Dropped the Bucket

I had more plans for Fall adventuring through November, to Christmas adventuring in December....but I'm not sure what happened.  It didn't go as planned.

John and Kevin and myself went to Hiawassee to have Thanksgiving dinner with my parents.

About two? three? years ago, me and my Aunt went on an adventure to Traveler's Rest Inn in Toccoa, Georgia, and Toccoa Falls, and Helen, Georgia, in December, so Christmastime. We had a good time, and she said she wanted to do some more things like that.
Last year I had planned us a trip, but she forgot and made other plans. This year, I haven't been able to get my act together and plan anything, and this THIS happened:

Very odd, early December snow storm.
Not only do we rarely ever get snow in December, but never 9 to 12 inches.

It started snowing on Friday, snowed all day, and all day Saturday, too.  Ryan is off on weekends, so we didn't budge from the house (other than I had to go out and feed & water the chickens, but I didn't change out of my PJs to do that).

This Saturday Ryan has a Christmas party to attend, and the next Saturday we'll be headed to my parents to have our family Christmas, since John has to work Christmas Eve day, and Ryan has to work Christmas Day.

So December is pretty well shot. (So am I, to be honest. It has been a rough year.)

One of the (many) things I've been spending my time NOT adventuring doing is doing some de-cluttering.

I used to be a complete Souvenir Junkie, collecting all sorts and types and kinds of these and those while on a trip somewhere. Souvenir drinking cups, playing cards, thimbles, Christmas tree ornaments, lanyards, caps, pins, etc etc.
After I "went frugal" I stopped buying all the things, but still collecting all the Free things I could get a hold of, mainly travel brochures, magazines, papers, etc.

So I had boxes and bins and vintage suitcases and bags FULL of souvenir and travel stuff.  I started going through it and tossing tons of extra brochures, faded receipts, coupon books, maps, etc etc. into the recycle bin, and boxed up a lot of the souvenir drinking cups and such and donating them to the Goodwill.

Long story short - going through all my Cruise memorabilia made me want to go another cruise.
Preferably a long, 7 or 10 or even 14 day one would be great - unfortunately not feasible at this time - so I said, okay, well, a short one is better than not one at all:

It's only one day in Nassau, one day at Sea, but I'll take it!

Fall Bucket List #4 - Leaf Peeping

Fall (Autumn) in North Georgia is a beautiful time of the year, and was especially so this year.
We headed up to Fort Mountain State Park in Chatsworth for some hiking and leaf peeping.

Lovely view from the Overlook.

The CCC fire tower was re-furbished and re-opened in the past couple of years.
     Not sure if you can see it in this photo, if you enlarge it, but above the lower window is a heart shaped stone one of the workers installed as a tribute to his Sweetheart.

 The colors were sooooo pretty. Pictures don't do them justice.

I have never heard of the Moon-Eyed People. Something to research this Winter. Very interesting!

There is this "Pre-historic" stacked stone all at Fort Mountain that has been here for ever and no one knows the origin of. Amazing!

(I asked how old - what age, or eon, or whatever - was considered "pre-historic". Ryan said, what is History? I said, the past. He said, right. Pre, history, was....Nothing?)

Interesting!

Fall Bucket List #3 - Corn Maze

On our List of Things to do this Fall was to visit a Corn Maze.

     Corn Mazes have become mega popular and there's at least a couple dozen of them within driving distance of us to choose from, including one right here in our own little town.

~*~

Saturday morning started off a gorgeous day with mild temp and beautiful blue skies.

    We walked up the street to the very old church for a Veterans Memorial Ceremony.

After that we went downtown to the Riverwalk Festival: checked out the Farmer's Market, arts & crafts, listened to some good music, and enjoyed some delicious steak burgers courtesy the Lions Club.

And then we headed over to Carlton Farms to take on the Corn Maze.

Which way do we go? Which way do we go?

Checkpoint!

God Bless America!

I'll get you, my pretty

Family pumpkin shoot, lol

Fall Bucket List #2 (Or So) - Haunted Trail

Of course, Halloween is in the Fall, so in addition to Leaf Peeping, Fall Festivals, Apple Picking, etc., we look for fun Halloween activities.

For us, that means scary.

Ryan's partner at work recommended Haunted Hills Farm Trail and Hayride in Jasper.

It was dark by the time we got there, so I didn't get any pictures, but here's some of the creatures we were tortured by (from their FB page):

First off, free admission for teachers, military, police, firefighters (and EMTs, since I asked) was awesome. Saved us 50%, which was a good thing, since we really only enjoyed about 50% of it.

