Both my husband and I were raised in Georgia. He’s from Central Georgia and I’m from North Georgia. We moved to Florida about 7 years ago but we still have family in the area. We make it up to Georgia regularly in the Fall for football (we’re HUGE Georgia Bulldog fans) and are in town for Thanksgiving holiday. We don’t normally stay for more than a few days so we don’t get to visit some of our favorite sites. This week we are here for more than a week and have been able to do some touristy things.
Yesterday my husband was kind enough to take us up to North Georgia to see some of my favorite places; Ellijay (apple country) and Amicalola Falls. We started our day stuffing our bellies full of some local bar-b-que at Amos BBQ in Ball Ground. It doesn’t look like much but the best BBQ joints never look very glamorous. If you visit be sure to take a few minutes to eat on the patio with their resident cat.
After lunch we drove about an hour north to Ellijay, the apple capital of the world! My parents use to take us up there every year for their annual Apple Fest (early October) and I haven’t been in years. It was funny on the way up to listen to my kids talk about the mountains. Since they have both grown up in Florida they don’t get to see mountains often and I think this may have been a first for my youngest. This trip we stopped at the Red Apple Barn to pick up some apple butter, apple chips, and some hot apple cider. It’s late in the apple season so you can’t pick-your-own apples but they still have plenty of fresh Georgia apples on their shelves.
We started driving to our next destination when we kept seeing signs for a corn maze. We really didn’t have an agenda for the day so we decided to stop and check it out. None of us have ever been to a corn maze so we weren’t quite sure what to expect. We ended up spending over 2 hours in the maze looking for the 12 hidden stations. The goal is to find all 12 and punch your card. The maze was over 3 miles worth of trails that were cut out in a design (horse and cowboy). We started out working together as a family and then separated boys vs girls about half way through for a little competition. We all worked together to read the map and laughed a lot. This was by far the most fun we’ve had on a random afternoon in a very long time. If you’re ever in Ellijay looking for something to do visit the Reece Family Corn Maze.
I really wanted to take the kids to see the waterfalls at Amicalola Falls State Park. The falls are located between Ellijay and Dahlonega off Hwy 52. It was starting to get dark so we didn’t stay too long. We did stay long enough to hike up to the first lookout tower from the base of the falls and get some good pictures.
This is one of those days that you hope your kids remember for a long time. We stopped playing video games, turned off the computer, and just enjoyed one another.
I only wish today was as much fun…my oldest woke me up at 5:30am with a stomach virus and he wasn’t the only one who was sick. Right now there are 2 out of 4 of us sick and we’re quarantined to the guest bedroom at our families house. I’m praying the rest of us stay healthy.
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