Helen, GA: Adventure

As I previously mentioned, there is plenty of down time involved in the WWOOFing experience (hooray!). The Helen area of Georgia is beautiful, but not that big. Prior to leaving on this trip I read about tubing in the Chattahoochee River and thought we'd give it a try. The website even indicated the tubing is dog friendly- not that that's an option for Neville. He would not appreciate just sitting there, half wet, and would probably pop the raft in an attempt to escape. So he stayed behind while Mom and I went on what I thought would be the first leisure activity of our trip.

First off, due to complications with my hitch and not wanting to interrupt our hosts (which I was reprimanded for later, idgit) I found the one (yes- one. And only.) taxi service in town.

Apparently, on weekends other companies will come into town to help with the tourist overflow, but not on weekdays. And forget about Uber, there's no service in the mountains for the app to have a chance. Our friendly driver took us the couple of miles into town and prepared us for the water to be freezing cold and the water level low, due to the recent lack of rain. We get out of the cab and it starts to drizzle a little... now we Florida girls are wondering just how cold this river is going to be. I'm happy I have my GoPro with me, since it has a water proof case and all, so I will get some videos regardless of the weather. Mom waited downstairs while I go upstairs to get everything and put our stuff in a locker. At the checkout counter the staff offers a stick for $5 to take with you to push off the rocks with (it's recommended). I say why not and buy one. When I come back down Mom's like, "Why the hell did you pay $5 for a stick?" and I didn't have a good answer. Turns out it was one of the best purchases I made that day. We sit on the shuttle for a while then go through the heart of town and get dropped off at the river. Mom sits in her tube and I get in mine, ready to push off. Good thing I have the stick! Even that didn't work though, so a kind stranger helped send us off. Mom has some sage advise for future tubers:

Thankfully, the water was a little chilly, but nowhere near as cold as what I had in mind. **Sidebar, I wore my new water shoes. As we started off and my feet were chilling right in front of my face, looking just as ridiculous as I thought they would, memories of hassling Joshie and Ginnykins about their water shoes just a few days before flashed into my mind.**

I had dreams of snoozing a little and soaking in some sun, but right off the bat this tubing experience was anything but leisurely. The water was, in fact, very low, and there are many large rocks throughout. It seemed as if we were getting stuck every couple of feet and needing to use the stick to push off- THAT WAS FUN.

But, every now and then we would catch the current and go a little further, or successfully dodge a pyramid and enjoy other folks getting stuck on it. The sides of the river are lined with beautiful homes and restaurant decks, with trees surrounding everything. Mom kept talking about snakes probably living in the grass on the sides of the river and I'm happy to inform you that I HATE snakes. I asked her to stop talking about them, because that clearly means they would cease to exist. She kept on making comments.

By now I feel like my abs should be looking similar to Jillian Michaels' 6 pack, thanks to the constant maneuvering of rocks and scooting around involved to keep us flowing through the sections when there was literally no current. At one point, we hit a formation, Mom gets stuck and tips over. I tried to stop myself and our rafts (which were hooked together) from floating away, but to no avail. Mom is standing on the rocks, raftless, and swoosh there I go. I attempted to stop and hop out of my raft onto the slippery rocks below and swoosh, there everything goes. EVERYTHING. Her raft, my raft, my GoPro, the stick. I panic and don't know what to grab for first and try to go for my GoPro. I assumed I would be able to grow webbed feet in my cool water shoes or something and tried to run across the slippery rocks. I busted my ass pretty good, got back up and tried to keep going. The river won. Thankfully, a man searching for lost treasures was a few feet up from me and caught the rafts. I thanked him amid yelling about my GoPro and trying to go back against the current to find it. My heart was beating like crazy, imagining it being lost. I even tried to look on the bright side, this being the beginning of the trip and all, but panic was taking over. Mom was still slowly climbing over the rocks, I'm yelling for her to walk to the side of the riverbank (as instructed by the treasure searching man), but she's also trying to find my GoPro. Then, somehow, I found it nestled between two rocks, under water, just waiting for me. I'm pretty sure this all was quite a spectacle for anyone not in the river or anyone who floated by, because it's unlikely they knew what was going on. I absolutely didn't care at that point though- I had my camera! Then my knee started to sting; it felt like a short memory being seared into my skin.

I thanked the treasure searching man profusely and offered him the two pairs of sunglasses I found on my hunt, but he wasn't interested. By now Mom is making her way to the edge of the riverbank and I meet her a few rocks down. She hops into her tube, I ask her to hold the stick, then hop into my tube and say "OK" and she throws the stick behind her into the river. WTF. I shout again and use my imaginary webbed feet again to scramble across slippery rocks and caught the stick (we sure are fun to travel with). She didn't say much then, but when it came up later that night, she insisted (and still does) that she thought I was behind her and that when I said "OK" that I meant I wanted the stick back, so she threw it to me without realizing I wasn't behind her. We agree to disagree. From there, the tubing trip went much smoother. We laughed, rested, cruised, and only occasionally had to use the stick.

We come up to one little rapid waterfall area and thats when I see it. A snake. My freak out starts on the inside and by the time it's ready to boil over I notice that the snake is rubber, but I've already recoiled. I miss the rock it was on *phew* and my body can now catch up with my brain and relax again. Except, Mom and I are still tethered together and since my freakout didn't openly happen, she didn't see the snake until her raft was inches away from bouncing off the rock. "AHHHHHHHHH @$%*** *@%#$," she exclaims! I look over and she's got her whole body on one edge of the raft. I wish I could say I was a good daughter and calmed her down or told her that it was fake, but all I could do was laugh. Hysterically. She, of course, realizes it was fake in her own time, but the scene just kept replaying in my head. As I write this now, it's still funny and I still laugh. That's what she gets, talking about snakes all afternoon! The rest of the ride was uneventful, but we vowed to come back the next day to be one of the people watching tubers getting stuck from the comfort of dry land. We get out and get our stuff, I get news from back home that catches me off guard... But, what can I do? Deal with it tomorrow. Mom reminds me that everything that has happened up until this point is why they call trips like this an 'adventure'. I'll say. Our taxi driver friend took us back home and Mom and I enjoyed the sunset and the fireflies together. She's from New York and I traveled to the north a lot as a child, so the large amount of fireflies that night took us back to different times and made for a great ending to the night.

The next morning, I again optimistically looked forward to a leisurely day strolling the Bavarian streets of Helen. It has to happen at some point, right? Our fabulous host, Lloyd, and his neighbor, kindly fixed my hitch problem the night before, so we were good to go. Our first stop was to the Troll Tavern deck to watch the tubers look as ridiculous as we did the day before. That stop was a success.

From there we wandered around town, looked at nick knacks, tried beef jerky, and popped in and out of the touristy shops. We also learned that the land in this area of Georgia, with wineries galore, is similar to that of California.

 

After a few (uneventful!) hours, we headed back to the Stovall House to unwind. I enjoyed some yoga with a great mountain view while Mom read her book. The fireflies kept us company once again and we got ready to head out the next day. Every night I have been so tired that I swear I will be in bed by 8PM, but not once has it happened that way. Yet. Oh well, tomorrow- a new WWOOFing destination!

P.S.
To anyone that my mom has shaken a finger at for dropping the 'F bomb', she is the only one of the two of us that said it with our host family and it happened the first night.