The trail part was good and scary. Lots of jump scares. Made me scream several times (sometimes I scream more for the action than really being scared), and the chainsaw pig man - holy crap!

The hayride part wasn't that great. I guess I felt too protected in the wagon?

Also, kids.
Kids aren't my favorite.
These weren't little kids, scared and crying, which would also have been annoying, but young teen-aged kids, 13 or 14 or so, give or take.
They ruin everything.

North Georgia

This weekend there were two events Ryan wanted to check out, the Foxfire Mountaineer Festival, and a Viking Encampment.

The Foxfire festival was only on Saturday, but there was a hurricane (Nate) possibly headed our way, with rain predicted for either Saturday night, Sunday morning, or Sunday night.

We decided to gamble on the rain coming later, and went to the Foxfire festival on Saturday.
We drove to the Viking encampment on Sunday, but sadly, it was pretty much a wash out. 

The Foxfire festival wasn't that great, either.

If you don't know anything about Foxfire, they work to preserve the Southern Appalachian culture by talking to older generations and recording their stories, preserving antiques, and teaching younger generations how to do things the "old fashioned way", before there were machines to do it for us, or grocery stores: cooking, preserving, weaving, milling, farming, making musical instruments by hand, and so on.

"Foxfire’s mission is to preserve and develop the public’s appreciation for Southern Appalachian culture – its history, people, and traditions – through artifacts, oral history, and programs that interpret, document and celebrate the region, and fosters self-directed, community-based classroom instruction following the Foxfire Core Practices."

If interested in learning more, you can visit their website at www.foxfire.org .

Anyhoo, Ryan was interested in going and seeing what we thought would be demonstrations of the old ways. 
Turned out it was mostly just another arts & crafts sale like all the others. 

This young blacksmith was really the only demonstrator of his skill at the festival,

This lady was making applesauce, which was right up my alley. 
Except I can't seem to find anyone that seems to like applesauce, so I've pretty much stopped making it, and have just been drying apples. Dried apples keep for ever, and can be re-hydrated to make applesauce, pies, or pretty much anything else you want to make with apples.

These people had rigged an engine to run an ice cream maker. That was interesting for a couple of minutes.

This was something I haven't seen at the other festivals: thrift store altered paintings.

You find old paintings/prints and paint figures or put stickers on them. It's pretty cool. There's a ton of them on Pinterest. 

I had gotten a framed print of a country road in the forest (from I don't know where) and printed a chicken on sticker paper, cut it out and stuck it on the print. Chicken crossing the Road, get it? lol.

I totally need to take one of the junkards in the yard and paint and kitsch it up like this truck. 
I know it's tacky. I like it.

Luckily, our $5 admission fee included admission to the Foxfire Museum.

They save old cabins/barns/buildings from the Appalachian area. Some of them houses artifacts and antique items.

This cabin housed the Weaver, and she was there, doing some weaving on her looms and showed us all about it. Very interesting.

Some of the beautiful fall flowers in what was left of the Heritage Garden,

This interactivity was in one of the museums. It asked the question, "What are some of the lessons you learned from your grandparents/elders?" and had yellow stick-it notes for writing your answers.  Some of them were pretty funny.

"Do not kiss a possum" by Hilda,. age 6

"If you don't like anything don't be anything" lol.

 "Put lots of sugar on your 'maters"

"Be nice"

After there we had lunch (Wendy's, nothing worth mentioning), and then visited a little touristy attraction in Tiger, Georgia called "Goats on the Roof". 

Can you guess why it's called that?

Yep. There's goats on the roof.

They're on the porch roof, they can walk across a bridge to the billboard, or across an elevated walkway to another play area. It's really neat.

Kids enjoy the hand-cranked feeders. So do the goats, I reckon.

They can also come down to ground level and socialize with the hooman feeders.

 On our way back to my parent's house, we stopped off at Popcorn Overlook. (I don't know why it's called Popcorn Overlook)

October 2017

January 2006 (Probably not the same view)

It doesn't seem like that long ago,  but the last time we stopped here was 2006. The boys were so little.

October 2017

January 2006

  Finished the day picking apples at my Dad's fruit orchard,

These were the apples we've been waiting for. Granny Smiths.

The red and earlier ones are good eating apples, or for making sauce, butter, or jam/jelly, but the Granny Smiths are the best ones for drying for fruit snacks, and cooking with.