Day 18

This morning we headed out early on the way to Providence Canyon, otherwise known as "The Little Grand Canyon".  I was anticipating this hike to be the toughest yet so I packed extra snacks and sandwiches for the hike and the trip.  The interpretive center was oddly closed for the summer, so we headed out to the bottom of the canyon in the beautiful sunshine.  After making it through the first canyon and up the side of the next one, we stopped for a quick break and snack.  These guys are troopers!

The hike was over before we knew it and we were back at the picnic area of the park.  I was pretty confused as there wasn't much of a view the entire hike.  I was imagining seeing a small version of some canyons at some overlooks, but the only views we found were at the picnic areas:

The hike was still enjoyable and we would have never know this is what we were hiking up and over and down into:

No matter, we still received punches on our Canyon Climber cards and found another cache at the nearby Florence Marina State Park.  Upon getting back into the car however, Laney's eyes practically swelled shut. There is something growing right now that has her sneezing and itching her eyes like crazy!  I suppose we'll need to set up a doctor's appointment when we get back.  I've never had to deal with any kind of allergies, so not looking forward to that at all!  We stopped in Plains for another healthy serving of peanut butter ice cream before returning to the campsite.  We were greeted there by this little girl:

She really wants to come home with us and the kids desperately want to kitty-nap her, but she'll stay in Georgia.  It was 91 degrees today so we ended the night at the lake beach swimming again and read a few more chapters of "The Five Little Peppers".  We're headed home tomorrow!

Day 16

We started the morning a little different.  I'd packed up everything possible excluding the tent the night before and had breakfast-to-go ready in the cooler.  It was always easier to have a non-cooked or eat-out breakfast the morning we leave campgrounds as it would always take at least an extra hour to cook, eat, and clean up even the simplest thing.

Within a half hour from the kids waking up, we were leaving our spot and headed down to the lake for breakfast.  There we had our bagels and bananas and talked as we swung in the swing admiring the view. We wondered where the alligator was.  We watched the fisherman up early to find the day's catch.  We admired this guy as he landed in Laney's hair.  Ryan, the animal-whisperer just had to hold him.

This is the coveted log-rolling contraption at the playground.  Ever since having multiple kids I've been adamant about only purchasing one of a toy to encourage sharing, but this one I would definitely have to have 3 of.

After some time on the playground in the cooler morning air, we set off for a park I thought all the kids would enjoy, General Coffee State Park.  Not only would this be our 15th cache find (redeemable for a bronze coin for each of them), there was a heritage farm, several playgrounds, and a swamp to hike through.  We stopped first at the visitors center to grab a trail map and look over the items for sale as we are getting close to the end of the trip and the money Dave has given the kids is burning a hole in their pockets.  The park ranger there asked me if we liked cereal.  I'm completely sure this guy had no idea he was talking to the cereal consumer who at one point in time had 17 boxes of cereal in the pantry.  Of course since we've been trying to eliminate a lot of processed foods we rarely buy cereal anymore, but I answered yes and the kids' ears perked up.  He pointed to the side of the store and told us to grab a box as he had 150 cases of grape nuts to give away.  Hmmm....sounds like trail food to me!

The kids played on the playground for a few minutes while I prepared us for the hike.  It's interesting to me that all the state park playground equipment has been vastly different.  The kids enjoy exploring new structures every time we stop.  I'm hoping this doesn't make them playground snobs.

The cache we were going for this time was a multi-stage hunt that took us awhile to get going.  Once on the trail we found it pretty quickly.  This one was definitely uniquely hidden!

See it way up there?!

That is quite possibly the largest magnolia tree I've seen.  It was beautiful hidden away in the middle of the forest.  Ryan kept count of all the wildlife we saw - 1 lizard, 2 butterflies, 8 spiders (these guys were as big as my hand with giant webs), 1 egret, and 8 frogs.  On our way back to the car a quick, but soaking downpour started.  We made it back to the car drenched, but quick and cooled off.

We stopped by the heritage farm on the way out and saw all these guys.  

This pig followed us out to the parking lot!  While I've called Ryan the animal whisperer, she is definitely not a pig-whisperer.  She was underfoot the entire time he was behind us!

