Advertisement
Published: November 26th 2006
Edit Blog Post
In North Georgia there is a little Alpine Village called Helen seemingly lost in America, but full of good times - partly because it hosts the popular Oktoberfest festival right in the backyard of many other major cities. Walking down the streets allow for many opportunities to duck your head into Northern European shops, get your fill of fudge and other sweets, and of course digest quite a few wursts!
Myself, my boyfriend Chris, and my newly married best friends, Kevin & Brittany headed up to North Georgia for the day looking to enjoy the honored tradition of Oktoberfest where it is a requirement to drink beer out of oversized cups and enjoy fellowship with complete strangers (which we did!), but along the way, we had a quick detour...
Cleveland - Home of the Cabbage Patch Kids
Our first stop was in Cleveland, GA - it's a small town, but is the home of Baby Land General Hospital. In the Early 1980's, Cabbage Patch Dolls began a huge craze, and at this particular hospital, you'll find them still continuing to be born - all with the help of a little imagicillian of course! Entering into the 'hospital', you are
greeted by a friendly nurse and then you begin to take a self guided tour (the bonus being the entire visit is FREE of charge!) through all the rooms. You see the stork making a visit behind one of the windows, and then a room full of incubators for the premies. There is even a room to see all the toddler and bigger cabbage patch kids as the go to school. The highlight of the tour, however, is the magic tree in the center of the building. It is at this tree that you hear the nurse being called to help... The mother cabbage is going into labor! All the children gather around as the procedure begins! This particular visit (I've been before) there was a male nurse (yay, for the advancement of Xavier Roberts' company!) and a screen showing pink or blue to predetermine the sex of the baby. Guiding the crowd through the procedure, the nurse explains how many leaves are dialated, and other cute little comments - including that how all the new Cabbage Patch Babies all have ears - because they were planted too close to the corn! The delivery was sucessful, and a little girl
got to take her new baby home.
Helen - Oktoberfest
The next stop was to be the "main course" of our visit: HELEN! It was a little chilly, but we still found ourselves eating outdoors along the side of the river (with beer to compliment our meals, of course!) After purchasing some sweets and checking out some of the stores... AND playing some putt-putt, we returned to an open area and joined the crowds to listen to some live music while we waited for it to get a bit later... so we could eat again! There is a well known restaraunt along the river called "Paul's" and it's THE place to go for a prime rib in town... and of course, with it being Oktoberfest.. it's a busy place! It was a nice and relaxing finale to our visit to the town... before our encore..
THE CORN MAZE!
http://www.northgacornmaze.com/ is one of 2 mazes in the area, and the much better one of the 2! The maze this year, was designed by Adrian Fisher, who has won many Guiness World Records and designed this one on 8 acres of land. We went at night and armed with a
map and flashlight (even though the boys were stubborn and got us completely lost because they viewed the map... and flashlight... as cheating.. adding an extra 1 1/2 hours to our trek before admitting we were hopelessly lost in the 40 degree cold.) It's a fun maze and you never realize just how confusing a life-size maze can be until you're in it! 3 hours after we began.. we finally found our way out! It was alot of fun, but next time, I'm using the map from the beginning!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.096s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 12; qc: 30; dbt: 0.0293s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb