As is our fall tradition, we ventured out once again to the North Georgia and North Carolina mountains to enjoy the beautiful change of season colors. Here on the island, there is very little color change in that we mostly have oaks, pines, sun and sand. The grapevines do afford some change of color, but not enough to satisfy my autumn needs. We headed out on Friday evening and spent our first night in Macon, GA. We arrived the following day around lunch in Hiawassee, GA meeting up with Ryan, Ashley, Sy & Daisey who had been there since Thursday. The rental house is right on Lake Chatuge and although very modest, was nice and the views were awesome! Shortly after we arrived, we had lunch along with live entertainment. Ryan, Ashley & Sy had just had lunch there earlier and joined us so Ashley could get a brownie sundae for dessert. Sy was really digging the band and got down on the floor and did a little jig every now and then or just chair danced. That evening, Ryan & Ashley went to a BBQ restaurant called and we stayed home with Sy and just relaxed. The following day we drove over to Young Harris to visit a small waterfall on the college campus called The Thomaston Road Falls. From there we went to High Shoals Falls near Unicoi State Park. The hike was about 1.2 miles and was a pretty tough hike when you are not used to climbing and descending on rugged terrain filled with roots and rocks. Sy had it made because he mostly rode on his Daddy, Mama or Grandpa’s shoulders. Notice the omission of Grandma? I could barely keep myself from slipping and/or sliding, so I declined not to do any grandson toting. Trust me - this was in his best interest. (When we got back to the house, Ashley noticed that his boots still contained the paper stuffing in the toes, so maybe that is why he didn’t want to walk?) The falls were beautiful and looking back, it was worth the effort. My legs and lungs would probably argue that point though. Ashley and I had to take a “few” (okay about a dozen) breaks due to lack of oxygen, leg or knee pains and luckily there were boulders here and there to accommodate. There was a couple we passed on our way to the trailhead who chose to walk rather than drive across this little creek and who actually passed us coming and going. We obviously suck as hikers, but they did hitch a ride back with us to their car when we left, so that made us feel somewhat better about ourselves. When we returned to the house, Ryan, Ashley & Sy left to go back home. It was about 4:00 p.m. when they left and they made it home around mid-night that night the best I remember. That’s a long ride ya’ll! Sy, the luggage and Daisey were packed like sardines in that back seat too. That night, Gary and I had dinner at the BBQ restaurant. I had baby back ribs, a sweet potato and baked beans and Gary had beef, fries and baked bean. His beef was very dry, but mine was yummy. I had a whole rack, so I shared with him. The restaurant was nice and had brown paper bag placemats, brown napkins and the food was served in these metal pie plate type dishes. When we checked out, they had these cute little pottery pigs and chickens at the register. The pigs were sitting in an uncooked pile of beans (pork & beans) and the chickens sat in a pile of uncooked rice (chicken and rice). Tee hee, hee!
We got a late check-out the next day and eventually headed to Sky Valley (by way of Dillard) around noonish. We met the gang (John, Judy, Steve and Linda) at the Wal-Mart, followed by a stop at Engle’s to stock up on groceries for the week. After that, we rode over to Steve and Linda’s camp site because they left some laundry in the washing machine. This year, we got the bedroom with the twin beds instead of the room with the Queen bed. The beds were different from before in that they were canopy beds, not just twins. They didn’t actually have a fabric canopy on them, just the canopy frame, but the first night I got so flip’n tickled at how funny Gary looked in a twin canopy bed with a girly bedspread that I could NOT stop laughing and even got the walking farts! Well that just made the laughing get even worse and uncontrollable. Several times after we had settled in, one or the other of us would start laughing all over again. Linda even knocked on our door to see what all the laughing was about! The beds were very comfortable though so we eventually went to sleep and slept peacefully each night thereafter.
Over the course of the next few days, us girls went into Dillard and shopped and had lunch, we all visited Black Stone Mountain State Park and the Firefox Museum. We couldn’t believe we had never visited either one during any of our other visits since they were so close by. We had a nice time at both. Gary and I left on Friday and on the way back we stopped at a nearby fruit and vegetable stand and bought a big ole bag of fresh locally grown cabbage straight off the wagon. The bag had about 12 heads in it and we gave them out as souvenirs when we got home!
