For the week of Halloween, the Hubs and I headed north for a
much needed vacation… a Babymoon, if you will. We spent the week at my parents’
cabin in Ellijay, Georgia, a small town in the Appalachian foothills between
Atlanta and the Tennessee line. The county is the apple capital of the south,
and the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, Springer Mountain, is
nearby. Much to my chagrin, we wouldn’t be doing any hiking like usual (I was
all for it, but the Hubs thought differently. Boo!) .
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| We love how the cabin feels like a treehouse. |
Actually, the whole point of the trip, besides rest and
relaxation (and a little outlet shopping for the babino) was to check out the
fall color. But thanks to that bitch of a storm Sandy, most of the color that
was on the trees the week before, blew off in gale force winds on our first
couple of days. By the end of the trip, the trees that hadn’t changed yet
started in the wonderful cool weather (the average high was about 55!). Either
way, we got to see a little color in all those trees.
We also saw a ton of deer (Ok so they might have been the
same deer family over and over each day, but still) in the neighborhood.
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| Damon barely had to zoom in for this pic. This guy was about 10 feet from our car! |
On the second day of our trip, we headed up to Amicalola
Falls. We had been before in the summertime a few years ago and
it was beautiful. You can start at the bottom of the falls and “climb” your way
up a zillion steps, or you can do it the preggo way and just drive to the top on
a beautiful winding mountain road. This year, we opted for the drive.
At the top, you get an amazing view from the top of the falls
of the valley below. In the summer, everything is green and lush, but in the fall, I've heard the colors are amazing. Too bad we missed the best colors, but you get the idea.
We weren’t able to spend a lot of time at the top of the
falls due to a freezing wind blowing around up there. So we started down the
mountain and pulled off at a parking area a little ways down. We saw a
trailhead (don’t worry, it was the kind of trail that is wheelchair accessible,
so even a preggo lady can manage) and headed down.
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| The sky cleared and became a brilliant blue! |
A little ways down the trail, we noticed that someone found a much
better parking spot than we did!
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| Look carefully... there's an old truck in that tangle of trees. |
This trail path lead to a spot about halfway down the falls,
so we had to get a couple of pics.
We managed to take one of the two of us, too.
The next day, we met my college roommate, Allison, and her two boys (you can check out her hilarious blog
here.) at the Flying Biscuit in Atlanta. Her boys are both under the age of 4 and are two of the cutest guys ever! And although I felt like they were pretty well behaved, I think it was an eye opening experience for the Hubs. Dining out is about to drastically change for us FOREVER!
Lunch was followed by some serious outlet shopping in Dawsonville, just outside the ATL. This outlet mall is huge, in the middle of nowhere, and has some pretty great stores (I'm looking forward to going back next year so I can do some shopping in the Lucky Brand store). We spent more than we should have at the Carters, Baby Gap, and Gymboree stores. The Baby Tuna will be one very well dressed muchacha!
The great thing about Ellijay is how close it is to so many different types of places. If you ever make it up to that area, you must head over to Blue Ridge. This is the kind of cute little mountain town that has a main street (incredibly named Main Street, of all things!) with a ton of tiny shops and restaurants. Since I was starving immediately upon arrival (Blue Ridge is only 20 minutes from our cabin, so obviously the drive took a lot out of me!! Haha!), we ate at this great pizza joint that was the kind of place the locals go. Best pizza I've had in a long time! I just wish I could remember the name. If you go looking for it, it's just past the feed store with all the chickens and ducks on the front porch. Gotta love small town America!
There is one spot in Blue Ridge that you absolutely CAN NOT miss...
The Sweet Shoppe.
The women who own this super cute bakery were winners on Cupcake Wars. And as many know, I love cake and cupcakes, so, big DUH, this place pretty much rocked my world! The Hubs and I each ordered our own cupcakes. I went for the Hot Fudge Sundae, and he couldn't pass on the PB & J.
Ohmigosh! I still dream about that cupcake! Mine was filled with the lightest vanilla buttercream I have ever tasted. I thought I made awesome buttercream, but I would kill to know how these ladies got theirs so light and fluffy. The Hubs' PB & J was filled with sweet, gooey strawberry jam. Unfortunately, our cupcakes were too good to share, even one little bite, but the Hubs tells me it tasted just like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Yum-o!
We also couldn't pass on the truffles. We got two of each so sharing wouldn't be an issue! They were each sooo delish!
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| Cookies n Cream, Cookie Dough, Peanut Butter, and Thin Mint |
We had such a relaxing week, enjoying the cold weather, warming up by the fire and making s'mores for dessert every night. (I'm choosing to forget the stress of the whole baby registry debacle!) It was the perfect way to say good bye to our family of two before we head back next year as a family of three. Can't wait to take the Baby Tuna on a couple of hikes, too!
