Our Mini Vacay to Helen! Day 3

Our third and final day at Helen was so fun! It was overcast, cooled off a little bit, and perfect for what we had in store!

We had to be out of the cabin by 11, so we woke up at 10:40, of course. This is the norm for our checkout habits! I was so sad to leave! But I stopped to take pictures on the way out!

 Our first stop for the day: Alpine Mini Golf! It's right at the edge of where you drive into Helen, so I'd been eyeing it all weekend! It was affordable, 18 holes, and such a cute little place! They were pretty busy, but lucky for us, the families in front of and behind us were really fun too! And there was a hilarious old couple, probably in their 70s, that couldn't follow the numbers and just popped in and out of line numerous times.

 Is it just me or ... ?

After our round of mini golf (Brandon won), we headed into the shopping area for lunch! We researched a place called the Old Bavaria Inn, and found it had some good German food. It took FOREVER and at least 3 phone calls, but eventually we found it! It was nestled in a little nook in the shopping area. It was VERY authentic German food. When you walk in, there's a man dressed up playing the accordion, and all the girls working there were even wearing little German dresses! We got to our table and Brandon ordered a Weiner Schnitzel (the W is pronounced with a V, in German) plate and I got a chicken tender sandwich. I'm not very adventurous! I sampled his though, and it was pretty good! We both thought it was hilarious that the waitress kept coming back asking Brandon how his weiner was.

This was by far the creepiest part of the trip. This man was just sitting out in the walkway, playing random music. He would stop playing, and just sit frozen for an odd amount of time, and then keep playing again. Weird!

After walking around the shops some, we headed back to my dad's house to pick up Charlie and Cammie. I'm a bit of a nerd and I have rock collection, and a shop in Helen sold geodes that you could break yourself! So I gave it a try! This is a before and after shot:

Pretty white quartz inside! Our trip was super fun and a nice little weekend away from things! I really want to go back around Christmas because I've heard they really decorate the place for the season! If you're in Georgia, I'd definitely recommend Helen for a nice little getaway!

Our Mini Vacay to Helen! Day 2

So, it's been a while since I blogged about the first day of our vacation! Had a test last week, so Blogger wasn't really on my mind. But here I am now, and that's what matters! ;)

Saturday, we slept in a little later than we had originally planned, but hey, it was a vacation and our bed felt amazinggg. It was also the first day of college football. I don't know about you, but it's difficult to get your husband to leave the television, especially when it's his team's first football game of the year. We watched the first half of the Auburn game, before we headed out for the day!

Helen is an Alpine Village, and they are serious about it! If you don't build to their standards, you can't build there!

Alpine Huddle House!

Alpine Wendy's!

 Alpine Circle K!

I just love how it's nestled in the valley of the mountains! 

Saturday we had planned to go tubing! Helen is right on the Chattahoochee River, so there are companies you can rent tubes from and take a nice little ride down the river! It was $5 a person, for an all day thing, so we thought it would be well worth it! We had some difficulties beginning our tubing trip, however. According to their website, there is a 2 hr. trip, and a 3 hr trip. We wanted the 3 hr. since they were the same price. The water levels were low, unbeknownst to us, and the long trip was apparently highly discouraged to go on. The bus that takes you to to your drop-off point gave us the option where to get off, so we stayed on and made it to the long trip spot. We get off the bus and our tubes are gone, and some rude woman working for the tubing company tells us we can't do the long run. Another guy working there said we could if we wanted to, and the woman snidely remarked, "Fine, but you'll be walking the whole way." She really made me mad! We rode back to the 2 hour point, and hopped in there! It was so fun! Brandon had to get out and pull us out of a few spots, but overall, it was a nice little ride!

People even brought their dogs with them!

After we got back to the tubing headquarters, we cooled off with some ice cream and sodas. We had wet butts from the tubes, even though they had bottoms, so we headed back to the cabin, showered, and got ready to go out to dinner! We had dinner Saturday night at the Nacoochee Grill. It was fantastic! Definitely my favorite place we ate at. I had the Chipotle Barbeque Burger (YUM!) and Brandon had pork chops. And we both tried Creme Brulee for dessert! It was pretty good too! We went back to the cabin and tried out the jacuzzis, played pool and went out to make s'mores! What kind of campy trip is complete without them?!

Our S'more faces!

Stay tuned for Day 3! Hopefully sooner than later! :)

Our Mini Vacay to Helen! Day 1

First off, can I just say that I LOVE what Blogger has done to change the picture uploads!! It doesn't add them all to the beginning of your post and leave you to drag them all throughout your text anymore! YES! 

Anyway, back on topic. I blogged previously about winning a trip through Cedar Creek Cabin Rentals!! We planned it for last weekend, so I skipped class Friday and we headed out at noon. We packed up our stuff and the kitties, and drove first to my dad's. He kitty-sat for the weekend since the cabins charged for pets. 

After we hung out with my dad for a bit, we headed up to Helen! It's only about a 3 hour drive total, from home to Dad's to Helen. We got a little lost on the way there, due to the cabin's website giving us the wrong address to Google. It got us a little more familiar with the town though, which helped later! Finally, we made it to the cabin! The ride up wasn't bad, but oh my goodness, the mile into the cabin sure was! VERY steep hills and the road basically dropped 20+ feet off two feet from the side of the road. The cabin was surrounded by woods though, and virtually completely private! 

The cabin was SO perfect!! It had everything I had looked for in one, except a mountain view. But that was fine! The living room was spacious and decorated perfectly to make you feel at home! 

It had a nice sized kitchen that was equipped with pretty much everything you'd need! I brought muffin mix to make for breakfast and forgot my pans. They had those!

This is the downstairs jacuzzi! Very nice!

Cute little downstairs bathroom and shower for two! One weird thing though, about the shower. The light was a light/fan combo. It was SUPER loud if you stood in the corner. That got annoying!

 The downstairs bedroom was simple and sweet! The bed was WONDERFUL. I honestly could have spent the whole weekend just laying in it. But, we had plans! 

The upstairs bedroom was just as nice! They both had king size beds, closets, dressers, and the downstairs room had a TV!

The upstairs bathroom was gorgeous! Small, but the jacuzzi was bigger, and it had a pretty view!

The upstairs also had a game room! I beat Brandon in a game of pool on Saturday night :)

The only negative thing about the cabin - HUGE bugs!! Leaf bugs everywhere and this big 'ole guy!!

I was super excited to see we had a little fire pit though! It wasn't listed on our cabin's website, but I'd brought stuff to make s'mores just in case! We lucked out!

After we explored a while, we went out to dinner! Friday night we went to the Troll Tavern. 

For those who aren't familiar with Helen, it's an Alpine town! The restaurant was right on the Chattahoochee River and it had TVs for Brandon to watch the football games on! I had a burger and fries (I'm not very venturous when it comes to food) and Brandon had a 'Wurst plate. I think it had 2 kinds of Bratwurst, sauerkraut, potatoes and red cabbage. I tried most of it and it was pretty good! After that, we looked around at a few of the shops in Helen that were still open. Got fudge at Hansel and Gretel's Candy Kitchen and coffee at a little cafe. The PSL couldn't compare to Starbucks though! We headed out and went to the local Walmart to get a few things, headed back to the cabin and crashed! The first day was pretty packed for us to have just gotten there at like 5 pm! 

Up Next: Day 2!