On our way home we decided to make a detour to Ellijay, Ga. We were so close to the best pumpkin patch ever, that driving for a little bit longer really didn’t bother us too much. Burt’s Pumpkin Patch is wonderful for families and the prices are so good. We went on a two-mile hay ride, picked out several pumpkins to take home, and drank apple cider. The boys had a great time.
Filed under Fun Outings, Georgia, Vacations
We started our day by stopping at Mercer Orchards. They are one of the largest orchards in the area and known for their “u-picking” and different jams, jellies, and butters. Currently, they were picking strawberries and the blueberries were expected to be ready by the end of the week…so we decided to pass and instead browsed through their gift shop. We bought some old-fashioned peach butter and some peach butter with honey. On the way back to the truck, Andy noticed that we had a flat tire. Uh oh! So, he ended up calling AAA and waiting while the boys and I went on a tractor ride through the orchards. We saw apple trees, peach trees, cherry trees, pecan trees, strawberry plants, blueberry bushes and more. By the time we got back the tire was changed and we were on our way!
From here we drove over to McCaysville to go tubing. We found a company that didn’t have a minimum age requirement, perfect for Matty. It seems that most of them require that the children be 5, but Matty is awesome and can do anything! The Toccoa River Adventures offered floats for $6 per person, cheap outdoor fun! We decided on the short float which was about and hour and forty five minutes. The boys had a great time. The water was cold, but not to cold…. Andy and Matty even braved it in to do a little swimming.
For lunch we headed back to Blue Ridge and ate at Blue Ridge Mountain BBQ. It is another walk up BBQ place that has a lot to offer and delicious food. After lunch we promised Davy that we would take him mining for gems. That was his one request on this trip, so of course we had to find a place. Right off of the main street there was a place called Huck’s Lost Mine. The large buckets were $25 and it came with a round of mini golf for two. The bucket was packed full of treasures and the boys had a great time playing in the mud. We wandered over to the ice cream shop and then took off south for a quick hike at Fall Branch Falls to end the day.
The hike was only about a quarter-mile and it let you walk right up to the waterfall. At the bottom of the hike, across a small field, there’s access to the creek for the kids to play in.
Filed under Fun Outings, Georgia, Memorial Day Weekend, Vacations
We loved this little cabin that we found on VRBO.com. It is advertised as a two bedroom, but it also has a loft that has two additional twin beds, so all together it has three bedrooms, 5 beds, plus two sleeper couches. It was the perfect size for us, and a perfect price $109 a night. What made the experience even so much better, were all of the extras that the house had. There were tons of stuffed animals, books, movies, games, a large screened in porch, a hot tub overlooking the mountains, a hammock, a fire pit, a swing, and a zip line.
The swing was fun for the them, but a little scary for us. When you push them off, you are standing on the side of the mountain and it proceeds to slope down so the kids are so much higher than if the ground was flat.
The zip line was far and fast. Andy had to stand at one end and I stood at the other to catch them. If they were older they would be able to stop themselves on the tree at the end, but our poor little guys would have crashed into it. I tried to get their pictures when they were about half way, but they were flying towards me and I was afraid of them crashing. They loved it!
Sunday night and Monday night, we ended in the hot tub. The temperature dropped down a little and the kids just had a great time. Next time we head back to Blue Ridge, this will definitely be where we stay!
Filed under Georgia, Memorial Day Weekend, Vacations
Rise and shine! Today we are off to Chattanooga. We make a pit stop for some donuts and coffee and we are on our way. We decided to take the route to the north driving us through Cherokee National Forest. The road wraps alongside the Ocoee River and we made a quick stop to let the boys see the whitewater rafters. Of course little Matty points and says, “I wanna do that!” 🙂
Our fun outing today was to Rock City. Check it out at www.seerockcity.com . Special features are:
Davy loved the gnomes and the trail. At the top they had a few additional activities like the rock wall, live music, food, etc.
At the bottom we stopped at the gift shop and I had to buy the famous bird house :), only ours is an ornament! For lunch we decided to head on over to downtown Chattanooga to try one of their famous local restaurants. We ended up at the Terminal Brewhouse. I pulled this information off of their website www.terminalbrewhouse.com.
