Weekend in Helen

Matthew and I spent last weekend with our friends Edward and Jamie in the mountains of north Georgia.  We left Friday morning and visited an exotic animal sanctuary on the way up (no photos).  After dinner we drove to our accommodations, another AirBnB place, this time a two bedroom cabin that we had to ourselves.  Here's a look at our bedroom and all of the pillows on our bed.  It also had a great room with a kitchen and a hot tub outside on the deck.

 

Saturday morning we drove to a nearby town to tour an old gold mine.  Here we are waiting for our tour to begin.  Matthew takes the first part of this sign quite seriously (and the second part is for me!).

 

Now we are headed into the mine.  Our guide didn't have a beard like this guy, but he was still entertaining and informative.

 

Down inside the mine.

 

After our tour we learned how to pan for gold.

 

We even found some gold!  (of course)

 

In the afternoon we changed into our swimwear and rented a tube to float down the Chattahoochee River right through Helen.  It was crowded but we still enjoyed ourselves.

 

Selfie Time

 

Each couple tied their tubes together and eventually we tied all four together because we ended up separated several times. A four person selfie was a little more challenging!

 

We had dinner at a local restaurant and then went to a vintage photo shop to dress up for a silly photo.  Matthew and Edward wanted to dress as confederate soldiers while Jamie and I pretended to be southern belles.

 

The next morning we squeezed in an ATV tour around the mountainside before heading home.  This tour definitely had the most in-depth instructions, including a short driving test, before we set out.  Luckily we all passed and no one had any trouble driving the trails.

We had a great time and really packed in a lot of adventures but we're glad to be back home too.