Short Vacation - Helen, GA

While foliage at home is still mostly green, the colors in the mountains of North-East Georgia are at their peak.   I never get tired of Autumn colors.

Helen, GA is about 3 hours from home, with most of the driving on two-lane state highways.  

The cute building on the left is a Huddle House.  Usually, they look like the photo below.   We actually gave it a chance because it looked so cute, and also because it was the only restaurant open for breakfast.

The rest of town (all 3 blocks of it) looked equally cute.  For those of you who know Solvang, the Danish town in CA, this looked the same, only a half to a third the size.

We happened to book this visit during Oktoberfest (yes, I spelled that correctly) which means we went to the community hall to listen to oompah music and eat our choice of 5 different wursts.  I can say this... Oompah music is happy music.  We lasted about an hour; that was all the happiness we could handle.

Window shopping took all of half a day.  We were nearly through when I said something like, "I haven't seen a single Cuckoo Clock".    

Moments later, we walked into a store full of them. 

As long as I can remember I have loved clocks and especially clock shops.    This time I learned something about Black Forest Cuckoo Clocks.  Two pine cones operate a clock and a Cuckcoo bird.  Three pine cones means it also has other movements - like dancers or something.  Small cones must be "wound" daily and larger cones can go a week between.  

I remember my Grandpa Wells having a Cuckoo Clock in his house.  To my knowledge we only visited once but we spent the night and I remember the Cuckoo bird announcing the time during the night.  That should have been a negative but, instead, I have fond memories of it.

Before we left the shop, Larry convinced me to buy a small one.  They were on sale and probably the most reasonable we've ever seen.  So, now I have a Cuckoo Clock announcing the time in my house.  The good part is though that I can turn off the Cuckoo bird when we're ready for him to be quiet.

The rest of our short vacation was spent driving to nearby places and seeing great scenery along the way.  The Chattahoochee River runs through Helen.  I suspect this is the same river.

A trip to Ketner's Mill Country Arts Fair

Ketner's Mill is near a little town called Whitwell (pronounced something like "whut wool") in the Sequatchie Valley.  The valley itself is a beautiful place; only 3 to 5 miles wide but 150 miles long.  We visited Ketner's Mill Country Arts Fair with our friends Gary & Debbie.  What a beautiful day for it.  

While traveling along the backroads we interrupted a small pig and a kitten playing.  We stopped to watch and the pig came to our car with the kitten right behind.   Cute.  I wanted to open the car door to take a better photo but I suspect the pig would have jumped right in, he was that friendly. 

  As you might guess, it's history is that of a mill, sitting on the banks of the Sequatchie River.  It's only active now-a-days during the fair but the mill was busy grinding corn.  Debbie purchased several bags of ground corn meal.

There were lots of artisan there, some quite unique.  A working blacksmith, a soap maker with a large batch of soap cooking in the booth, a broom maker who used interesting broom handles including a tennis racket, a shotgun, the neck of a guitar and many different kinds of sticks collected in the woods.   

There was a man tatting who was quite entertaining to listen to and watch.   He explained each knot as he used the small shuttles in his hands with the strings wrapped around his fingers.  He made it look easy and difficult at the same time.  

We saw sugar cane being crushed and squeezed in an all-in-one gear & press device powered by a horse walking  in circles.  (I should have taken a picture.)  The extracted juice poured into a bucket which was then transferred to a cooker.  Then, much like making Maple Syrup, they cooked it down to Sorghum Molasses which they sold at the fair.  I bought some of that and some Sourwood Honey from another vendor.

We saw art of all kinds: stained glass, ornaments, candles, paintings, photographs, soap, rod iron, wood-working, and more.  My fun purchase for the day was some whimsical yard art: a giant worm for my garden!  He may move around when you're not looking so keep your eyes out for him.  :-)

Chattanooga Zoo

Wow, did we ever have fun today!  I discovered, first thing this morning, that today was free admission to the Chattanooga Zoo.  I told Laura and she said Abi would love go.  I volunteered to take Cora too and off we went.   Cora slept the whole time but I liked having her with us anyway.  At least it gave Laura a nice break.   Her Grandpa joined us after Abi and I had been there for over an hour so he got to be in on some of the fun too.

Abi wasn't so sure about seeing some of the scarier animals.  She was especially concerned about seeing, or rather, not seeing a Tiger.  But we did manage to see a Snow Leopard along with various monkeys, birds - exotic and not so exotic, a Bobcat, a Coyote, Red Pandas (she said, "those aren't Pandas"), a camel, goats, and other animals who's names I can't even remember.

All that was fun, but the real fun began with the jump house!  Oh my, how she loved the jump house.   The lines were short most of the time we so she managed to jump 4 different times.  She would laugh and jump and laugh some more.  She held her own with the big kids just fine.  A couple times she got bumped off her feet when a big kid bumped into her and she would just laugh some more.  What fun! 

The bounce house isn't always at the Zoo.  Today was a special event for the community, including a chili cook-off, lots of booths, displays for the firemen, an emergency helicopter, and other things like that.  

What is always at the zoo is a Merry-Go-Round.  This one is special.   A local artisan is responsible for it's existence.  I don't know the whole story but it's my understanding that he either personally made or was involved in the making of all the animals on the carousel.  He has a school not far away where he teaches people to carve these wonderful creations.

Odd enough, there were no seat belts.  I was quietly amazed.  We're not in California anymore.