Tallulah Falls

This weekend we went on a short road trip (under 200 miles altogether, in fact) to Commerce and Tallulah Falls. Our real destination was Tallulah Falls and Tallulah Gorge State Park; Commerce was just a place to spend the night and not have to drive all the way from Loganville to Tallulah Falls on Sunday morning.

(Actually, all the other hotels anywhere near Tallulah Falls were all filled up (Octoberfest in Helen is a big North Georgia draw); the fact that the Comfort Suites in Commerce has an indoor heated pool and a hot breakfast was a big bonus.)

Saturday morning Anna and the girls went to a Girl Scouts STEM event at the Gwinnett County fairgrounds, so we didn't actually head out until a little after 2:00, but since Commerce is so close, we were at our hotel by 3:30.

After we checked in and got the car unloaded, we went out to the Red Hound Antique Market and looked around for a while, then spent some time at the used bookstore just next door, after which we had supper at Sonny's BBQ. Then we went back to the hotel so the girls could swim and I could not swim.

Sunday morning, after helping ourselves to the free hot breakfast (biscuits and gravy and sausage and scrambled eggs and a waffle and lots of coffee for me; I fairly gorged myself), the girls swam some more and I went out for a short walk, during which I snapped the picture above and the picture below.

The indoor heated pool also included a spa, which the girls said was very hot:

We came back to the room so the girls could get ready to go:

and we headed north on U.S. 441 (my favorite road).

It's impossible -- or at least inadvisable -- to go to Tallulah Falls without stopping at the Tallulah Point Overlook to look over the gorge, peruse the rustic offerings in the store, and get a snack.

(It was much busier than this picture implies. There were quite a few cars parked behind me that you can't see here.)

Then, loaded down with our drinks and my Moon Pie and the girls' peppermint sticks, and also three T-shirts, we went to the park and spent some time out in nature:

(I wish I'd brought one of my real cameras instead of just my cell phone, but these pictures aren't too bad.)

At one of the overlooks, Elyse got out her pen and sketch book to draw the view:

I had forgotten that to get to the south rim trail, you have to walk along the bridge where 441 crosses the river, cars and trucks and occasionally really loud motorcycles whizzing right by you. The walk made me nervous and terrified Jessica, but Elyse skipped happy along, holding her mommy's hand.

We only walked along the south rim trail for a little while, some of it under heavy protest from our tuckered out daughters, before we climbed back in the car and headed for home.

Despite their complaints that they were "so tired!", both girls stayed awake all the way home (about a two hour drive), and thankfully so did I (though we did stop at a QuikTrip in Gainesville to get me a cup of coffee, or I might not have). Anna dozed off and on all the way home.

We listened to the audio version of Allie Finkle's Rules for Girls, Book #1: Moving Day by Meg Cabot on this trip (it's really good; I recommend it), and it ended just a couple of miles before we made it back to our house. Perfect timing. (Or almost. Jessica did say, "Do we have another audio book?" but I told her we weren't going to start something new when we're five minutes from home.)