We opted for ice creams on the way out and hit the road to where we'd be staying.  It was a nice, backroad drive most of the way and we began our next audiobook, "The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew".  This is an oldie so there is a lot of explaining to do during the reading, but we've read Little House before so they're familiar with some of the language and times.

We rolled into the park just at check in time and who did we find checking in, none other than Papa himself!  It was perfect timing for us to find camping spots together.  Brayden was excited to see all the tanks and planes on display next to the visitor's center - something we'll do in a cooler part of one of the days we're here.  The kids submitted their Junior Ranger books for a patch and nice pin.  The ranger told them they could keep going on to the next level if they wanted to get another pin.  I'm not sure we'll get to that before we leave, but with that motivation you never know!

 

After setting up, we had a quick dinner and headed to find the swimming beach while they made a trip to Walmart.  Still not like our beach, but in this hot weather with all the persistent gnats, it will definitely do.

Day 15

The girls were up early playing on scooters this morning while Brayden slept in.  It was definitely the early morning quiet before the storm.

During a large breakfast of pancakes and fruit, Ryan found some evidence that we had had a visitor in the middle of the night.  I'd given the kids each a couple ping pong balls to invent games with and up until now they have had fun little competitions with them.  A visitor surprised me as usually when I'm alone with the kids I wake up to the slightest noise so at first I dismissed it away as change in elevation.  Until I noticed the teeth marks.  Here is the untouched control group of ping pong balls.

And here are the ones Ryan found.  The two yellow ones in the back?  That is actually one ball that was bitten in half.

 

We took a few minutes to discuss wild tales of what could have come into our screen enclosure and tried to eat them.  Of course there was a bear, then a possum, an alligator, and a raccoon.  The kids decided they would take the balls down to the visitor's center and ask the park ranger.

But first we jumped in the car to visit another state park that was pretty close - Gordonia-Altamaha - for a hike and some time on the playground.  Playground time quicky turned sour so we headed for the trail.  This was a pretty short hike so we sat down for some family time after to talk about problem resolution.  

The kids decided to leave the park after that and have sandwiches in the car for lunch.  They were anxious to visit the splash pad - especially in this heat!  

 

After cooling off, the kids decided to find the cache in our park.  It was another short hike, but the gnats where out in full force so we only stayed for a short time.  Moods were quickly going downhill so we decided to have a quick dinner and head to the pool.  It's funny how water affects my kids - an instant mood changer.

By this time it was getting gray toward the dusk so we headed back to our site to call dad and head to the playground before getting ready for bed.  The kids finally got to show dad their magic tricks Grammie had bought for them in Helen.  It's hard to demonstrate to a computer, but overall they did pretty well.  They all miss him dearly and ask how many days until we get home at least 3 or 4 times a day.  They all are trying to figure out ways for him to come along the whole time on the next trip.

We headed to the playground for a little while and as the kids fought over whose turn it was on the coveted log roller, I headed to the lake to find the source of the chorus of animals and check out the view.  While I never found any frogs or crickets, I was treated to a beautiful sunset over the water.

Seeing something like this always makes me think about how the bickering and whining really don't matter in the big picture.  We're here to enjoy the beautiful places and wishing those moments away will undoubtedly make me miss these as well.  Within a few minutes I was joined by my crew and we sat silently enjoying the view.  Ryan and Laney spotted Blueberry and all his friends from our first trip who always joined us on our walks in Louisana.

We talked about swimming in the morning, playing on the playground, and having a picnic breakfast by the water.  And we talked about our visitor from the previous night.  Then I showed them this guy who'd been watching us the whole time.  (He's just a small blip in the sunset picture above)

 Although we were on a dock over the lake with multiple railings and protection, they all ran screaming down the walkway to the protection of land.  I couldn't convince them to go swimming in the morning anymore.

After 4 more chapters of "Because of Winn Dixie" and much giggling, we fell asleep.  Everyone is ready for the our next park where we'll meet up with mom's grandparents, Nana and Papa!

