Slow July in the Georgia Highlands: Reflections from the Blue Ridge

This July marks our fourth summer escaping to the Georgia Highlands, tucked in the southern tip of the Blue Ridge mountains. We leave behind the heat, humidity, and vacation crowds of Hilton Head Island for a different pace—one that comes easily here.

Up high, a 360-degree view of mountains stretches out. Staring into their distance is a pastime itself. The weather is visible for miles: clouds gather and dissolve, patches of sunlight filter through, and sometimes you see bands of rain dropping like curtains, wondering if they will drift your way. The wind will warn of a front; now and then clouds roll in thick and low, bringing wind or just a passing show.

As I write, it’s raining—loud, heavy drops. Sometimes there’s lightning far off, thunder rumbling in the background. Here, slow living is as natural as the mountain air. It’s about patience, absorbing the sights and sounds—weather, birds, and southern dialects that shift from town to town. It’s about understanding that comes from staying put, including the silence for self-reflection and taking time to heal.

We meet with friends we’ve made here over the years. The land itself is full of stories—listen to the river names: Ellijay, Toccoa, Nottely. There are the plateau towns—Dahlonega, Ducktown, Hiawassee. Most of the Blue Ridge peaks in this area top 3,000 -4,000 feet. The ridgeline wobbles and weaves. I came across a fitting line in an old book—Georgia Birds, published in 1958 and discovered in a used bookstore in Blue Ridge: “The Blue Ridge forms the crooked backbone of the Georgia Highland and marks the southern boundary of the drainage basin of the Mississippi River.”

Geology matters here. The hills are built of marble, granite, schist, quartzite, and gneiss—rock solid and aged. The valleys hold family farms: fields of vegetables, berries, and rows of peaches. There are flocks of chickens raised for the region’s processor, Pilgrim. These old Appalachian hills have a quiet, sturdy grace, growing older, like me.

Sometimes I spend part of the day with my camera, looking for birds in the farmland nearby. In the hottest part of the afternoon, I find a shady spot beside rows of crops or under the edge of a tree line and listen. Most birds are hidden from the sun, tucked into thick canopy or brush, but their songs carry. Song Sparrows and Indigo Buntings can be heard before they’re seen. There’s a pair of Indigo Buntings in a dense bush close by—the blue male flashes out into the sun for a moment, then melts back into the thicket. Carolina Wrens call out boldly as they move along a big branch. Eastern Bluebirds and Mourning Doves perch on the high lines above the fields, resting in the quiet. Once, while I sat beside a patch of sunflowers, a Ruby-throated Hummingbird hovered in front of me, paused to look me over, then darted up into a tree. I’ve watched an Eastern Phoebe tending a nest inside a barn, and caught the yellow blur of an American Goldfinch overhead. Now and then I hear the call of a Blue Grosbeak, and this summer, there seems to be an Eastern Towhee around every corner.

Slow travel, slow living—it’s easy here.