Heading West in the Georgia Mountains - First Day with Blake

We are enjoying a surprise visit from our son, Blake, and we wanted him to see as much of north Georgia as we could fit into his stay with us. So the first day we headed west towards the town of Dahlonega. Part of visiting a new area is learning how to pronounce some of the crazy names these little towns have. We really struggled with the correct pronunciation of Dahlonega, until Mark put it into a sentence, "Since we sold the house I don't have to mow "da-lawn-ag'in." The rolling hills and mountain temperatures makes this area a good place for growing grapes. So we stopped by Wolf Mountain Vineyard.

Too early in the day for anything to be open here, it was a beautiful place to walk around and see the grape vines. The tiny grapes are just beginning to form on the vines, and we saw bees buzzing throughout the vineyard.

Besides growing grapes and making wine, they also host events like weddings here at Wolf Mountain, with a beautiful view of the surrounding mountains.

Have we mentioned how glad we are to spend time with our son, Blake?

This was the only day we have rain in the forecast, so we chose some indoor activities. We headed underground for the gold mine tour at Consolidated Gold Mines. Blake treated us to the deluxe tour, which first included a 40-minute tour to see the "Glory Hole."

Outfitted in our blue mining helmets, Blake thought we all looked like we were ready to play baseball. "Batter up!"

At one time there were 1,200 gold mines along the ridge of the Appalachian Mountains, and this was the biggest of all of those mines. A usual quartz vein that contains gold can be 3-6 inches wide. But this vein was 22 feet wide, and the reason it was named the Glory Hole. We followed our tour guide as we headed down into the dim light 200 feet below the surface.

Our tour guide was Johnny Parker, who told us he was in the Guinness Book of World Records and has 100 titles in gold panning. He was also a very entertaining tour guide.

Included in our gold mine experience was the opportunity to pan for gold. We watched the instructional video and then hit the stream to find a nugget or two in our pan of sand. As the world gold panning champion, Johnny gave us some personal tutoring. His world record came in 2010 when it took him only 7.52 seconds to unearth the 8 regulation-size golden nuggets buried in a one-inch layer of sand. Swirling the pan from side to side causes the heavier gold to sink to the bottom of the sand. You also regularly dip the pan under water to wash away the lighter sand. After close to 15 minutes (not seconds) of back-breaking swirling and dipping, we were down to a handful of sand.

We took our precious hand-full of sand to the professional gold miner to finish. We waited with bated breath to see if we would become gold-ionaires.

I guess Blake shouldn't quit his day job. We put all three of our mining efforts into one vial, and posed it with some of the beautiful flowers outside. Those eight tiny gold flakes aren't enough for Blake to retire, so it looks like he will be heading back to work after all.

As forecast, we did get a heavy rain shower. So we had an excuse to eat lunch in a little Irish pub, decorated with dollar bills all over the walls. We ordered two entrees to split between the three of us. We enjoyed the Shillelagh, a sandwich with three meats topped with a fried egg and provolone cheese. But the star of the lunch was the Grouben--grilled grouper with sauerkraut on rye bread. We will start making that at home now!

We made another winery stop, but just a drive through to admire their undulating hills filled with grape vines set in an Italian Tuscan setting. We noticed that the rows of vines are topped with rolls of netting that will be lowered to protect the grapes from the local birds.

We drove through the vineyard because we were saving our legs for our next adventure--Amicalola Falls State Park. Home to the highest waterfall in the state of Georgia, the ranger told us the best view of the waterfall is on the bridge at the midway point.

That looked like a pretty big waterfall in the first picture. But Mark went down the adjacent steps to get a bigger view of the falls from a little further away.

Remembering that this is the longest cascading waterfall in all of the southeast, it took a trip down to the very bottom of the viewing platform to get all of it in a picture. Blake and Denisa are still on the middle platform, now very far away. Mark has traveled down 175 steps to take this picture to capture all 829 feet of the waterfall.

We love being in Northern Georgia, where it is easy to wander God's wonders!

There are 175 steps to the bottom of the waterfall from the mid-way bridge . . .

and 425 steps from that bridge to the top of the waterfall . . .

and of course it started raining on us when we were going up and down those steps! The math problem of the day would sound something like, "Mark walked down 175 steps to take a picture of Denisa and Blake at the waterfall midpoint. Then Blake and Denisa walked down the 175 steps, and the three of them walked back up the stairs to the bridge. Then all three walked up 425 steps to the top in the rain, then walked back down all 600 steps to the very bottom. How many steps would all three of them have gone up and down today?  The simple answer would be "TOO MANY!" The more exact numerical answer would be 1,375 each or 4,125 steps between the three of them.

But we still weren't back to the car, which would entail a hike down a very steep path in the woods. We could still see the Amicalola waterfall, now far in the distance.

Then of course we would have to climb up another very steep path. There was a little grumbling in the ranks as we heard from more than one person, "Whose idea was it to take this hike?"

After all those stairs, our legs were screaming! We were tired at the end of our first day of exploring the foothills of the Appalachians! As we climbed the last 6 steps up into the motor home, we were all ready for some time to relax!