“The Terminal Station (Choo Choo) opened in December of 1909 and created an immediate need for a nearby hotel to give comfort to the weary travelers. The very next year The Stong building (no that is not a typo) was built next door and The Terminal Hotel came to life soon after.
A pictorial book, Pen and Sunlight Sketches of Chattanooga, reported that in its location and equipment, it is eminently representative of progress in the hotel facilities of this thriving city.” The hotel featured steam-heated rooms (fancy), with meals served all hours in a café.
Legend holds that through the years the Stong building was home to speakeasies during prohibition, illegal casinos and even a house of ill repute. There may even have been some activities that took place in the fine building that one would not approve of although none come to mind.
Sometime in the early 1940’s Chester Davis, a porter at the Terminal Station, saved his tips and purchased the Stong building becoming one of the first black business owners in Chattanooga. The building stayed in his family, housing many different businesses, until purchased in 2006 by local raconteur Joe Sliger who immediately began restoring the property. Not long after he found a motley (but dashing) crew interested in this Historic building. This band of visionaries had, coincidentally, a vision for the wonderful old building. The walls and rafters seemed to cry out to these rugged, brilliant men. “Beer” said the walls “amazing food” said the rafters and so, despite being terrified of the talking building, an idea was born. After MUCH struggling and MANY delays The Terminal BrewHouse came alive and there was much rejoicing verily and thusly.”
They even let you take home some of their fresh brews in growlers, a half-gallon jar or jug used to transport…beer! Andy was in heaven! After lunch we went to the Chickamauga Battlefield. Davy has shown a lot of interest in soldiers and history lately, so this was perfect for him. We watched a 20 minute movie on the Civil War battles that took place here and we got to listen to a live talk on the soldiers uniforms that they wore and how to load and fire an 1840 Baltimore rifle. It was so loud! I can’t even imagine what it would have sounded like to have thousands of them going off at once.
One interesting fact that we learned was that the soldiers wore wool instead of cotton. The cotton at that time caught on fire pretty easily, so with the guns blowing off gun powder and the ash that flew through the air it was best if they wore wool (even though it was hot out) so that their clothes didn’t catch on fire. Davy liked how the soldiers didn’t really use the bayonets, except to stab into the ground and hold a candle at night.
After a long day, we decided to pick up a few frozen pizzas and head back to the house for a little fun.
Every year, on the last Friday in May, Davy gets out of school at 11am. His summer officially begins at 11:01 and keeping with a new tradition that we started last year, we loaded up in the car and headed north. Last fall, when we were driving around north Georgia, we came across a little town called Blue Ridge. We decided that this would be our destination in the spring. We found a cute little cabin about 5 miles outside of town on www.vrbo.com (#14512), and it was perfect. The drive up was only around eight and a half hours, it was super easy and we weren’t to tired.
Our first day of exploring! We started with breakfast down in Blue Ridge at a cute little place called Serenity Garden Cafe. Our thoughts were to kill a little time because Blue Ridge was having their spring arts festival and it opened at 10am. What we didn’t anticipate was that they would charge you $5 per person to stroll through it. Needless to say, we passed and decided to get on the road. Crane Creek Vineyards was also having a spring festival, so Andy decided to drive us in that general direction and here’s what we found!
The next town over is called Blairsville. They too were having a fair. A beautiful church sits in the middle of a round-a-bout and venders were set up on both sides of the road all around the circle. This one was free, so we parked the car and went for a stroll. If you know us, then you know that we love BBQ sauces and honey. We picked up some Sourwood Honey from Berry’s Honey Farm and Southern Delight Barbecue Sauce from Kickin Mule…yum yum!
A while back ago Andy read an article about a place called Mountain Crossing. It is the first outpost and general store along the Appalachian Trail. It is here that hikers unload their packs, mail stuff home, and pick up anything that they think they might need. Off to our next destination.
Along the way we came across Vogel State Park. After spotting the waterfall from the road, we pulled in for a quick hike to bottom of it.
The store was fantastic. It was complete with home decorations for sale, all kinds of hiking gear, and the walls were lined with signed packs and boots from past travelers of the trail.
Next stop Crane Creek Vineyard! I found this vineyard on-line searching for festivals and fun things to do. Apparently, there are 41 vineyards in north Georgia. It was advertised as a fun family event, so Andy and I thought that this would be a nice place to celebrate our 9 year wedding anniversary.
