Our Trip "Up North"

Ok, so I guess you're all just waiting with baited breath to hear about our trip this past week, right? Yeah, like I really have that many people reading my blog on a daily basis. Still, I want to post these for myself, so here goes!

We left for Helen on Thursday morning. It was a nice drive, and shorter than I thought it would be, although we did get lost one time and had to backtrack a few miles to find our turn. On the way, we stopped at Babyland General, where the Cabbage Patch Kids are born. It was cute, but I thought I would choke when Mia had picked out a newborn and the lady told us it would be $190! What the heck?!? It's a baby doll for cripes sake! How am I supposed to let her play with a baby doll that costs that much? I won't even let her play with her $50 collectible Barbies! So we settled for a baby doll from the gift shop instead. They're like the ones at the store, but I hadn't seen these at our local TRU, so I felt ok about it. And they were nowhere NEAR as expensive.

The best part was we got to see a baby being born. They have this large tree in the middle of the main room, and a "nurse" comes out and "deliver's" a baby in the cabbage patch beneath it. It was really cute. :)

Here's the fam in front of the "Hospital"



Here are some pics I took in Helen:

The fam:



And the flowers:


We found our hotel room at the Hofbrau (a quaint little hotel on the river). It was cheap, but I liked the view. The beds left something to be desired, though... I felt like I was sleeping on a piece of particle board all night! After checking in, we had some time to kill before the room was ready. We decided to go look for the way to get to Anna Ruby Falls... and got lost... again! Helen can be quite confusing. We ended up panning for gold. I never knew dirt could be so expensive! $8 & $9 per bucket! But the kids had fun, so what the hay, right?

By this time, we were getting pretty hungry. So after searching and searching for a good place to eat, and ending up in a bar with a 6 yr old (she had to use the bathroom, and the sign DID say "Bar & Grill"! Don't they know that in the rest of the world, that's like Applebees or O'Charley's? Sheesh!) we ended up at the Huddle House. Can we be any more white trash? LOL! I LOVE me some Huddle House, though! And they didn't disappoint... it was delish! Especially at 1:00 in the afternoon after driving around town all morning.

After that, we finally found our way to Unicoi and Anna Ruby Falls. It was beautiful, but I wish the trail had been natural instead of paved. Here are some pics:

Mia climbing up for a better look:


A tall tree growing out of a huge rock:


Noah trying to be Superman and lift the rock:


The fam again, this time with ME in the picture! LOL! Ignore the six-guns Noah is packing here and in the other pics... that's a move his daddy taught him. :


The falls... aren't they gorgeous?! The spray coming off of them was wonderful!:


After that, we headed back towards Helen and played some Putt Putt. Fun, but David had to ruit the fun by being a putz (or a Shmuckface, as my friend Rachel says), and deliberately losing some holes to do a "favor" for me. Like I asked him to! Dolt.

After Putt Putt, we walked around Helen and visited the shops. Noah got himself a Rubber Band Gun after much hemming and hawing. I swear, that boy can NEVER decide what he wants!

Then we went to Wendy's and got dinner and took it back to the room. I had one of their new deli-type sandwiches, and it was yummy! The kids threw rocks down at the river, and then it was time for bed and that darn hard mattress.

On Friday, we got up and got ready to leave, but there was no one in the office at 8:30, so we took the key with us, planning to return after breakfast. We had Huddle House again for breakfast, too. Yummy! Then we decided to drive over to Tallulah Falls before going home, to get some more hiking in. They paths there are great! All natural, except for one part at the beginning where they have rubber matting made from old shredded tires. It was so easy on the knees! We couldn't hike down to the gorge because we had the dog with us, but we got plenty of hiking in just going to the 5 overlooks. Here are some pics.

One of the waterfalls:


Look at how high we were!:


Once we were done there, we packed up and headed home, completely exausted. It was a good trip, although next time, I think we'll leave Helen out of the picture. It's become very run down and gone a bit on the seedy side.

Oh, and when we got home, guess what the kids found on the floor of the truck... the room key! We had accidentally taken it with us! I called the hotel as soon as I got back and they agreed to let me mail it to them, so no harm done, I guess. Typical for us, though.

Jen