Tallulah Falls, GA

Tuesday, April 23

Andi, Tory, Aden and I were excited to explore Tallulah Gorge State Park today. There’s some great hiking trails along the north and south rim of the gorge and six waterfalls within the park. Additionally, there’s a suspension bridge and an interpretive center to learn about the nature and history of the area.

We started out with a short hike along the north rim. There were several overlooks along the way with views of Tallulah Gorge. It was incredible!

I can’t take credit for intentionally planning our trip to Tallulah Gorge, but it sure is amazing when our real-life travels collide with what Tory is studying in school. Just last week, we learned about energy sources in Science and now here we were visiting a hydroelectric dam in Georgia. What a great opportunity to see first-hand how water can be used to make electricity!

After spending time in Costa Rica, Andi and I have a deeper appreciation for all the educational signage we have in United States parks. We have so many beautiful places of interest in this country and having on-site signage that explains what you’re viewing is so nice to have! It’s something so simple that we take for granted. At Tallulah Gorge State Park, we learned that people have been visiting this area for recreation as far back as 1882, traveled here by the Tallulah Falls Railroad. Inside the park’s interpretive center, there was also a great video explaining the history and geography of the area.

Following a similar outline as the National Park Service Junior Ranger program, Georgia State Parks have their own Junior Ranger program. We picked up a JR packet a few days ago at Hard Labor Creek State Park but never finished it over the weekend (it was the most comprehensive Junior Ranger packet I’d ever seen!) so we used our time at Tallulah Gorge to complete the workbook and return it to the interpretive center there. Unfortunately, the park ranger at Tallulah Gorge informed us that they’d updated the Junior Ranger program and we’d have to complete their packet to earn a George State Park Junior Ranger badge. Oy. Tory was getting tired (or hungry? definitely grumpy!) so I wasn’t sure we had it in us to complete another full packet. Fortunately though, the Tallulah Gorge State Park worksheets were much simpler and we got it done.

The kids earned their Georgia State Parks Junior Ranger badges and promised to do their part in learning about and protecting the park. We finished exploring the exhibits in the interpretive center, then walked back to our RV in the park campground.

Andi found a great spot for lunch at The Open Door in Alley O’s General Store in Lakemont, GA. The quaint southern restaurant offered gourmet sandwiches and homemade comfort food dishes. I ordered chicken salad over greens that was delicious. Love when you can order a meal at a restaurant and still feel like you’re eating something healthy! The four of us had lunch outside on the general store’s covered porch and enjoyed the beautiful mountain scenery. North Georgia is really gorgeous.

After lunch, we drove the RV to Goats On The Roof in nearby Tiger, GA. I’d read about this quirky attraction online, and knew the kids would get a kick out of it. There’s actually goats in a pen on the roof of the general store & you can feed them using a pulley system to raise pellets up to the roof.

Have I mentioned how amazing it is to travel on the weekdays? We had the entire place to ourselves and spent over an hour feeding the goals. Something so simple, yet so much fun! In addition to the pulley feeding system, there was also a bike connected to a chain that moved a silver dish of goat food up to another part of the roof.

Feeding the goats was fun, but the real favorite for the kids was gem mining! Tory is obsessed with rocks (so much so, she aspires to be a geologist when she grows up) so you can imagine how excited she was to go gem mining. Andi bought a bag of sand that contained gems inside it, and the kids spent time sifting for treasure. Look at the pure joy on Tory’s face — I love it!

Mining for gems was the highlight of Tory and Aden’s day.

All our hard work mining deserved a treat. We went inside the Goats On The Roof cafe and ordered two bowls of nitro ice cream to share. As if we hadn’t had enough fun for one afternoon, we got to watch the employee make the nitro ice cream behind the counter. Cold smoke billowed up to the ceiling which the kids thought was really neat. The ice cream was great, too.

Before we left the town of Tiger, we stopped by Wax-Mart for groceries, and then made our way to Moccasin Creek State Park in the northeast corner of Georgia. We didn’t have a reservation, but scored a beautiful campsite along the shore of Lake Burton. This was one of the prettiest campgrounds we’ve stayed at so far in our travels. Once we got the RV set up, Andi and I sat outside at the picnic table and planned out the next few days of our trip. Tory spent some time polishing and identifying the gemstones she’d mined earlier in the afternoon and Aden ran around the campsite blowing bubbles.

There was a fishing pier steps away from our campsite with one of the strangest rules we’d ever seen: fishing was permitted only for children below the age of 11 and adults above the age of 65. We figured this rule was in place because there was a fish hatchery next door that regularly dumps trout into the lake. The kids both fished with Andi for a bit and caught three brown trout. Aden was pretty excited and carried the fish around showing anyone who passed by.

The kids made friends with a few other kids at the campground and raced off to the playground down the path. While they played, Andi grilled dinner — roasted garlic and rosemary burgers, salad, and grilled trout. Tory suddenly complained of her throat hurting at dinner and asked to be excused part-way through dinner. She went to bed early while the Andi, Aden and I cleaned up after dinner. Our camping neighbors gave Andi some good tips about the Great Smoky Mountain National Park while he picked up our campsite for the evening. That’s where we’re off to next.