Georgia Guide Stones and Another Tornado??

Location: Sweetwater Valley KOA (el. 960 ft.); Sweetwater, Tennessee

all pictures taken with Nokia Lumia Icon 929 cell phone
(click pictures to enlarge)

I arrived here last Thursday afternoon after a 200 mile tow. It was interstate highway all the way and even going through parts of Atlanta I was able to average 55 miles per hour. I ran into to some stopped traffic right around the Tennessee state line due to an accident ahead. It was slow going during that 30 minutes, but it didn't bother me too much since it was a nice weather day and I had just been reminded of how bad things can get.

Foul weather passed through the campground Wednesday night as a cold front went through. There were two waves of bad storms that were clearly seen by radar. The first wave passed through about 10:30 and shook Liberty a little bit before the heavy rains started. Once the wind died down, I went to bed and thought the second wave would be a lot less intense. Boy, was I wrong. I woke up about 1:30 with Liberty rocking and rolling pretty good. I've been through some strong winds before in Liberty and she handles it pretty good. She is built strongly and the shape of her roof seems to help when the wind gets strong. This time it was a little different in that instead of rocking back and forth like she did early, this time she had a little twist to her. No sooner than she would rock one way, she was going back the other. It was the first time I've felt her move that way and it seemed as though she was jumping up and down a little. It lasted for just a short time and at first I thought I may have been dreaming. When I was fully awake, she was only gently rocking and the rain was coming down hard. Even though the electricity clicked off, I went back to sleep with the rain pounding the roof again. About 45 minutes later, I was awaken again with a bright white light shining in the windows and lighting everything up inside of Liberty. I looked at the time and it was 2:10 a.m. I was puzzled as to where the bright light was coming from until I looked out the window and saw a fire rescue unit with all of its lights on. That's also when I saw my neighbors RV laying on its side. The owner of the RV was 87 years old man and he was inside when the tornado/straight winds hit. He  was not injured and crawled out to call 911. The rescue unit stayed for about 45 minutes and took the old man somewhere for the night.

Evening before the storm

Neighbor's RV blown over

Looking right into the sun to see the RV

The next morning was moving day so I got a quick picture of the RV on its side before starting to hitch up. While I was hitching up I got another surprise. Both of my plastic wheel chocks were gone. I quickly looked around and spotted one down by the edge of the lake. I never did find the second one. Normally, when I hitch up, I have to either pull forward or backward to get both chocks from the tires. The wind had to have moved Liberty in order to blow the chocks away. I am very lucky in several ways. The wind that took out my neighbors trailer only played with Liberty by bouncing her around a little bit. I am also lucky I use metal X-chocks between the tires on Liberty. Had those X-chocks not been there when the wind blew my plastic tire chocks away, Liberty could have started rolling down the hill towards the lake. Yeah,,,, big time lucky. After getting hitched up, I had to drive through part of the campground to turn around and head to the exit. I noticed about 4 RV's whose chocks were missing or were no longer under their tires. It is amazing more RV's were not damaged. I told the park ranger about the chocks and that they should warn the other trailers. He said it would be done immediately. I drove away in a sober mood. I've dodged a couple of bullets recently. Someone upstairs and God is looking out for me. Whew. I hope whoever is shooting, is using a six-shooter because they should be "pert-near" out of bullets by now. 

On Tuesday, I drove over to see the Georgia Guidestones which was one of the main reasons I went to this part of Georgia. There isn't much to say about the guidestones. They mysteriously appeared in 1980 and the people responsible for them have remained anonymous. They are located in the middle of nowhere, similar to Cadillac Ranch in Amarillo, Texas. There is only one house within a mile or two of the stones. Some of the messages are right-on, while others are probably impossible. I'm guessing it is some old hippies that had some flash-backs from the 60's. These are the messages which are written in several languages:

1. Maintain humanity under 500,000,000 in perpetual balance with nature.
2. Guide reproduction wisely — improving fitness and diversity.
3. Unite humanity with a living new language.
4. Rule passion — faith — tradition — and all things with tempered reason.
5. Protect people and nations with fair laws and just courts.
6. Let all nations rule internally resolving external disputes in a world court.
7. Avoid petty laws and useless officials.
8. Balance personal rights with social duties.
9. Prize truth — beauty — love — seeking harmony with the infinite.
10. Be not a cancer on the earth — Leave room for nature — Leave room for nature.

I particularly like the way they said,,, "Leave room for nature" twice.

Nondescript road leading to the stones 

I was the only one there and this is the
first view.

The flat stone on the ground gives some
information as to the alignment of the stones.
It is also a time capsule, but the date of opening
was blank.

The English version. The notch at the top right corner
used to have a cube with numbers on it. It was removed
by the owners. You can search Youtube and see the numbers and letters that were on the backside.

I took this picture as I was driving away so you can see what an isolated located was chosen. There is video surveillance on the stones to prevent mischief

The next moving day is Monday the 11th. This campground, while a little more expensive than I like is situated near a road I have wanted to drive for a while. It was too cloudy and misting rain for the drive today, but tomorrow is suppose to be partly sunny, so we will see.

My current campsite at Sweetwater Valley KOA

Ya'll take care of each other. I'll Cya down the road.