square. It is very picturesque.
We headed out of town to the Providence Canyon State Park 8 miles west of town. It is described as Georgia's Little Grand Canyon and one of the seven natural wonders in Georgia.
The state park has trails down to the canyon floor and primitive camping is allowed by hiking in a few miles.
We took the easy way out by looking down into the 150 feet canyon walls. I was surprised to find out that the deep canyons are the result of poor farming practices 160 years ago. The early settlers in the 1830s cleared the land, and planted crops in rows going downhill so when the summer rains came, the rains caused gullies as the dirt ran off the fields. A few more years of that caused deeper gullies and because of the geologic features of the soiled caused massive erosion.
After the top layer of good old Georgia red clay washed away, the sandy layers underneath collapsed and now we can a great scenic wonder. The ranger on duty said they lose 2-5 feet a year around the edge and they have to keep moving the fence line back. As we took in the views, you could see where the fence had been moved back and it needed to move again in a few spots.
We arrived at Florence Marina State Park to lay claim to a campsite under tall pine trees. We are having a heat wave and discovered it was 94 degrees. No wonder I kept saying, “It’s hot!” every time we got out of the van.
We kept the air conditioner going until bedtime when it cooled down enough to turn it off.
