Northern Georgia Getaway

Planning

Last week, I was feeling alone and I wanted to get away. Susan was in Virginia visiting family, and Andrew was at school, but he was probably available for a short adventure. I started thinking about doing a camping trip in Georgia. I figured if I was going to camp in a tent, I’d have to go to northern Georgia, where the nighttime temperatures were forecast to be in the mid 50’s. If I was staying in a hotel, then that was not a factor.

My choices came down to two: Valdosta or the mountains. Valdosta offered several benefits, including Wild Adventures, which was featuring a concert with REO Speedwagon, and a much shorter drive. The mountains offered, well, the mountains, hiking, waterfalls, and state parks. I ended up going with mountains.

With the mountains selected, next came the choice of Northeast Georgia or Northwest Georgia. I wanted to visit the town of Helen again, so I went with Northeast. I found and reserved a Super 8 motel near Cornelia.

Friday, June 9

Friday morning, I got up early, packed, and left for UCF to pick up Andrew. I left a little earlier than I planned and hoped that he would be ready to go when I arrived. I called from the parking garage and he was wrapping up his packing. I met him at the front door of Tower 3 and we were on our way.

From UCF, we had two possible routes: East coast or Turnpike. The time and distance was nearly equal, and we chose the East route. Rather than stop for breakfast, we at breakfast bars and made an early lunch stop at Ritter’s Frozen Custard & Burgers just over the Georgia line in Kingsland. The drive up interstate 95 was good, but the weather was a little hazy. It reminded me of how I always remembered the South to look, but rarely see in Melbourne.

Next, we made a gas stop at the Costco outside Savannah on interstate 16, then continued West. We planned to go all the way to the motel, but instead, we decided to make a quick stop in Athens and take a look at the University of Georgia. I had been wanting to see it before, especially during a fall trip to Georgia last year.

In Athens, Andrew navigated us through town and around the campus. We passed by the stadium and it was open, so we tried to find a parking lot. At first, it looked like all the lots had paid parking, but then we realized that they were free after 5:00 PM. We parked at a lot that we thought was close to the stadium. Turns out the lot was physically close, but campus construction had many walkways closed, so we had to walk nearly a mile to get to the stadium. The entrance to the stadium was surprisingly at the top of the stadium, which was built into a large bowl. It was at least twice the size of the UCF stadium.

University of Georgia stadium

After a few minutes, we were asked to leave due to an event that was about to begin, so we walked back across campus towards the parking lot, making a quick stop at the Student Union. The campus was beautiful, with pathways cut through the trees, like trails through the woods. Some of the building were built on stilts and others had bridges to reach them. The campus was clearly built around the landscape rather than the other way around. Overall, our quick campus visit lasted 1.5 hours.

At this point, it was nearly dark, so we continued directly to the Super 8. After checking in, we moved into our room (after first going to the wrong room and wondering why the key didn’t work – Oops) and set the temperature. For dinner, we had a large choice of places within walking distance and chose one of the three Mexican restaurants.

After dinner, Andrew pulled out his tablet and we started planning the next day. He put pins on all the places and we mapped out a counter clockwise route for us to take.

Saturday, June 10

While thinking about camping during this trip, I made no plans to eat at the campsite. I fully expected to eat breakfast at Waffle House. But one of the benefits of the Super 8 is that they have waffle makers. We decided to eat in to save time, but I must say that I was not impressed with the waffle.

Our first stop of the day was at Ingles. We ordered a foot long sub (that turned out to be at least 18 inches long) and picked up some other snacks, too.

With lunch handled, we drove to Chenocetah Lookout Tower. The tower was at the top of a hill, deep in a neighborhood. We stopped and took a closer look, but the door was locked and there really wasn’t much of a view.

