The Snake and Shady Valley

Today we drove to Eddie and Arlene's in Shady Valley, TN. We love driving to their home - the mountain road to their town Shady Valley is called 'The Snake'. It goes over three mountains with 489 curves. This is a road motorcycles run for sport - very exciting, we find it thrilling enough in our Jeep. We always enjoy their small town of Shady Valley, a lovely country village. We went to Logan's Roadhouse in Johnson City, TN for lunch and commandeered a table for a couple of hours as we all talked about how everyone is doing.  

It was so great catching up with Eddie and Arlene, a wonderful day. 

Chuckey, TN

We rolled away from Unicoi Springs RV Resort and the Helen, GA area. We are very excited about our next stop, we will be visiting with John's brother and his sister-in-law. While we are in their neck of the woods, we will be staying at the newly opened Lazy Llama RV Park in Chuckey, TN.  We will spend time checking out the area and visiting with Eddie and Arlene (brother and sister-in-law).  The route was interesting, we averaged 39 MPH over the length of the trip here. Lots of back country mountain roads with twists and turns, ups and downs.  Beautiful ride, but slow and careful driving.  On the trip in we passed through Greenville, TN.  The old town was so picturesque, we planned to return during the week.

Last Full Day in Helen, GA

We started the day early with breakfast at Hofer’s Café.  John had a farmer’s omelet and I had a ham and cheese omelet, our food was delicious. John finished with a tasty German cinnamon pastry.  We walked off our breakfast with one last stroll through the village of Helen, we hit the road with the RV tomorrow. We stopped by the wooden toy store to get a sign that we will nail to a post in Watson Lake (more info on the sign when we get to British Columbia). 

Late afternoon we departed for

The Georgia Mountain Fair Grounds to attend the Montgomery Gentry performance.  In route we stopped for some good BBQ at the Wild Hawg BBQ in Hiawassee, GA. I love their BBQ and the catfish is good too.  Dennis Carmaichael opend the show, he is the nephew of Eddie Montgomery and has a terrific voice.  He and his band played for about an hour followed by the main show.  Eddie Montgomery was really good too.  He and his band performed their old hits and some songs from an album just released. The show was terrific. 

Chestatee Wildlife Preserve and Zoo in Dahlonega, GA

Yesterday, got out for a bike ride. Today, We started our day at the Chestatee Wildlife Preserve and Zoo in Dahlonega, GA.  The animals have been rescued from bad situations and can now live out their lives peacefully; they look well fed and cared for.  We talked to two ladies that work as care takes and they introduced us to the bears and the tigers by name, we could tell they loved working with the animals.   We walked up and down the rolling hills while watching animals wandering in mostly large enclosed areas.  It was a terrific visit. 

From there we went into the town of Dahlonega.  Nice place to visit.  Lots of history with friendly people everywhere.  

On the way home we stopped in Yonah for a quick meal at the Yonah Burger Restaurant.  Great burger and they have homemade peach and apple fried pies. John tried the peach, he said it was pretty good.

Stoval Mill Covered Bridge and Friends

Our good friends Sam & Joy drove three hours from Summerville, GA to visit. We saw them in March when they were traveling with their RV in Florida.   Sam was John's Tac Officer during his six months of training at Ft Benning’s Infantry Officer Candidate School. 

Sam likes good southern cooking like I do so we had lunch at Hawg Wild.

On the way to lunch we all visited the Stoval Mill Covered Bridge built in 1895 by Will Pardue. It is 36.8 feet long with queen-post truss that crosses the Chickamauga Creek. It was also known as Sautee-Nacoochee, Helen Bridge and Chickamauga.  An earlier covered bridge stood here but was washed away in the early 1890's. The bridge retains the name of the miller, Fred Stovall, Sr.; who operated the mill complex from 1917 for many years. It is said that this bridge is haunted. They say standing on the bridge at night, you may hear the sounds of horse-drawn carriages.

We also walked around the town of Helen and stopped of at Fred's Famous Peanuts for a little fozzen lemon-aid. 
Great friends, great day!

Good Eats

We have spent the last eight days hiking to waterfalls, bike riding on the hilly roads and just enjoying the North Georgia Helen. 

On our second evening in Helen, we tried a German restaurant that we had not visited before, the Bodensee. We have heard that it was the best restaurant in Helen - that is saying a lot with the number of other Germany eating establishments that we have tried here. We can now confirm it is the best restaurant in town, actually the best German food we have had since our last visit to Europe.  Master Chef Aurel Prodan and his wife Doina, owners of Bodensee Restaurant, moved from Bavaria, Germany to Helen in 1981. They know what they are doing - delicious food!

It was so good, we ate dinner there two more times during this last week. 

My favorite BBQ in these parts is Wild Hawg BBQ. It is always a yummy place to stop for lunch. But I never miss the Wednesday 4pm-6pm special of half price on their full rack of ribs - so good!

One afternoon while we were sitting in rocking chairs on the patio of the log cabin clubhouse, we were talking with two gentlemen that have RVs close to ours, our RV neighbors Mike and Sam.Two very nice guys who have been coming to this park for years. They were fun to talk to, they know this area quite well. They gave us lots of good advice on things to do and see. One of their recommendations was to visit Alexander’s in Blairsville, GA. We did.

Alexander’s Store was started in 1953 and it is an interesting place to visit.  It is family owned and has friendly staff. The diverse inventory included men and women sport and casual clothing and footwear from hiking boots to sandals. A large furniture section - I loved the overstuffed leather chairs. In the basement they have sporting goods, including guns, bows, ammunition, and accessories, makes for a unique  shopping experience. We spent an hour there, we enjoyed browsing around.  

From there we took a circuitous route through beautiful mountain country side and small towns to our favorite area steakhouse, the Deer Lodge Steakhouse in Hiawassee, Georgia.  I did not know how big a T-bone steak could be until we visited this restaurant.  The main items on the menu are steaks - that is what we order and John loves their huge baked potatoes. Good dinner.

Good Ol' Friends - Bill & Nancy

We drove to Gainesville, GA in the Jeep and met up with one of John's ol' friends Bill and his wife Nancy at the Roadhouse Steakhouse (my favorite place for a good steak dinner). Bill and John were business partners in Atlanta during the 70’s and were stationed in Germany as Army Officers in the 80s. John and Bill have not seen each other for ten years and I have never met Bill and Nancy; this is John's first time meeting Nancy.  They are a wonderful couple! We all enjoyed talking for hours, it was an absolutely great visit!  We look forward to seeing them again in the future.