Dad'd Summer Home

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Well, Dad never thought he would own two places at once. Especially since one is in Florida. Beautiful area, near St. Petersburg. However, he went to vacation in the mountains of Northern Georgia and voila! He bought a little place in Hiawassee. So I have been visiting a few times and plan to go back next month.

Hiawassee is a little town near Lake Chatuge. It has beautiful scenery, shopping, boating and all that goes with that; two years ago they added a roped off area and created a sand beach for swimming. It also has a playground area for children, and a small concession stand. Been there several times, very peaceful; though the kids loved when the boats and ski-doos whipped past and sent in little waves. The beach is right across from the State Fairgrounds. In August, they have a big fair, with carnival rides, live entertainment (usually country acts), food of course, demonstrations and plenty of handcrafted things for sale. My stepMom entered a quilt and received first place. SHe does wonderful work. And down the road is the Fun House, I think that is the name. The building has several games inside and you can buy individual tickets, or a pass by the hour. Laser tag, go-karts, wall climbing and the traditional games like skeeball, etc. And somewhere in the area is a firetower on the top of a mountain that you can visit. From the deck you can see all the surrounding hills and valleys. It has some museum/historical displays inside too. We took the shuttle to get up the mountain, and then walked down the path to get back to our car. Not a bad little walk, but it was a little tough on the knees since it is all downhill for about 30 minutes. We did find one bench to rest on about halfway down.


Nearby is Helen, about the same size, but the attraction is all the architecture is the same for all the buildings - it looks like a little European mountain village. Even the Dollar General and Wendy's have the same look. Quite interesting to see. So in Helen is a haunted house, a theatre with an outstanding Elvis impersonator, lots of shopping for tourists, and the best part is the river. There are a couple places you can rent a huge inner tube and go floating down the river. The 'short' run is less than two hours. Haven't been on the long run because the times I went tubing the water wasn't quite high enough. And in the middle of the short run is a waterslide; you can get out of the river and make a trip on the slide then get back in the river to finish the trip. Didn't do that, but there was lots of hooting and hollering from the kids as I floated past that area. Tubing advice: must wear shoes as there will probably be places you will have to walk on the rocks, sunblock of course, I wore a hat and sunglasses also; and get a stick to help with the tubing. When you get stuck on the rocks, use the stick to push off. Kids can get life jackets, free of charge from the company; and there are straps available to tie inner tubes together if you have a young child to watch or you are a romantic couple.

I haven't been in the fall, so I look forward to seeing the foliage next month. I am hoping there has been enough water this summer that the trees will have bright colors.

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Comments

[Midwest traveller]

typo
OK that is "Dad's" summer home. sheesh, fat fingers.