The story revolves around some local springs believed to sustain youth where this princess was later buried. Later, Indians and then settlers customarily began to drop stones on her grave for good luck. Well this grave just so happens to be in the middle of an weird intersection of two highways. We unknowingly zoomed through this intersection on the way to our first park without registering where we were until we were 50 yards passed it. And without dropping a rock for good luck. And you all know how I am bit superstitious and all. We contemplated going back, but then just decided to keep on moving.
Our first park was Vogel State Park. It was a beautiful park with a 22-acre lake, cottages, camping, and a nice guided hiking trail. We found our first cache pretty quickly along this trail after a small detour. This detour was a 13-mile back country trail we slipped onto, but thankfully we didn't go much more than 200 yards before backtracking. Not necessarily bad luck, but not good either.
Our second park was Unicoi State Park where we were to hike about 1/2 mile to find our next cache. About 1/4 mile in we came to a Scooby-Doo-ish fork-in-the-road predicament with a "Trail Closed" sign laying on the ground and some trees with caution tape hanging down from them. Hmm. We decided to follow the compass and head down one of the paths. It was a nice, wide path that ended up turning thick with grass and a dead end. We did find this little guy where we turned around though. That Ryan just wants to pet, pick up, and take home everything!
So we backtracked and headed down the original trail. I'd remembered reading something in the description of the cache that we would end up in an open field and within about 10 minutes we were in just that. However, we never could get closer than about 200 meters, so we backtracked yet again to find another fork. This time, we ended up in a much more secluded field and eventually found that cache after a little searching. Definitely not good luck.
And what's worse is we were definitely going to miss the birds of prey talk now, so we just headed to Helen for the afternoon. We had lunch on the river, took time to watch the tubers go down the river, and of course visited the magic shop so coveted by the Clarke kids. I won't be revealing any tricks learned or purchases made on this blog just in case they decide to show you a little slight of hand in the future. They've been practicing practically since I let them open the packages!
As we headed home, I noticed it was time for a celebration of appreciation for the most dependable thing on our trips so far - the Odyssey! It rolled to 100,000 miles this afternoon as we drove home through the windy Georgia mountain roads. We purchased this van when the girls were infants to, in my words, "support my active lifestyle". Basically it was just easier for me to get 3 children under 3 out of the car without breaking my back and hurting any of them. It's been a reliable part of our family ever since and I hope it continues for awhile to come. I even patted the dashboard and said "Good job and thank you." Ok, so that's good luck.
Great picture of an Eastern Box Turtle. USed to have one as a pet. The Odessy will go many times that as my old Ford truck just hit 250,000 miles and I don't see me getting a new one any time soon. The Odessy is way more reliable than a Ford truck. My Dad used to say Ford stood for "fix or repair daily"! Terrific posts Jen. Don't wear out Grammie. So far, I've been able to find all the parks on the map. Heck with the Internet!
ReplyDelete