Chenocetah Lookout Tower

Our next stop was Toccoa Falls. The falls were located on the campus of Toccoa Falls College. The entrance to the college had an unmanned booth with a sign with hours listed. It looked like the falls were not open until noon on Saturdays. Well, we were there much earlier, and the booth was empty, so I decided to go have a closer look. I drove about a half mile through the campus and along a creek before reaching a large parking lot. There were other cars there, and we even saw some people walking around. That settled it, we were stopping. As we walked towards the falls trail, we noticed a sign on a building, which turned out to be a museum, that said that it opened at noon on Saturday. Mystery solved. We continued up the gravel trail/road a short distance before reaching the falls.

Along the trail, we passed an area with chairs set out and a crew pulling more chairs from a truck. I asked what was going on and he said that there were three weddings planned for the day. Clearly, the waterfall made a beautiful backdrop.

Toccoa Falls

The next stop was Tallulah Gorge State Park. We visited this park in September 2013, but we felt it was worth visiting again. Being a state park, it required a Georgia State Park pass. The man at the gate wanted $5 cash for one, but I had no cash. He directed me to the Visitor Center, where I could buy one with credit. Turns out, Andrew had $10 cash, but didn’t say anything at the time.

With the park pass installed on the mirror, I returned to the Visitor Center and we started exploring. Andrew wanted to see the sights from overlooks 2 and 3. The hike down was very quick and we reached the top of the staircase that led down into the Gorge. The last time we were here, we walked to the bottom, while Mom stayed near the top. This time, we just looked down at the Gorge, then moved on to our next destination. We drove across the bridge over the Gorge and stopped at another overlook. I was very excited to see it because I have fond memories of the place, but to my dismay, it is now boarded up and closed.

Next up was Hemlock Falls at Moccasin Creek State Park. The trailhead for the trail was back a dirt road. Given that we were in the Audi, I had my concerns. Turns out, the road was in good shape, so there was no problem getting there. The hike was less than half a mile and crossed over the creek with a little bridge. At the falls, we pulled out our chips and enjoyed the scene for a while.

Trail to Hemlock Falls at Moccasin Creek State Park

After our break, we decided to continue up the trail to Upper Hemlock Falls. The trail was less than half the distance we already hiked, but it quickly became obvious that it was much more challenging. A family passed by in the opposite direction and I asked how it was and she said it was more like bushwhacking than a trail. We soon realized what she meant. The trail was blocked by fallen trees, had washouts, and was overgrown in places. After a short, strenuous time, we decided that it wasn’t worth it and turned around.

After returning to the car, we drove back down the dirt road and parked near some picnic tables near the lake. As I ate lunch, I thought about the couple sitting in their chairs in front of their camper. I thought to myself, “Is that what old people camping looks like?” I just can’t imagine being in such a fabulous location and spending my day in a chair. Hopefully I have many more good years of exploring left in me.

Next up was Anna Ruby Falls. Given that we had been to this part of the world before, I was surprised that I didn’t stop here before. The falls are located within Unicoi State Park… sort of. You must pass through the park to get to the entrance to Anna Ruby Falls, which is actually a federal park with a separate entrance fee. The fee was $10 and they accepted credit cards, so we decided to go check it out. We parked in the shade and walked up to trailhead, passing a pair of Rangers cutting a log with a crosscut saw. One of them mentioned cookies and that immediately go my attention. Turns out she was referring to the part of the log that is cut off as a cookie. She asked if we wanted to try cutting the log. I said yes, but after the hike.

The hike to the falls was along a paved trail, but it had a few steep sections. These sections really took me be surprise and I had to slow down and recover a few times along the way.

Anna Ruby Falls

After seeing the falls, we returned to the parking lot and went back to the saw. I told the Ranger that we were ready to give it a try. She asked us to sign a waiver, the gave us some safety equipment. I tried it first with her, then Andrew and I gave it a try. While talking, we mentioned that we loved the temperature in the mountains and how hot it was in Florida. She was interested in where we live and wished she could go to the beach. I told her that Jaws ruined the beach for me back in the ‘70’s. I found it funny that we preferred the mountains and she preferred the beach, but we were both living in the opposite location.

