#5 "go camping"

From Thursday, June 23-Saturday, June 25, my aunt, cousin, and I decided to "rough it" for a few days by camping in the North Georgia Mountains.  This was such a fun adventure!  We stayed at the Yonah Mountain Campground right outside Helen, Georgia.  The people there are so friendly and helpful and I will definitely be staying there again in the future.

Setting up the tent...I promise I helped, but I had to stop for photo ops!

 After setting up the tent and eating lunch, we headed into the Chattahoochee National Forest where we went on a five mile hike.  On the way down the mountain, we're pretty sure we interrupted a few bears who we could hear growling at us from either side of the trail...we're choosing to believe they were bears and not mountain lions...

Five mile hike on the first day...more about this in #54

The next day, we tubed down the Chattahoochee River with the Cool River Tubing Company in Helen, GA.  For first time tubers, I would say using a company is the best way to go, but since I had tubed several times on my own growing up, I would say if you've done it before, don't go with a group because the people there will annoy you and detract from the beauty of the trip...also because idiot teenage girls will poke at water moccasins with sticks and try to pick them up out of the water, flinging them dangerously close to you...I would say I had more than enough encounters with wild creatures here to last me for a while.

After our tubing trip, we visited the Alpine Village of Helen and had dinner on the River at the Troll Pub.  Unfortunate my camera batteries were dead and I didn't get any pictures, but it is adorable and a must-see for anyone visiting North Georgia. 

Saturday we packed up our tent and headed to Atlanta where we visited the World of Coca Cola, Centennial Olympic Park, and had lunch at The Varsity. 

Visit to the World of Coca Cola in Atlanta

Lunch at The Varsity before heading home Saturday

It was a fun, quick and really cheap trip (without gas, I think it wound up costing about $40 a person). I was also so excited to get to cross several things off my list this weekend!