Bad Lifetime Movie or

if you are closer to my age, a setting for a Mannix murder.   This weekend, on our way back to Lawrenceville, my honey and I stopped at Smith Station Antiques in Ellijay.   

We have gone by this place before but it was always closed, but as luck would have it as we were driving home from our getaway weekend, we noticed the owner was out and about and the sign said OPEN.

 Located off the main highway, this location just begs for the antiquer/collector to stop by as every square inch of property and house is filled with, no, overloaded with items.

 Rusty, chippy, glassy pieces are lined up and sitting on the walkway into the house.  I wondered what treasure I would come home with and couldn't wait to get inside that house.

 As you enter the house, this is what you see at the threshold.  Please note that the flash from the camera makes everything look brighter and cleaner...Trust me, it wasn't.   From top to bottom, side to side, almost every walkable space had items everywhere. Had a bit of a "Hoarders" appearance; dark and musty with a radio playing dust bowl, evangelist music which blared in every room.  I'm normally attracted to the weird but there was just something about this place that started to creep the SeaWitch out and it is very, very hard to creep me out.  I began to ask myself would I just disappear among the dusty, rusty items never to be seen again?  Too many bad, Lifetime movies were running through my head the deeper I tried to walk around this place.  You know the bad, made for television type movie that tells the story of a nondescript, 58 year old woman who is interested in antiques, stops by a small town shop in search of treasure.  Queue the weird music and then you see the woman fall to the floor, not really seeing the crazed hatchet murderer that took her out.   Thirty years go by and a young couple walks through looking for a collectible and they find a masticated lifesize doll sitting amongst copper still and machine parts wearing a floppy hat.  How interesting they say, not realizing that it's a dried up Seawitch they think is a scary movie prop.

Stuffed wildcat was hiding around a corner. I wondered if I would end up, stuffed, next to this cat.

 

 Shelves of face jugs and other crockery were pretty cool but sadly, all appeared to be chipped or deeply cracked.

 Lots of little notes are posted in and around.  This was one that was not as angry as a few of the others. Apparently, the owner did not like being compared to some of the locations seen on American Pickers. LOL

There is money in the jar so I guess a few folks were scared enough to drop in cash rather than deal with confrontation.

 The side yard of iron beds and hub caps ran up to the wood line.  There was so much to find in this shop but I have to share that most of it was rusted out badly, chipped or just plain "beat to snot."  None of this would be bad except that the prices on the items were so obscene that it was laughable.  All items and I mean all were priced like they were high end, pristine condition, book value which explains why very little seems to have moved out of the place.  The only thing I walked away with was this story for the blog.

Still, my honey and I had a wonderful time driving around the North Georgia Mountains this weekend.  We checked out the Noontoola Creek Farms Sporting Clay Range in Blue Ridge, GA.  Lovely location and we couldn't ask for nicer weather which was 71 degrees...hard to believe that we are in the middle of January. 

 The twelve shooting stations were in nestled in the North Georgia woods.  Beautiful scenery, the sounds of nature around us and the air was filled with the sweet scent of cedar.

 It was station ten that we declared the best as it was at the top of mountain and you could see for miles when you approached the stand.  Breathtaking.

The sky was a lovely, overcast french blue against the backdrop of the Georgia mountaintops which gave us a magnificent view. 

Loved the way these three hardwoods were so close together.  Just had to look up and see how they framed the sky.

Every shot was interesting, I could have taken so many more. 

 My honey in his glory.  He is a happy shooter...and very handsome too!

Our Sunday morning drive took us through the mountains and as we climbed we truly were in the heavens.  A very dense fog seemed to appear out of nowhere and forced our switchback drive to about 3-5 miles per hour.  Didn't mind at all as the fog provided a veiled screen to snap photos as we drove through the mountains.

I shot these as we slowly drove down the mountain.  The dense fog was just beginning to  open up and I really like this particular shot.  Thinking about blowing it up and framing it.

 

Took this from the moon roof.  Love the angle of the trees.

Another moon roof shot.  Reminds me so of being up north with the black trees against the gray sky.  It looks cold but the temps were in the high 60s as we drove down the mountain.

 The fog is beginning to disappear as we get to the base of the mountains.

 

At the base, the fog was gone, the sun was shining and the temps were back at 71 degrees once we left the mountain road.  Hard to believe that within 15 minutes we disappear into fog only to appear into clear, sunny views.  We saw deer in many of these fields nibbling on field corn that missed the harvest.

I leave you with these words stitched on this down filled pillow that sits on the pretty red iron settee as you enter the Woodbridge Inn.  Once I have them translated I will revise this post. So until I have the translation, "Blessings to you and those you love."  Sea Witch