Whenever we take the dog on a trip with us, we try to find things that we can do with her, and since we’re outdoorsy, that usually means a nice little day hike! Unfortunately, Angie recently injured her knee so we tried to find some easier walks to prevent further damage. But luckily for us we found 2 great trails in our recent trip! We were staying in Helen, GA, and there was an awesome waterfall there, and then on our way back home we stopped at a nearby state park to make the drive a bit more bearable.

Chris has his serious face on, but Tifa was loving the trail!

Our first stop Saturday morning was Anna Ruby Falls. Before we could get on the trail, we had to figure out the parking payment situation. As it turns out, the falls are in Federal land, but the road to get there is through a State park(Unicoi State park). We are totally guilty of being cashless millenials, so we only had cash to pay one parking fee, whoops. Luckily Unicoi State park only charges if you’re going to park there, so since we were just driving through we were o.k. The trail was already crowded, so we were glad we were up relatively early! We’re not huge crowd people, but the dog positively hates crowds, but the paved path was wide so it never felt like a shuffle or like we were in the way of those travelling the opposite way. And as much as she hates the people involved with crowds, the dog loves the smells, so she was very content with the trip up to the falls.

The recent rainfall made the view so spectacular, it’s a huge set of waterfalls and the extra water really made the upper falls more noticeable as well. The cascading falls were so elegant and really looked like something from a painting thanks to the added volume as well. We both love a good hike, but Angie likes waterfalls more than scenic views, so this was well worth the crowds. But with lots of people waiting, we didn’t want to spend too much time on the boardwalk viewing platforms, so it was off to let the dog rest at our cabin while we enjoyed the town.

Our second little walk was on our trip back home. When we take road trips we like to break up the day by stopping if there’s a nearby park or attraction, so even though we were only driving 4 hours total we thought a little detour was in order. Sweetwater Creek State Park was only about 15 minutes off our planned route, and seemed like there were a few easy trails to the main draw of the park, an old textile mill.

This trail wasn’t paved, but was still mostly flat and pretty wide, its clearly one of the more trafficked trails in the park, though there are a lot more we’ll definitely be back to explore. The mill is tragically gorgeous, old architecture is always so fascinating to us, but like so much of the south the mill was destroyed during the Civil War. To protect it from further damage there’s a big fence around the whole thing which takes away from the view, but is totally understandable given the trash and graffiti we found littering the area. (Which is anther reason we prefer longer, more backcountry hikes, but that’s anther story) Chris loves history, so it was great to be on a hike in the woods and basically come upon this seemingly abandoned, forgotten piece of the past.

We were also pleased to see there was access to the stream nearby, so we had to relax a bit by the water before we went back. We chose a little eddy a bit further away from the other people and were quite content until we saw we weren’t alone. On the rock in front of us, a massive water snake was sunbathing as well, so we figured our was time to leave the water and get back on the road home.

Depending on who you ask, Angie either has the blessing or the curse of a birthday that falls right near a holiday. On the plus side, it’s super easy to get away as a lot of times there’s a long weekend either including or right after her birthday. But, on the down side, that’s when EVERYONE seems to travel, and we’re certainly no fans of crowded tourist attractions. Though we do like seeing those “big ticket” places, we’d rather see them when they aren’t terribly crowded. But for Angie’s birthday, we still like to getaway, but try to find something that’s a bit less crowded. And with the 4th of July holiday falling mid-week, we thought the weekend before the 4th this year would be busy, but not terrible. So we set off to find a fun “touristy” trip that was still a little less traveled, and settled on a little place that’s been on both our bucket-lists for a while: Helen, GA. It’s a charming little southern town that’s modeled after a German village. The whole town! It’s like being in the German pavilion at EPCOT, except much, much larger, and much more Southern!

Everything about this town was just, well, cute. The gardens were perfectly manicured, the shops staff were all so kind and welcoming, and the general atmosphere was so incredible that it’s no wonder people flock to this place! We just enjoyed walking through the town square and checking out all the little shops, and even stumbled on a cute little puppet show being put on in what appeared to be a little city stage for local performers to showcase their talents. It was less crowded since it was Friday, and some of the stores had already closed for the day since it was getting later in the afternoon, but it was so nice to just see all the stores and the architecture of the town. So many little villages like this are overrun with tourist-trap like attractions (we’re looking at you, Gatlinburg) but it was so nice to see that Helen is filled with mostly small-shop/independent businesses. There were charming bakeries, souvenir shops, even a toy maker!

(also worth mentioning, the city is electric car friendly, and had a charge-station for our Volt! It’s only a block from town, and while it seemed expensive at $4/charge, once you factor in that all cars pay $2 to park there, it’s really quite a bargain)

And of course, there were so many options for food! We stopped into the Cafe at Hofer’s bakery for breakfast, and even though there was quite a bit of a line to get a table, we decided to trust the masses (and the internet reviews) and we were seated within about half an hour. Angie got what turned out to be a ham& cheese on toast (the menu described it more as cheese toast with ham, but we’re definitely not complaining about the massive portion of ham that came on the soft homemade bakery bread!) and Chris got a personal favorite, though not strictly authentic, biscuits with gravy, again on the bakery’s homemade biscuits. Well worth the wait!

For dinner we again trusted the internet and decided to try out a place called Bodensee, which was only a little walk from the town center, and since the town is very pedestrian friendly it wasn’t an issue at all. As we’ve mentioned before, we often split meals so we can try more things, so we decided to get an appetizer and one entree, and we still had leftovers! The sampler plate was amazing, including garlic sausage,  knockwurst, and a massive Pork Chop. Chris was also happy to have sauerkraut, it was on his “must eat” list for the weekend! We split the entree and still had leftovers, so lunch the next day was taken care of as well!

While we didn’t take the dog on most of our in town adventures, we did have her for the weekend (for the non-city parts of our trip, as with many mountain town Helen has great outdoor activities!). We noticed when we were doing our research there was a mini-golf place that advertised itself as “dog friendly” so we decided it would be a fun side adventure, if in fact they really did let dogs on the course. Come to find out, they did! It was a surprising highlight of our trip, being able to bring the dog and laugh at each other’s inability to play mini-golf very well!

The course was so well designed, without any of the “gimmicky” things that most tourist town mini-golf places usually feature. No silly dinosaurs, volcanoes, or sharks here, just plain but challenging mini-golf holes, set in a gorgeous and well landscaped location. Honestly, the place was so gorgeous, they could have just call it a garden tour and we would have paid just to see the flowering beds and trees that were interspersed between the holes, it was so pretty! We probably haven’t played mini-golf in 5 of 6 years because, well, they just seem like they take away from the local atmosphere, but this one fit right in with the German, relaxed theming of the town, plus it’s always fun to bring the dog! There was quite a bit of shade on the course thanks to the mature landscaping, and on a hot summer afternoon that was definitely welcome!

We had such a great time over our short little weekend that we decided we can’t really cross Helen off our bucket lists just yet, we still want to go back! Still, we made the most of the day and a half we were there, and really enjoyed every bit of our trip. The town has an amazing Oktoberfest, which seems a little too crowded for our tastes, but might be worth it if we could get friends together for a group trip. Or maybe a romantic winter get-a-way when there is snow in the forecast? We got just enough of a taste to know that this is certainly a trip worth repeating!