We took advantage of a few school days off in mid-October to visit Wanda's family in Georgia. I'll save the details of the trip down and back in 55R for the Logbooks section, but it was challenging and fun.
The Carters live in Sautee Nacoochee, up in the beautiful hills of north Georgia not far from the North Carolina border. Wanda's sister, Lynne, works at Unicoi Lodge (
http://unicoilodge.com/), and arranged a nice room complete with loft and gorgeous mountain views.
Two big happenings were in play that weekend: Leaves and Helen.
We were close, but not quite at peak leaf season, but the leafpeepers were out. For good reason too - the mountains in the clear fall air take your breath away. Wanda said the colors weren't that good but you could have fooled me. Somehow I missed taking any pictures of them though - rats!
Helen (
http://www.helenga.org/) is a Bavarian tourist trap that somehow found its way to the banks of the Chattahoochee River about ten minutes' drive from the Carter house. It's a pretty little town but a little over the top. Still, there's lots to do there, including Nora Mill (
http://www.noramill.com/) where they were busily grinding grits, lots of shops downtown, and such. There's a gem "mining" place just outside town too. I hope the girls got enough to pay for the trip....
Wanda tells me there was a movie filmed in Helen, with a scene where a youngster ran from Nora Mill to the church to get the preacher's help saving a friend. Any idea what movie it was?
The highlight, though, was being able to spend time with Wanda's family for the first time in over a year. Laurel and Madison tried running each other down on Mr. Carter's lawnmowers but everyone survived.
