Christmas in the Cabin

This was our last year in the cabin in Helen.   The kids are all getting grown, and spending less time with us.  Next year, Christmas day is on a Friday, so we'd have to be moving out of the cabin on Christmas day, and we don't want to do that!   2021, maybe we'll get the cabin for New Year's week - we'll have to see and see what the kids' schedules look like.

This was our first time moving without the truck, so we REALLY had to pare down what we could bring.  Only one bin of Christmas decorations, and not so much "stuff"!

We mixed it up a little bit, and put the stockings up randomly instead of grouped by families:

Neil, Pam and Jake came up on Satuday and we hung out in downtown Helen.   We had lunch at the Two Tire Tavern - really good food!

Jake is smiling!!!

On Sunday the White kids stayed with us. It poured rain all Sunday and Monday so we played lots of poker and Yahtzee.

We had our traditional Christmas Eve dinner:  herb crusted rack of lamb with french bread and rosemary roasted red potatoes.  YUM!

Christmas day brought everyone to the cabin. So much fun!   Mila wasn't here - she went back to Russia to be with her family for Christmas.  So, our last traditional picture with the grandkids on the stairs was missing Mila.  Pam drew a face on a paper plate for Nate to hold - that was Mila.

Then, the day after Christmas, the guys and the kids went golfing, and Katie, Pam and I went wine tasting.  It was great!   We brought a picnic, and bought 3 bottles of wine and sat on their patio for the afternoon.   Very fun!

Annual Fall Family Camping Trip

We just had a great weekend with the family, camping at Leisure Acres in Cleveland, GA.

Angie and Scott are living there in their new camper, so we all decided to meet there.  It was a very cold weekend, but no rain!!  We had a great time - campfires every night and morning, and a trip to the Tantrum Brewery in Cleveland on Saturday afternoon. 

This is a great family tradition!!

Our site - waiting for the kids to arrive

Breakfast campfire

The Gaines boys

Redneck TV - watching the Georgia game!

All eyes fixed on the Georgia game!

Natchez Trace

I have wanted to explore the Natchez Trace for a long time, and we're finally doing it!!  On Wednesday we drove from Poplar Bluff to the Natchez Trace Wilderness RV Park in Tennessee.  This is a Thousand Trails park, and we got in through RPI.   We were going to be here 5 nights, but have decided to go to Tupelo on Saturday to explore some of the southern parts of the Trace.

On the way in, Google maps took us about 5 miles on the Trace out of Hohenwald, TN, and the road that it took us on to to get to the RV park has an 11 foot bridge.   Our motorhome needs about 13 feet of clearance.  OH CRAP!   LUCKILY there was a dirt bypass - still going under the bridge - but gave us JUST ENOUGH clearance to get by.

We measured the rig when we got in, just to be sure. Yep, it's 12.5 feet high!

Mike measuring the height

Our spot in the RV park

This park is huge, with mostly water/electric hookups.  Most of the full hookups have full time members living there.  The park is kind of junky, they allow all sorts of stuff around the rig.  Nothing like Hart Ranch. 

You also pick your spot when you drive in. Luckily we got one of the few full hookup sites left for the weekend.

Thursday we drove from the RV park north toward Nashville.   I just love the history here.  A lot of the Trace crosses the Trail of Tears - which was actually 4 or 5 routes from the southeastern states to Oklahoma when the Feds decided to relocate the Cherokee, Chickasaw and Chocktaw tribes.  The Seminoles refused to go, they stayed in Florida.

The house where Meriwether Lewis died

Meriwether Lewis gravesite

There are lots of spots where you can see the original Trace

The fall colors are spectacularly beautiful, and these pictures do not do them justice.

An old tobacco drying barn along the old Trace road

You can actually drive in spots along the original Trace

Monument to the War of 1812.  Andrew Jackson's men marched along the Trace to return home after the Battle of New Orleans.   Many are buried in unmarked graves along the Trace.

An original home along one of the rivers.  The owners ran a ferry service.

A view of the longest bridge on the Trace.

The same bridge from down below

On Friday we drove south out of the RV park about 80 miles. One of the first spots we saw was a "sunken Trace".  These are spots that would get so muddy the carts and wagons would get bogged down, so they would cut new routes around the old ones.  This spot has three separate paths that they had used.

The next spot we stopped was Bear Creek Mound.  We've seen lots of Indian mounds around the southeast, but were surprised to find that this was used as early as 8000 BC.

Next we stopped at Cave Spring.  There is a spring of water in the cave.  Now it's mostly a sinkhole, and we tried to get pictures in the cave of the spring, but they didn't turn out well.

We stopped at a spot where George Colbert, a Chickasaw Chief, ran a ferry service across the Tennessee River.  We also had a picnic there.

A cotton field along the Trace

We left Hohenwald two days early, and drove south along the Trace to Tupelo.  We figured we could see more of the southern portion toward Jackson.  Then, when we leave Georgia in the spring, we'll stay in Natchez, MS and explore north and south out of there, finishing the Trace!

On Sunday we explored as far south as milepost # 195.

Owl Creek Mounds

Owl Creek Mounds