(click here for today's pictures)
I didn't sleep very well last night at all. I walked to the bathroom at least twice just so I could make sure that Keaton was snug in her bed. At one point early in the night, the railing had already moved a foot from the bed. Gracious, that sure didn't help me to go to sleep any easier.
And Keaton was the one who did wake us all up again this morning. I am not sure what all she said, but Robby and I both woke up to her clearly shouting, "Whitman come up here." She has been talking in her sleep every night, but this was the most clear thing that I heard her say.
It was about 6:30 then and I never went back to sleep. Robby was soon in the bathroom, and then he went outside to unhook. After he unhooked, I had to go outside to follow behind him until we could hook the car up.
The plan had been to just hook up right in front of our campsite. It was fairly early in the morning, and we thought that there would be not a lot of traffic. Robby had to wait on 2 different cars to pass by before he could even pull out of the site, so we just pulled around to the front office and hooked up there.
We had a bit of time getting the car in the carrier. The wheels and ground were wet, so Robby just spun and spun his tires. When he did get up on the ramp, he was moving, and it did shake the whole camper. Hooking up after that was no problem at all and soon we were on the road.
We obviously moved Keaton to our bed before we started to drive. She went back to sleep and her Reagan, Campbell and Whitman also snoozed on as we drove down the road. We stopped for gas first thing this morning and then we didn't stop again until 5 hours later when we needed more gas.
This time, we stayed in the parking lot for a few minutes-Robby had to do some work while I heated up some Hot Pockets. Before we pulled out again, Robby, Campbell and Keaton ran into the store to grab some icees for everyone.
From there, we had about an hour and a half before arriving in Helen, Georgia. When we were getting close, we saw the sign point one direction, and the gps said another. We followed the GPS which was a mistake. Well, it wasn't actually a mistake, but it did cause Robby and I to sweat profusely.
Robby said that is why people buy really expensive RV GPSs, and not rely on their silly phones for directions. Well, things were going swell until we had one turn and the road did seem to narrow and narrow. Then there was that dreaded sign "pavement ends 1000 feet."
Yikes! Then we were on a narrow gravel road-did I mention that it was crazy sharp turns too. Oh, and yes, the next sign said "one lane road ahead." What in the world? Yes, it was a gravel, one lane curvy road on the side of a mountain. Robby's gripping the wheel, and I was just praying and counting down the feet that we drove-we just had 2 miles until the road was over....
But it felt like an eternity. So just a reminder the total length of our camper and car is 53 feet and 3 inches. And when you pull a car, you can not back up. I was already mentally planning how we would have to unhook the car in the middle of the road, unhook the dolly while Robby was inching forward and backwards trying to turn just the camper around.
I wasn't sure we were going to make it-and I think that Robby's hands were so sweaty that he was having a hard time gripping the steering wheel when we finally saw the stop sign turning on to a 4 lane road. Now, let's go back a minute to that road though-in normal circumstances, I would have thought that it was gorgeous.
Beside the road were waterfalls and a rock filled stream. It was a beautiful drive-to bad we weren't paying attention to the scenery! Getting into the state park was almost as bad as the crazy road. This park is also beautiful-there is a lake, and we even think that we hear water somewhere near our campsite.
Coming into the campsite, the road was also steep and curvy. We unhooked the car after Robby checked in, and we soon were in our spot. It took us forever and a day to get level-and really we never even got level. We worked when we arrived and even when we came home at night. Robby was pretty jealous of all of our friends levelers by the time that we finished with those silly orange blocks.
As soon as we could all put on a zillion more layers, we headed out to explore Helen, Georgia. This little town looks like a German village. They have filmed some Lifetime movies here, and it looks just like all of my Hallmark movie towns that I watch.
I could just imagine the girl getting into a fender bender on the first road (saw it) that we came in on as she returned home to take care of her dad after he fell on the ice getting the Christmas tree out of the barn (saw it). Then her high school boyfriend, who is also the town doctor, would come and help tow her car out of the ditch. He would take her to her family home (saw it) and then run into her at the Pretzel Haus (saw it), the candy shop (saw it), and even run into her as she was jogging through the town park (saw it.) When they did start to become involved again, they would go to the local brewery (saw it), go to the Christmas tree (saw it) lighting on Main Street, and even have their first kiss in the gazebo (saw it) or possibly on the bridge (saw it) over the rock filled stream flowing through the city (saw it.)
I might could just be a Hallmark movie writer. The town was adorable, and it was quite busy with tourist too. This would definitely be the time to see this quaint little town. We found the pretzel house and had a massive pretzel-you can imagine just how big it was when I tell you that it cost 12 dollars! Yikes!
We also had a funnel cake there while sitting inside trying to warm up. It was crazy cold-yikes! It was in the 30s when we left the campsite and only got cooler as the sun went down. I had on 2 bottom layers, 3 top layers, a hat, gloves and even wore my mask pretty much the entire time (just because it kept my face warm!)
After the pretzel haus, we headed to the Georgia Mountain Coaster. It was so much fun! We all went down the hill twice-and it was cold! Whitman and Keaton had to ride with Robby and me-Whitman wasn't scared, but I guess you could say that he was a bit on the cautious side. Keaton, on her second trip down, rode with me. She wanted to do the brake, but she didn't want to use the brake! She was pushing forward trying to speed up while I was trying to pull backwards trying to slow us down! It was great!
After the ride, we walked through the town stopping at Hansel and Gretel's Candy Shoppe-we could have spent a small fortune there, but since we had already spent that small fortune at the coaster, we opted to just window shop. Then we walked through their little town park and by the lit up gazebo.
If it had been a bit warmer, not covid and if time had been on our side, I would have loved to have gone in every little shop. Most of them were already closed for the evening, but seeing the biergartens in full swing would have certainly been interesting.
I also saw that the Appalachian Trail begins somewhere near here-that trail has always intrigued me. Now, I don't really think that I want to hike it-a few reasons-well, I'd die and I'd die. Let me explain-first the trail is over 2000 miles and takes the average hiker 5 to 7 months to complete which my body couldn't possibly handle and secondly, we have been listening to those scary murder in national parks podcast so that would be the other reason that I might just die. Though I might want to take my picture at the beginning of the trail and then make a point to find the end of the trail in Maine to again take my picture.
After browsing through the town of Helen, we soon made it back to our warm car. It was just plain cold outside. We drove through the city some before heading back to the campground where we again worked on leveling this thing.
I heated up BBQ for supper-it was delicious and everyone had their fill. When we have asked folks what there favorite part of the trip has been, Whitman always says "the s'mores" so we had s'mores again tonight so he can really have a great trip.
We didn't finish our s'mores until after 10 so it was after 11 when the kids finally did get into bed. And yes, Keaton is again sleeping on that top bunk. Robby worked really hard getting that rail up good tonight, so maybe we all can sleep better tonight.
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