In our school spring break, we ventured on a 7-day trip to the Georgia and South Carolina mountains. Our first stop was a campground in the Tallulah Gorge State Park - very nice, but with narrow turns that were pretty challenging to navigate with our big rig.
The Tallulah Gorge is about 300 ft deep, a stairway with over 550 steps leads close to the bottom of the valley. In our first night, we took a guided full moon night walk all the way down and up.
The next day, we went on a trip to Helen, GA, a little town that is built Bavarian or Austrian style - at least outside. The souvenir and candy shops, however, are like anywhere in the US - or in the world, for that matter. We had dinner in the "Hofbrauhaus", cooked by a real Austrian chef!
Our next campground was located at Lake Hartwell in Georgia. Very nice and spacious, and supervised by the Army Corps of Engineers. In the US, the ACE is managing most of the man-made lakes and waterways, and lots of them have really nice and well maintained recreation areas along their shores.
Our last campground was located in the Table Rock State Park in South Carolina, with both roads and campsites small and narrow - we felt a little awkward with our big rig among all the tents and small RV's that surrounded us.
This state park is a hiker's paradise, and on our second day we went on a hike - not without having to work Benjamin's motivation for quite some time.
On the last day we went on a trip to Biltmore Estate, located near Asheville, North Carolina. It was built in the early 20. century by one of the Vanderbilt heirs, and it is still owned by one of the family descendants. The tour through the main palace was awesome and gave us an interesting insight on how the super-rich lived a hundred years ago.
Likewise amazing is the huge garden right next to the palace. We were lucky enough to be here right when the myriads of azaleas where in full blossom - the picture to the left doesn't come even close to show how amazing this garden was.
The Tallulah Gorge is about 300 ft deep, a stairway with over 550 steps leads close to the bottom of the valley. In our first night, we took a guided full moon night walk all the way down and up.
The next day, we went on a trip to Helen, GA, a little town that is built Bavarian or Austrian style - at least outside. The souvenir and candy shops, however, are like anywhere in the US - or in the world, for that matter. We had dinner in the "Hofbrauhaus", cooked by a real Austrian chef!
Our next campground was located at Lake Hartwell in Georgia. Very nice and spacious, and supervised by the Army Corps of Engineers. In the US, the ACE is managing most of the man-made lakes and waterways, and lots of them have really nice and well maintained recreation areas along their shores.
Our last campground was located in the Table Rock State Park in South Carolina, with both roads and campsites small and narrow - we felt a little awkward with our big rig among all the tents and small RV's that surrounded us.
This state park is a hiker's paradise, and on our second day we went on a hike - not without having to work Benjamin's motivation for quite some time.
On the last day we went on a trip to Biltmore Estate, located near Asheville, North Carolina. It was built in the early 20. century by one of the Vanderbilt heirs, and it is still owned by one of the family descendants. The tour through the main palace was awesome and gave us an interesting insight on how the super-rich lived a hundred years ago.
Likewise amazing is the huge garden right next to the palace. We were lucky enough to be here right when the myriads of azaleas where in full blossom - the picture to the left doesn't come even close to show how amazing this garden was.
Bottom line of the trip was - we had lots of fun with living the great outdoors and enjoying the nature. And it was successfull test run that showed us the things that still need to be improved - and the things that already worked flawlessly, like the communication and internet technology. Back home, Benjamin hit the right note when he asked: "Are we going to leave tomorrow?" - meaning our big trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment