Last weekend, we got up early and hit the road heading for northeast Georgia for a MINI club event. It was a 2-1/2 hour drive just to get to the meeting point for an early lunch. On the highway, the mountains in the distance were shrouded in fog and low clouds. The day was supposed to be a bit rainy, but our drives go on rain or shine. There was another MINI on the road ahead of us, but they weren’t going our way.

Arriving at the restaurant, we parked together. This was about half of the MINIs that were coming. It was starting to sprinkle, so we went inside. We were lucky that the rain came down hard while we were eating, then held off while we were driving.

Our meeting point was The Cafe at 7M Farms in Blairsville, GA. We had not only a group of our club members, but we also invited a group from an Atlanta club to join us. The food here is fabulous. This was my lunch, a grilled stacked turkey and bacon sanwich with cheese on a multigrain bread. Yum!! It was so big I brought half of it back home for lunch the next day.

My Sweet Babboo had a French dip with tender roast beef and cheese on a baguette with a rich beef broth.

After lunch, we set off for a great drive.

The Richard B. Russell Scenic Highway has a 23-mile loop of twisty roads. As it was raining off and on, we tooled along at a slower pace.

There were pastoral scenes with with old barns, surrounded by a hundred shades of green.

Around more curves, more lush green and tall trees line the road.

We stopped for a quick break, then got back on the road in a different order. The rock formations where the mountain was cut for the road are so interesting to see.

The whole group came to a halt when a Canadian goose family was crossing the road. There were several little ones, but I only got one little gosling with the parents in the quick photo as we drove by them.

I love the mountains especially when we can see the land rising above the roads.

So much green as late spring turns to summer. The clouds were low on the mountain tops for much of the drive.

The drive was over an hour, and ended in Young-Harris, Georgia.

The clouds were lifting as we got close to the town.

The final stop was one of our favorite ways to end a drive, at an ice cream shop. We had social time while enjoying slow churned goodness in amazing flavors. I had a very dark chocolate, while My Sweet Babboo went for peach. They also had strawberry cheesecake and lavender among other flavors. It was a fun day with friends in beautiful country.

It has continued to rain most of this week, bringing more flooding to already hard hit Bat Cave, Gerton and Lake Lure from Hurricane Helene 20 months ago. It is heartbreaking to hear that a recently repaired bridge washed out again, and that water cascading off the mountains brought more debris to Lake Lure. They had just reopened the lake for boating last Monday, and now it is closed again. The road that runs next to the river, Hwy 9, is closed again as a sinkhole opened up under the road, and a short section of Hwy 74 washed out again as well. Both roads will be open only to local traffic for a while as temporary repairs were made in just a couple of days.

The rainy days have been great for sewing though. I found a project in progress I had forgotten about, and I hope to finish it off over the weekend. I will show you that next week.