#2: [29-Oct-12]

08-May-2000 -- My GPS receiver's batteries died just as I was far enough east of Athens on GA 72 that it seemed silly to turn around. I stopped at the first convenience store I saw, about 10 miles further down the road in Comer. That crisis averted, I continued another six miles or so through Madison County to Carlton to look for the road to Point Peter (which is in Oglethorpe County). Since I was solo and using a receiver without a built-in map, I was having to glance quickly at my paper atlas and guess which road I needed. It looked like it was labeled "Sandy Cross Rd." even though it went through Point Peter first, and continued south almost all the way to Lexington. I only drove a couple miles past Lexington Rd. before I realised that it probably changed names at the county line.

I knew I'd need to be turning left somewhere, since the confluence was just east of this road. There was one street labeled N. Point Peter Rd. in my atlas that looked like it came into the west side of a 4-way intersection exactly where I wanted to be (side note: the DeLorme maps are great, but they don't have near enough roads labeled to be useful for something like this). Point Peter, as it's marked on most road atlases, seems to be two churches (Glade Baptist and Glade Methodist, if I remember correctly) across the street from each other. That's it.

I found a dusty clay/gravel road headed vaguely east and labeled "Point Peter Rd.", so I figured I was in the right place. Within a mile or so, I was headed more south than east, and the road dead-ended at a granite quarry. I went back out and tried again. Not more than a couple hundred yards north was a narrow paved road that I didn't see the first time. I parked at 0.24 minutes south and 0.11 minutes west of the target, and started walking through the thick Georgia forest. After I crossed what seemed to be a dry stream bed, the going got a little easier, although the trees were still fairly thick. There were a couple of hopeful clearings, but they weren't quite right.

The best spot I found to stand without briers or poison ivy was near a small tree. It seems some other animal had already marked the spot (see photo #3). I only took a couple of pictures, because the scenery was pretty much the same in all directions.

Totals: about an hour driving time (including wrong turns), and about 30 minutes walking. I paid convenience store price for a pack of AA batteries, and had to get the car washed because the red Georgia clay from the road to the quarry coated it so thick the windows were foggy.