Sunday we helped (a little) with packing up the race paddock. I always associated the word ‘paddock’ with horses, but it is the same for race cars…. where they hang out when they aren’t racing. It was a rainy cold morning, and we really were not a lot of help. Around 3:30, we pulled out and headed to Don Carter State Park, which is on Lake Lanier. It was only about a 40 minute drive from the track, which was really nice. We had reservations there for three nights, and for Sunday & Monday, our good friends Sherry & Alan from our 2018 Great Loop adventure were going to camp there as well! They live just east of Atlanta, so they asked if they could join us for a couple of days. YAY!
“The Chattahoochee River, flowing from the north Georgia Mountains, meets Lake Lanier at Don Carter State Park, creating a unique opportunity for recreation and outdoor appreciation on the northern edge of metro-Atlanta.”
We arrived before the gates to the State Park closed. WHEW! They actually have a locked gate to the campground that you need a code to open! Our first order of business was to dump our waste water tanks, then we went to our site and got all settled in. Alan and Sherry were very close by, all set up in their Airstream. They invited us over, so we went and visited with some snacks and beverages for a bit. So good to catch up with them here!
Monday 3/13, our adventure took us to the little town of Helen, Georgia. I had read about it in an article about ‘quaint towns in each state’. It is a Bavarian themed town, similar to our Leavenworth back in Washington. It was a very cold and breezy, but beautiful day.
We stepped inside a candy store, and found a few goodies. Sherry bought some fudge to share. I’m not a super fudge fan, but this was very good and creamy. Kenny bought a couple of treats as well.
This was really a cute spot. Notice the yellow looking tree by the windmill? As the trees are starting to bud out for spring, there are a lot of yellow, orange, and red colors. And apparently, there are Sasquatch in the area, too? 😉
Inside Betty’s Market, we found all kinds of great stuff! It was fun to browse around. One thing that caught my eye was this…. FRANKENSTARK beer!! WHAT?!?! I sent a picture to our son, and he was so disappointed that I didn’t buy any.
We stopped into a bakery/deli/cafe, and they had a super cool meet counter. I didn’t buy anything here, either, but there were all kinds of German/Bavarian ‘-wurst’ kinds of meat.
HA! Here are our boys, waiting for us. Yes- it was COLD outside! 🥶
And breezy – check out the flags. But really, this was a picture of the guys putting on a new roof. YIKES!
Sherry is always game to be silly with me. 😅
We had a German lunch at the Hofbrauhaus. I had Weiner Schnitzel, which is a breaded veal cutlet, with spatzle and roasted carrots. It just seemed appropriate to have some kind of Schnitzel. I couldn’t eat it all…. it wasn’t amazing, and by about half way through the meal, I was oiled out. Everything was buttery/oily, and I reached my limit. However, lunch was very fun, and they actually had my favorite Lambic Frombrois Belgian Ale. (It’s a really low alcohol raspberry ale that is delicious.)
After lunch, we headed south of Helen just a tiny bit to the Nacoochee Village. There was a winery there that had some wines that needed to be tasted. 🍷
Our driver (Alan) just tasted a few of Sherry’s choices, while the rest of us each did a wine tasting of five choices for $12. I chose sweets, and Kenny chose all the dry ones they had (not many). It’s hard for us to find ones that we both like, but we did!… one of the whites and one of the reds, so we bought two bottles to go. This was a fun stop!
In the same parking lot there was an Antique Mall. I’m not really into antiques, but it seemed like a good diversion while we let the wine wear off a little bit. There was another winery down the road that might be calling us in. 😏
This place was amazing. At first, I was feeling like I was overwhelmed with OCD and should get out of there! There was SOOOO much stuff everywhere it was almost too much to take in. YIKES! But then I started to settle in and just look and enjoy. Once I thought about all of these things having stories and histories, it was more fun. I got to thinking about all of the things that my parents have in their home, and what will we do with everything after my dad passes. Every item has a story and meaning, and how do you let go of them respectfully?
Our youngest son and his wife really enjoy old things and the imagined history that could be told from an item. We found a little something for each of them that we’ll save til Christmas. It was fun, because as soon as I saw an item, I said “Oh! Amanda would like that”. Then Kenny found something and said he should get if for Brian. We both wandered on, looking and talking about the items, then we decided to go back and purchase them. Why not!? 🎅🏼
Kenny found a Pontiac accessory kit! There was just SOOO much stuff crammed into every nook and cranny of this place.
This room was cool. After my dad retired, he and my mom would go to the local ‘swap meet’ for something fun to do every week and look at stuff. Looking through old stuff is always more fun if you’re looking for something in particular. For whatever reason, my dad chose to look for Griswold cast iron skillets and cookware. He collected a BUNCH that he still has, and my mom liked to cook with cast iron. This room had a lot of iron in it, and it was fun to look through it. Some of the skillets are worth $200!!! And there were cooking tools as well. I could have spent hours in this building, but our companions were waiting outside, so we finally exited.
We had two choices in front of us. Do we go to the other winery, or do we go to a Farmer’s Market kind of place that one of the race crew told me about? We decided we’d probably had enough wine, so we headed to the Jaemor Farm Market.
It is a big farm, and the market has all kinds of produce, meat, dairy, bakery items, etc.
It was a fun place! We bought a few things, and Sherry bought some boiled peanuts. That is a thing in the south, and we’ve never had them.
After this, we headed back to camp and shared snacks and beverages in the Airstream. We wanted to sit outside, but it was just too cold and windy. The boiled peanuts were kind of weird from a texture point of view. They are boiled in their shell in salt water. They are soft to crack open, and when you bite into the nuts, they are soft. The flavor is right, but they are soft like the consistency of a canned pinto or garbanzo bean. Kenny wasn’t a fan, but I thought they were good. We had a fun evening of snacks, and none of us needed dinner. 😉
We retired to our camper and turned on our heat to try to keep from turning into penguins. It was going to be another night below freezing. 🥶 Our furnace is propane, but since we’re plugged in to electricity, I told Kenny that we need to get a little electric space heater for these cold nights. Since we have power, we might as well us it instead of our propane to keep warm. Hmmm… put that on the shopping list!