Big rocker, why it's there and enjoying the ride

- How I managed to pass this over sized rocking chair, in the middle of nowhere, in northeast Georgia:  I was coming back from my festival trip late Sunday afternoon and took a detour road home that brought me to this rather desolate highway (GA-52) near Lula, Georgia.  I spotted this unusual sight, backed up and stopped to take the photos.  There was no explanation for it.  I love things like that.  (Of course.)

- But the wonders of Google gave me this:  "Just outside Lula, down a winding country road is a hard-to-miss attraction that keeps people in its seat.

Dwight Oliver, of Goldbrook Pumpkin Farm, said he originally built the giant rocking chair as a place for schoolchildren visiting the farm to gather for pictures.  The fifteen or so foot chair, he said, can hold thirty kids.

Oliver said he sees car tags from all over as people stop to take a look or get a picture of the orange-and-white chair.  Some folks have even sat in the chair waving at passers by as if they were sitting on their own front porch, he said.

And everyone around knows about the big chair on the corner of Persimmon Tree Road and Lula Road.  According to Oliver, the farm can't move the chair anywhere else, or "people won't know where we are."  After seven years, the chair is a permanent fixture."

- The oddest thing was that I realized later that my GPS took me this way, when there was a much more direct route home.  But I loved this long and winding road, with its farms and rolling country fields.  I guess GPS knew I'd like to see this giant rocker.  :)

Back porch gnome, castle gnomes and the journey there

- This gnome resides on the back porch of sister and brother-in-law's cottage beside the Hiwassee River in western North Carolina.  The cottage used to belong to his late parents, who changed vacation houses from a lake house in northern Florida to this one about 20 years ago (cooler weather and all that).  So the gnome moved with them from the lake to the river.  A minor alarming incident was caused once when the gnome was still at Lake Talquin and one of the other son's friends took him after a visit.  Apparently he wanted to take the gnome on one of those photo shoot things in which he would be placed in funny places with photos posted, etc.  But the gnome was safely returned and I think he has the look of one who has seen much.  :)

- When I was driving back from North Carolina on Sunday afternoon, I had set my GPS to the address of my friend Jeanne's home in Snellville, Georgia (a suburb of Atlanta), where she would be hosting book club.  I was going straight there.  So when I reached I-575 in Canton, Georgia (about 30 or so miles north of Atlanta), my GPS told me to exit and turn left.  Hmmm.  Was I being messed with by the GPS?  It has done that before.  Shrugging - I exited, thinking there must be some parkway going east to the Atlanta 'burbs that I  didn't know about.  Oh the journey - it took an hour and 20 minutes to drive that way via a state highway (140 east) - with many traffic lights.  But much of it was beautiful - especially in the Crabapple / Hickory Flats area.  And I passed by this astounding sight - a mysterious "castle" guarded by - yes, gnomes.  (I didn't have time to stop, so I borrowed the photos from Google images.)

- There's a short write-up on the castle here.  I love that it has a moat and drawbridges.  The house was built with granite from Georgia quarries and apparently has a subterranean living space.  Totally unexpected in an otherwise suburban landscape.

And I was only 30 minutes late to book club, with many tales of my journey there.  :)