Day 11

Our plans today were for a hike down into the gorge of Cloudland Canyon and then on to another park that might be fun for the kids.  We were foiled right off by a closed interpretive center - a place the kids love going to learn more about the local animals, trees, and environment.  The disappointed crew went on to the trail head and were greeted by an extremely friendly cat.  She loved all the scratches she was getting and the kids loved being around her.  They named her Stripes (a.k.a. Sparkles) and we headed on down the trail.  There was much talk for most of the way down about the cat, whether and how we could keep her, if she would be waiting for us when we got back, etc.  It reminded me of when I tried to convince my mom I could handle a monkey for my 12th birthday.  

This trail was a nice dirt and gravel trail for quite awhile until the Grammie-dreaded stairs.  We decided to stop and hold this rock up for awhile before heading down.  There were 600 steps today so we'd better get started!  The walk down was pretty uneventful and sprinkled with cat talk until....Laney slipped through the railing of the stairs and landed in POISON IVY!  She alerted me pretty quickly that her legs were itching all over and would "prefer to go back up the stairs".  I immediately brought out the alcohol wipes and started trying to get the oil off.  Thankfully, we'd been educated almost daily by the Georgia State Park system about the vine. After the first wipe I looked at her legs and they were already angry with bumps, so I got another one out then used one of Grammie's as well.  After about 5 minutes, she seemed to calm down and I asked if she wanted to go on and she said yes.  So I let her have a picture by herself by one of the waterfalls.  Brave girl, that Laney.

We reached the bottom of the gorge then headed on to find our next cache.  My gps was giving me some serious issues with all the tree cover so we ended up looking for more than an hour, knowing we were right on top of it.  I'm generally a pretty stubborn person especially when it comes to hiking for an hour to get to a cache so I was getting pretty frustrated. Ryan kept looking and encouraging all of us telling us not to give up!  When I finally declared defeat, much to Ryan's disappointment, we headed back up toward the trail from the river.  We ran into some locals we'd already passed on the way down who asked if we'd found it.  I told them about my gps problems and they offered to help, so we ended up finding it after all!

Now the hard part, the climb back up!  This would be the 3rd of 4 canyon climbs Grammie and I would need to do in order to get our canyon climber t-shirts, so we were determined!  I think the kids were moving quickly just to see if the cat was waiting on them.  Alas, she wasn't but we did make it back up to the top!

Amazing that the kids look practically the same after 3 hours hiking in a canyon!  I assure you Grammie and I did not!  It was now already almost 2pm, so we made a quick lunch and ate in the car on the way to the next spot - James H. Floyd State Park.  The kids have been asking to do pedal boats every since our trip last year so it was fun to actually get to take them to do it here!

The lake was nice a calm and we were greeted warmly by the resident ducks.

Ryan had fun annoying this blue heron that was looking for some dinner. 

After exhausting our legs even more, we headed to the playground for awhile before going to find the next cache.  This was a quick one and the kids loved the creativity of the hide!

We headed home exhausted after such a long day and ready for Grammie to go home so we can have a break!  I'm sure she feels quite the same way.

On the way we noticed a road and campground named after Juliette Gordon Low - the founder of Girl Scouts - neat!  

Off to take her to the airport in the morning and on to the next park!

Day 10

I started the morning with a nice run down the 600 steps of the trail to say goodbye to the waterfall.  The trail was quiet of people, but roaring with the sound of the rushing water.  Some of the trails here are made of 100% recycled tires which is definitely a good thing, but also a joy to run on.  I felt like a gazelle bouncing down the trail!

We'd gotten pretty comfortable in the cabin so it took us about an hour or so to round everything up and stuff it back into the van.  We found the cache at the park, browsed the craft fair set up downstairs at the lodge, then headed upstairs for brunch.  While I'm quite frightened of buffets, the kids love the chance to make so many choices and eat such a variety.  It also helps quite a bit they get dessert too.

We were on the road by 1 and started listening to the first book in "The Series of Unfortunate Events", "The Bad Beginning".  I'd been trying to get Brayden to start reading this series for quite some time but for some reason he has been very reluctant to do so.  We all really enjoyed the book and the timing was perfect, ending just as we pulled up to check in.  Another one to check off the list!

On the way to the park, Grammie received a phone call that we were being downgraded to a 2-bedroom cabin as there were maintenance issues in the other cabin she'd booked previously.  I was expecting the worst, but we arrived and were pleasantly surprised with a relatively new, spacious cabin that would do just fine.  I want a rock like this in my backyard!

