I Love You Because...

Enjoying the Outdoors.

  In preparation for this summer's trip to Canada, this last weekend Doug planned a great day hike for us. We drove just over an hour to the North Georgia Mountains, Helen and Andrew's Cove. Of course, I got car sick but the weather was perfect and once we met up with the Hall Family we were on our way! The trail was awesome. It starts off at one of the best campgrounds I have ever seen. It was beautiful, well maintained, small and quaint. I really can't wait until we can go up again and actually camp! The trail is in the back of the campsite right next to Andrew's Creek. The trail up to the Appalachian Trail is quite steep even though it's only 2 miles up, (I think you gain around 600 feet in just those 2 miles) esp. considering how little our hiking buddies were! Over all we ended up hiking Southwest on the Appalachian Trail up Indian Grave Gap and Unicoi Gap for another mile, making the entire hike 6 miles! We were SOO proud of our little mountain goats. (It certainly gave me hope for Waterton this summer.) I was terrified about how Ethan would handle the dirt or the noise or anything getting wet. Can you imagine and Autism Fit on the side of a mountain?! Yeah, I was terrified but, he really did great. He was happy and patient and even when he stepped in a stream and his foot got soaked, he accepted the fact that it was just apart of it and it would dry. We were all pretty shocked. Lorali said her favorite parts were the little tiny springs for fairies. Doug said his favorite part was how well the kids did. Ethan said his favorite part was climbing the giant rock with Bryson and My favorite part was witnessing Ethan learn how to pee in the woods. It was hilarious how much of a kick he got out of that! We started the hike just after 10am and of course we let the kids set the pace. We were back at our cars by 4pm and we had stopped of a while for our picnic so it's a great one day adventure and it leaves enough time to hang out in Helen if you aren't too sore! I grew up hiking all the time but rarely was it anywhere but Canada. While that is certainly my favorite place in the world to hike, I love exploring the beautiful wilderness everywhere else too! Happy Hiking!

Silent Saturday