Cutting a cookie off a log

Our next destination was Dukes Creek Falls. This was another federal location and they wanted money, too. There was no gate, but instead was a money box with envelopes to put your cash in. The fee was $4, but we didn’t have any ones. We decided to go to Smithgall Woods State Park, which was just down the road, to see if we could get some ones. Once there, we talked to a friendly attendant about the parks and he gave us some ones for Andrew’s ten. We bought a Coke from the machine, then headed back up to Dukes Creek Falls. We went back to the money box, and then, upon reading the note on the board, realized that the park was free on June 10th. Yippee! Notice that I said ‘up’. The trailhead was several hundred feet above the waterfall. We hiked down to the falls, then onto a boardwalk overlooking the falls. After a short stay, we returned up up up the trail to the car.

As the day progressed, the temperature continued to increase to the point that we considered tubing in Helen, but each time we looked at the map, the traffic in Helen just kept getting worse. Even so, we wanted to at least go take a look. Andrew found a back road that avoided most of the traffic and we parked a few blocks from main street. As I mentioned, we had been here on an earlier vacation and I wanted to see what changed.

Helen is a tourist trap modeled as a European mountain town. Most of the buildings are in the Tudor style and there are many gift shops and German restaurants.

Helen, Georgia

We walked down one side of Main Street, then climbed the stairs to the Georgia Mountain Coaster. There was quite a line to ride this small roller coaster through the woods, so we decided to skip it. Then we crossed the bridge and walked back up the other side of the street. Along the way, we passed by the restaurant that we ate at so many years ago. We were getting hungry, but it was too early for dinner, so we each got a single scoop waffle cone. I chose Peach, since we were in Georgia, and Andrew chose Orange Sherbet.

At this point, we had completed our list of destinations. Andrew wanted to find a good sunset spot, but first we needed to get gas. The nearest reasonably priced gas was in Cleveland, so we headed there. After filling up, we headed West along US 19, which has a 10 mile section of amazingly twisty pavement that goes up and over a pass. I loved driving the Audi here. It was like the car was designed with this road in mind. We drove all the way to Vogel State Park without finding a good sunset spot.

Vogel State Park was also on our visit list during our previous visit. It looked just as I remembered it, but this time, there was a guy playing guitar on the big covered dock. We stopped to listen for a little bit and ended up meeting a family with a dog named Maggie.

After our short visit, we started back towards the Super 8. We stopped at Zaxby’s in Cleveland for dinner, then returned to the motel. It was quite a full day and we were both tired.

Sunday, June 11

On Sunday, we got up early and got on the highway. As mentioned earlier, I was not happy with the Super 8 waffles and wanted to stop at Waffle House, but we weren’t really hungry enough yet and I wanted to get through Atlanta before things got ugly; both traffic and weather. A few miles into our drive, it started raining lightly, then got pretty heavy. Luckily it stopped and we cruised right past Atlanta with no problems.

With Atlanta behind us, it was time to find a Waffle House. Andrew looked for one on his tablet and realized that there is basically a Waffle House at every exit, and sometimes more than one. We decided to stop at the one just south of Macon. As we approached Macon, Google Maps notified Andrew that there was traffic and recommended a different route. We took the alternate just in time and saved ourselves at least 10 minutes of stop and go traffic.

After the Waffle House, which was fantastic and satisfied my desire for a good waffle, we continued our trip. After a bit of research, Andrew realized that gas was cheaper in Georgia, so we stopped one final time at a Raceway just north of the border.

The drive was smooth sailing until we approached Ocala. We had our first stop and go traffic, but it wasn’t all that bad. We got on the Florida Turnpike and headed for Orlando.

In Orlando, I got off the turnpike and headed for the nicer Publix near UCF. Andrew stocked up on groceries, then I dropped him off at his dorm.

Additional photos.