The kids grabbed their scooters the minute they could and began practicing their "cool tricks" and developing new ones.  After a quick dinner we headed out to find the playground and a wildlife viewing area. When the kids saw all kinds of monkey bars at the playground they barreled out of the car to try them out. They've been on a monkey bar kick lately ever since they all could successfully complete them several times in a row.

One of the Junior Ranger activities the kids have been anxious to do is noting some wildlife observations, so we were aiming to do just that in a pretty open field planted with a buffet of treats for rabbits, turkey, and deer.  At the end near the connector trail there is a tall tower where visitors can look out over the field and pond to have the best view.  We must have been exceptionally noisy as all we saw were moths, spiders, a few frogs, and had a fleeting glance at a bunny.  We did have a discussion about how quiet we needed to be, but that only lasted for a very short time.  Luckily, we've seen deer on a couple of occasions - once about 10 feet away as we walked down a trail.

The parks have done a good job of educating visitors about dangers in the parks - snakes, bears, ticks, etc. Laney found a tick on crawling on her in the car and recognized it right away.  We also spotted some poison ivy winding around a tree.  It was so good for the kids to put an image with the name as up until now, they'd been labeling everything as poison ivy.  Leaves of three, let it be.

Day 9

Our plan this morning was to get on the road as soon as the kids woke up so we could see a few more parks, show Grammie the quaint town of Helen, GA and make it back to our park in time for the birds of prey talk.  Some background information is probably required for today's post.  The previous night at our campfire and s'mores roasting, we were entertained my many stories one of which was about the indian pricess,Trahlyta.

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. 

Day 8

While exploring the trails around our cabin this morning, I stumbled onto the approach trail to the beginning of the Appalachian Trail at Springer Mountain.  I hiked just a little ways in to discover it was also part of the 5-mile trail to the Hike Inn - Georgia's only hike-in lodge built to green standards.  More to add to my bucket list...poor Dave.  Or poor Grammie.  

After some giant cinnamon rolls, we headed toward Dalohnega, GA to learn a bunch about gold.  On our way out the cabin door, Ryan spotted this cool guy hanging out and couldn't resist picking him up.

We stopped first at the Dahlonega Historic Gold Museum and learn about the Georgia history of gold mining.  We had to solve a bunch of questions to build the combination that would open the cache and we got our first historic cache card.

We hopped back into the car and headed to Babyland.  Ever since I decided to do this Georgia State Park tour, my grandfather (Papa) has been reminding me and Grammie that we must take the kids to the Cabbage Patch Babyland General Hospital.  Papa made us promise so we visited there today.  We even witnessed a cabbage patch baby birth which ended up being pretty humorous for moms who have experienced the whole hospital delivery.

Laney was in awe of all the babies!  She had such a difficult time deciding on just which one to adopt. Brayden and Ryan chose quickly at the end. We adopted 3 new babies: Aubrey, Theron, and Lionel.  They have enjoyed much play, cuddling, and nap time since their welcome into the Clarke family.

 Next up was some panning for gold!  After learning about the history, we decided to stop at the Consolidated Gold Mine for a mine tour and gold panning.  The kids had fun being underground and learning all about the tools and how underground mining was actually accomplished.

Brayden had a first and very reluctantly participated in part of the tour. He was supposed to wave his arms around to demonstrate the jobs 8-12 year olds had back during the gold mining days.  When asked if he would do something else, he shyly declined and the girl next to him agreed.  Fortunately for me, if Brayden had agreed, I would owe our tour guide $200, so he did good.

Some of the tools they used were on display and there was a 130-year-old mining drill that still worked near the end.




We even got to see this endangered little guy on the way out!

We were famished by the time we got home so we had a very large lunch at 4pm.  After playtime, finishing Mrs. Piggle Wiggle, and working on Junior Ranger books and journals, we headed out to the park program for the night.  We were treated to s'mores as we sat around a campfire and heard a large variety of stories, mostly about Native Americans and the Appalachian Trail.  The extra special treat was a visit by a baby black bear looking for a snack from the lodge.  He was adorable and all of us would've taken him home in a second, but alas they had to scare him away so he would go find his own food the right way.