They had us park behind the vineyard, and then transported us to the entrance on a hay ride. The boys just loved this, while we loved the view.
Once inside, the festival included a wine tasting, live music, lunch, painting for the kids and fishing. It was beautiful and very relaxing, just a little hot. If the temperature had been ten degrees cooler, it just would have been perfect! We bought a bottle of wine, and let the kids play. This was a nice stop. Happy Anniversary my love!
For dinner we drove back into Blue Ridge and went to Joe’s BBQ. It is a walk-up BBQ place with some very very tasty ribs. After dinner we drove over to Lake Blue Ridge to check out the views.
This house looks like a dream mountain house to me! 🙂
Filed under Georgia, Memorial Day Weekend, Vacations
After we left the festival we decided to take the boys to pick some apples. They love to pick blueberries, so we thought that this would be fun too. Davy just finished an apple lesson in school, Johnny Appleseed, so perfect timing. There were quite a few different orchards that we could choose from, BJ’s seemed to have the largest crowd. We figured if everyone else wanted to go there, then we should too.
Now, I have heard of a lot of things, but what I have never heard of is fried pies. Andy is our pie eater in the family and his eyes were huge. When we got up to the counter, they had every kind of pie imaginable. Apple, cherry, chocolate, cream cheese, peach, pecan, etc. Yum! Of course we had to sample a few of them.
And they are off into the orchard to find us some trees that are full of apples…
What!!! How dare you throw apples at mama!!! Silly boys…
The apples all over the ground is what surprised me the most. What a waste. Matty liked to pick them up and bite into them, then he would throw it down and pick up another… No stopping the bear….
What did we do with all of our apples you ask??? We brought them home, back to Florida, and made apple jelly. Yum!
Filed under Fall, Fun Outings, Georgia, Vacations
Ellijay, Ga is known for it apples and we were very excited to discover that this was the weekend for the Georgia State Apple Festival. The boys love the Strawberry Festival, so we just knew that they would love this too. The festival had a tons of rides and outdoor activities…and they wouldn’t have to be riding around in the car.
Matty was so brave to go down this big slide.
I love the big corn fields in the background. Reminds me of a trip Andy and I once took to Turkey Creek when we lived in Chicago.
Ok, the boys (and I do mean all three of them) had great fun with this apple cannon. If we could have brought it home, they would have….
Every year Davy gets Columbus Day and the day after off, which falls around the second week of October and nothing, sounds more fun than heading north to experience a little fall. Everyone already knows how much he loves the mountains, so a long weekend in cooler weather…sign us up.
Aunt Barbara already had visitors planned at her home this weekend, so last-minute Andy says, “well lets find a place on Lake Lanier and explore new towns at the base of the Smoky Mountains”; so that’s what we did. We found this little house on VRBO.com and luckily for us it was listed with a last-minute fall special that fell into our price range. It was a small house, located in Gainesville, Ga, probably around 800 square feet, but it had a loft with two double beds that the boys just loved. We didn’t spend a lot of time in the house; mostly we were out by 8am and didn’t return until 7ish. We had planned on doing a little fishing, but there has been a drought in Atlanta and the lake was low, so we changed our mind and decided to do more hiking instead.
Some of the characteristics of the house included: a really steep driveway, a tin roof that banged loudly every time an acorn fell on it (by the way – there were hundreds of acorns and they were the biggest acorns that I have ever seen, between an inch and an inch and a half long) so it sounded like gunfire was going off all night, a huge screened in porch (that we loved and is a must one day in our mountain house), and there was white carpet! Not sure why the owners would put white carpet in a Lake House…it made me so nervous the entire time.
The boys had a great time. It was fun watching them share a room and they loved eating outside on the porch.
Eating breakfast on the porch.
Collecting Acorns!!!
Matty in the Loft.
1.2020
7.2019
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11.2013
10.2013
Hunter Mountain, NY 3.13
AMI 4.12
Disney World 12.11
Amicalola Falls, Ga 10.11
Burrr It's Cold!! 3.11
Little Gasparilla Island 8.10
11.2013
AMI 8.11
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12.2011
Mountains! Beach! or Both!... 