AHHH Vacation!

Last week was a long awaited, and well deserved vacation. My husband and two of our friends took off to Fort Mountain State Park for 6 days of camping and biking goodness.

Fort Mountain State Park is in the North Georgia Mountains, near Dalton and Chatsworth.
At it's summit, the mountain is a little over 2800 feet above sea level. The park is probably about 2700ish feet above sea level. But we didn't know that until we got there.

Our adventure started on Saturday, June 28th, when we met Shane and Diana at 6:00am and headed out on the road. We arrived mid-morning, and had camp set up by lunch time. We snaked bay down the mountain to go shopping. First, we went into Tennessee to fetch some of our favorite beer that sadly we cannot get in our own state. A couple of stops later, and we are stock up ad ready to go. On to the grocery, and snake back up to the mountain.

I do mean snake up and down the mountain! I haven't seen such switchbacks in quite a while. It took me two days to get used to it. I didn't have to take anything for motion sickness, but I was very thankful when the truck stopped.

The next day I learned that I don't do so well with riding in higher altitudes. We were eating breakfast and Shane said that he wanted to get to the top of the mountain before the mist rose. So, we literally finished eating, suited up, and got on the mountain bikes.

The trail was right by the campsite and at the time we thought that was very handy until we saw it. What we saw was a trail carved in to the mountain and was rocky, switchback, and seemed like it was almost straight up. I did not give my system any time at all to digest the bagel that I ate, and I almost lost it a few times.

But I made it to the out look. I walked a lot of it, but I made it. I have to say that the views at the overlooks more than made up for the suffering! The next day, Shane took mercy on me and we decided to hike instead of bike. We hiked all over, and have a great time.

Tuesday Diana got to cross something off of her bucket list - She and Dave and Shane climbed Hogpen! This is a mountain, in fact it is the third highest mountain in the state, and they climbed it on their road bikes!!! I however, wussed out and drove the truck and played SAG for them.

After they conquered the mountain, we took the short drive to Dahlonaga, ate at the Smith House and rambled the downtown area. We were also planning on going to a couple of Shane and Diana's favorite local wineries for wine tasting and buying, so Shane decided to call to make sure they were open. It's a goods thing he did, because they were not open, but since they were there working, and he mentioned that he wanted to buy a case, they were gracious enough to let us come and buy some wine. Then we went back to Dahlonaga and finished hitting the shops.

The next day was sleeping in and checking out a easier mountain bike trail called that Lake Loop, because..well...it went around the lake. It was wonderful, except for the whole altitude making my heart feel like it's going to fly out of my chest like it had been shot out of a cannon thing. I did a lap and a half and decided that I just couldn't do it, much to my severe disappointment. So I headed back to the camper, while I encouraged the others to go on and have fun. And fun they had! They discovered that there was actually some screaming downhills and fun stuff after the hellaicous uphill we found the other day.

We also had fun hanging out, and in the evenings, Shane set up his projection screen and we watched movies. Luckily, they had a pretty secluded campsite, so we didn't bother a soul.

We came home on Thursday, just before the traffic got bad for the 4th.


As said in the movie "Hook" - "That was a great game."