Just a Peach

So the rest of Labor Day Weekend... I did promise you more, and I will not disappoint.

Eric and I hope on a plan on Sunday morning to head to Georgia. The intent was to see Darian playing in a soccer tournament, the Publix Atlanta Cup, near my old stomping grounds, interestingly enough. I was kind of excited to see the old homestead, actually... it's been since 2001! Unfortunately, her team was out of the tournament by the time we landed. But that just meant more time for us to do things we wanted instead of hanging out at a soccer field. So to start, Eric and I made a side trip on the way to the north side with a stop to Ikea. Eric wanted to look at a few things for his office, and we were both kind of hungry. I swear, Ikea's Swedish meatballs are addicting. Atlanta has, by far, the most urban Ikea I've seen, right in Midtown. And Midtown has changed quite a bit since I lived in Atlanta... yay for them!

After Ikea, we finally got on 400, just in time for a massive downpour. I'm talking a all lanes of traffic stop type of downpour! I was driving at this point, which I'm kind of glad. I may not have live there for awhile, but I was comfortable dealing with Atlantan drivers in the rain. But the rain was just downtown, and as we drove north to Roswell, it was dry. The hotel we were staying at (the same as where the Pitts were) was just across 400 from my old office (before they moved us to Midtown). Somehow, though, I forgot how much topography was in this area. I guess Atlanta is the third highest (in elevation) large city in the US... duh! Eric and I checked in, and then found the Pitts' room. They were all being lazy at this point, not that I could blame them with the early morning they had. So after some motivation, I convinced them to go for a hike in one of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Areas nearby.

Well, it ended up being two of the CRA's nearby - the first one didn't give me the experience I wanted. The second one did, though... should've went there, first, and done more of the trails. Regardless, it was a good time. The Canadian Geese have taken over the Atlanta waterways much the same way they're all over Indy. (Why can't we hunt/kill these things again?) But we also saw some herons out in the Hooch. It was a nice time.

After working up a hunger, we went back to the hotel to freshen up and then go get some food. I stumbled across a local pizza place through one of my apps that was in 'downtown' historic Roswell, called Diesel Pizza. We really didn't know what to expect, but found the area t have quite a few restaurants and was slammed, as far as parking goes. So we finally found a place to park and walked to the restaurant. It's wasn't slammed, but we did have to wait a few minutes to get table big enough for us. It was really good! Eric and I both walked away talking about it. Definitely a good 'go to' if you're in the area!

That pretty much wrapped up the day for all of us. Since even Eric and I were up early for our flight, the long day was hitting us all. So we just planned on meeting for breakfast in the morning (at the hotel) before heading our separate ways.

We tried to make the next morning as early as we could, without killing ourselves to get us and moving. After we had a nice breakfast, we said our goodbyes, and went back to the room to finish packing up. It didn't take long, and then we headed out. Eric and I planned on detouring through the GA mountains rather than jumping on the interstate - kind of the main reason for us driving home instead of flying... might as well make a memory than hang out at the airport! So after a quick stop at Publix to grab some snacks (including some fresh GA peaches), we headed north on 400 until it was just 19 and you felt as if you were truly in the foothills. I had done a little research on a good place to do a little hike, and navigated us to the edge of the Chattahoochee National Forest and the beginning of the Appalachian Trail, just north of Dawsonville. While it was raining on us for the first part of the trip, we came out of it as we headed north, which it was I was hoping so we could hike.

After about an hour or so of driving, we reached our destination... Amicalola Falls State Park. I saw some good comments on it and it looked like it had short enough trails that we could easily enjoy the falls without putting us way behind schedule. And while this isn't the true trailhead for the Appalachian Trail, you could start at the falls and follow the marked trail to the true beginning of the AT. I've done enough hikes in the Appalachians that I've been on parts of the trail as it weaves through the mountains, but Eric hasn't. But now he kind of has.

But back to the falls. These were, by far, some of the most beautiful falls I've seen, at least in this area. And they've set up trails and boardwalks so you can really see and enjoy them. Sure... it takes a bit away from the pureness, but I think they did a good job keeping that intact as much as they could. The falls are quite tall, if you look all the way from top to bottom - the main viewing platform is a little higher than the bottom of the falls. It kind of made me wish we could stay a little longer and hike some more of the trail along the lower portion. but it got Eric and I talking about maybe doing more driving for our trips and making detours like this, so we'll see.

We jumped back in the car and got back on the road. Kind of. On our way in, we saw Burt's Pumpkin Farm, already full of huge pumpkins for the fall! You couldn't help but see the sea of bright orange as you drove by. And judging by the size of the parking lot, this place probably gets slammed in the fall by Atlantans! It looked like it would be cool to see up close, maybe snap a few pictures. Some of these pumpkins were huge! But even more cool was all the varieties he had. He even had the Blue Moon pumpkins, which I just recently learned about... they're actually a light blue! Had to buy a small one of those. Grabbed a butternut squash, too... why not? They were $2! But now we really had to get on the road.

We stayed on backroads all the way into Tennessee, bypassing Chattanooga. Not long after we got on I-75, we kind of realized that the snacks weren't going to cut it, as far as food goes. So we found a place to stop, went to Home Depot (yes... even in TN, Eric thinks about home improvement), gassed up, and had some chicken fingers at Zaxby's. But then it was back on the road, for real. We planned on staying on I-75 to Cincinnati, and then a straight shot to Indy on I-74. Which meant driving through mostly mountains in Tennessee and Kentucky. And we were making great time until the middle of KY, when we hit quite a back-up coming out of the mountains from an accident... after crawling for about 5 miles, it broke loose - the accident was already cleared up. But that was it. It was quite an easy drive for the rest of the trip! We made it home just in time to return the rental car, and just like that, the Labor Day weekend was over. Now to plan the next trip!