Georgia Trip Day 4: Sightseeing

When I originally booked my trip to Georgia I didn't know how much time I would get to spend with Brandon.  I'd scheduled myself to leave on Thursday morning.  Later I found out that Brandon would be free until Friday.  So I extended my trip.  Thanks to getting my tickets directly from Southwest Airlines it was easy to change my flight.  However, I wasn't able to get another night at the cabin so Brandon and I had to check out on Thursday morning.  That's okay because we were ready to get out and go exploring.  

Our first stop was Uchee Lake which was right by the campground.  This sign says not to feed the alligators   

 It was a lot warmer than it had been during the past few days, but I was still a little cold so Brandon let me wear his platoon hoody.

 We had a lot of fun just hanging out and looking at the water.

 Brandon was wearing his uniform.  It was weird for me to see it on him, but he felt comfortable wearing it.

 After leaving the lake we drove up to Columbus and went for a walk in the historic district and along the river walk that is next to the Chattahoochee River.

 The river is really pretty.  The city has been taking down all the dams that span the river within the city limits.  If we were there in the summer we could have rafted down the river.

 We walked about a mile and a half down river.  We could have gone a lot further.  The city has made sure that the river walk extends all the way down into Fort Benning.

 Then we walked back upriver along the city streets so we could see what was up there.  They had a big sport complex that had some statues by it.

 We also got to see lots of really pretty houses.  I'm not sure of this, but it's possible that these homes are older than any home in Utah.

 We saw some cool trees too.  I have no idea what kind of trees they were.

 Anyway, it was a really cool walk.  And we got to see lots of neat buildings and stuff.

 Here's a little vacation secret for all of you: Stop at the Welcome/Visitors Centers.  You can get free road maps and brouchers by taking a few minutes to go inside a welcome center.  We went inside the one in Columbus and found out about something known as Georgia's Little Grand Canyon or Providence Canyon State Park.  It was less than an hour away so we decided to go there.

The canyon was created less than 150 years ago by poor farming techniques.  The farmers cleared the land and then the soil started eroding. Trenches that were only a few feet deep have become over 150 feet deep.

We went for a walk around the canyon floors.  There was water flowing on most of the trail.  Some of the water had this cool opalescence to it.

The walls were really cool to look at. They were made up of dirt.  Not rock like the red canyons in Utah.

Along the way we joked about how we like these types of places.  Brandon said, "What man-made natural wonder will we discover next."  (If you remember, we found a man-made geyser in July.)

It was kind of weird to be hiking, without a coat, in December.

Then we went up to the rim trail and looked down on some of the other canyons.

It was almost sunset and everything was really pretty.

There was something comforting about seeing red rocks.

It was definitely worth the drive.

We said goodbye to the park and drove to our hotel.  Our hotel was in Phenix City on the Alabama side of the river. So we took the Alabama roads back.

We checked into our hotel and then went in a mission to find somewhere suitable for a dinner to celebrate Brandon's graduation.  We wanted to eat some where that Utah doesn't have.  We ended up at a place called Smokey Bones.  We had a really nice waiter and the food was wonderful.  Too bad the closest one to Utah is in Illinios.

By this time it was really late and we drove back to our hotel.  We had a big king size bed, but that didn't stop us from sleeping next to each other all night long.