Georgia Mountain Getaway

My coworker and friend Karen was nice enough to invite the Ashwood's to share their vacation house and adventures with them this summer. 
We were up in Clayton GA for Wednesday night (would have gone sooner, however, Angela had band/color guard practice this week - darn it!)  We left right after work and headed up...

...and hit Atlanta Traffic and the storm coming up from the left side got us as well :)  Oh, well, could have been worse, we still made good time and got there in three and a half hours.  Good thing too as it was VERY interesting to find. The GPS insisted it was "there" when it was FAR from there... it was however at the end of the paved road.  I guess that is as far as Betty (the GPS) wanted to go :)
The drive in - starting on paved road...

 Found out this place is on sale via Zillow - a mere $589,000 however it does have a grass landing strip a hangar and a VERY nice house!  Sweet, I was just in love with the benches and swings on the covered bridge going TO the house!

 Another deceiving property - at the top of this one is a house that is about $275,000 don't be fooled there are $75,000 homes father back in the dirt sections :)

 Over the bridge and into the dirt road section for the last half of the ride.

 Next to the VERY full and fast stream.

 Favorite road sign on the way into the house!

 The house.  It's really Big - yes even with it being on a hill, it's very big.  Upstairs are three large rooms with two baths and an office/playroom (all are VERY large - we had Angela in the bedroom on a blow up bed along with a dresser, two nightstands and a king bed and there was a walk in closet and plenty of room to spare to get around everything.  The main floor had the living room, kitchen open area and the master bedroom/bathroom and the screened wrap around porch along with some open decking as well.  Downstairs was a TV room, with enough room for a pool table, exercise gear, bathroom (full) and another room with a ping pong table in it.  open porch running all round the outside of it.  The back had a three car garage and a steep rock garage up to the shed that held the tractor, firewood and such.  Above that was the waterfall as well as an "upper" yard of sorts with a tree house that was the bug house according to Liz.

 The driveway up..

 

So the first night we relaxed and played some pool and ping pong.

 Karen and Chris playing darts

 relaxing on the screened porch

 

Thursday morning the girls and I struck out on our own to go horse riding.  No one else was interested, but pointed us to a wonderful place to ride that offered "river" rides.

 Liz had Bailey, Angela was on Sadie and I was on Rex.

 LOOK I got them to turn around and smile for me!!!

 toes getting wet on this section - it got fairly deep .. but felt so good!!

 Blue heron just to the left of center

 This is how Rex rode the whole time... nose in Sadie's bum - hahahaha.. poor Sadie.  Good thing she didn't seem to mind and it kept her motivated to keep on going!

 Bailey had some serious "go to hell" looks on this ride, he would all of a sudden turn around and GLARE at Sadie.  you can tell she's is soo concerned about this, eh?  Ha!

 LOOK - proof I was THERE!!!!

We then headed up to Highland - where mom and I went when we went to see the leaves last year.

 

  We walked around the cute downtown then headed home... we got side traced at an alpine slide for another half hour or so!

 

 

 Oh, yeah, I went too!!  it was a blast!

Friday was the planned day for white water rafting...  We'll let the pictures speak for themselves

 The crew: Joe, Chris, Nate, Kathy, Matt, Clyde, Leah, Liz, Angela, Meagan, Donna, Jennifer

The only one missing was Karen :(

This was a GREAT trip!!!

 

Saturday a few went Zip Lining.  I was too large to go ;(  Angela was too scared to go all the way through with it :(  next year we'll both do it!!!



 

Only ONE war wound and it was from horseback riding and LIZ earned it!

OUCH!

 

What I woke up to every morning at 7:00am... yes, that is SUN streaming in and NO blinds on any of the windows there... weird.  Only the bathroom upstairs had a curtain.

 

On the way out of town we had to stop at Goats on a Bridge... it was right beside where we would turn around on the highway to get to our road... so we had to go and look.. no, really - goats on the roofs...

 and on the bridges between the roofs...

 and this is what is UNDER those bridges...

 and where the girls ar... hahahaha 

 no, really they are off to one side..

We did make sure we stayed out from under those walkways!!!  EWH!!

HA!!

And with that it's back to reality.. :(

first pay period with furlough

Now keep in mind this is with ONE day off my pay.

DANG I get paid well for 8 hours of work, eh?

So – looks as though the calculators will be right on the money (no pun intended) and I’ll see about a $300 pay difference due to the furlough.

 

Good thing we’re not strapped and living paycheck to paycheck.  For that I’m truly grateful.  I’m also grateful that we have two incomes and only have utilities to contend with.  Those we can deal with.

 

Discussions today are centered on community service today and furlough.

60,000 a week are being furloughed.  Now that’s JUST in my town.  Think about those hours being put to community service in all communities with furloughed people… what a difference that would make, eh?  Hum… I guess I will think harder on that.  I do have goals for my time for the first week or two of furlough – week one was a success of drinkin’ and floatin’ in the pool… check – that was done!  This week is a trip to the mountains – check – packed and ready to GO.  Week Three I have plans to clean out my scrapbook room a bit more and get the Dubai book done and start on the Europe one for Liz (and one for me too).  So… that leaves about 9 more weeks to really think about community service. 

Adventures in water

I just had an epiphany.
I'm going to go white water rafting with friends this weekend - and I
have not done ANYTHING like this for 30 YEARS. Yes, YEARS.
What am I thinking?

The plan is - go to the mountains, stay in a cabin with friends. We're
going to go horseback riding, zip lining and rafting. What am I
thinking?? I am thinking I want to go and have fun!! I did go riding
in Alaska and really did enjoy it, my butt bone was a bit sore
afterwards - who would have thought with THIS much padding, I would have
a boney butt? NOT me. Oh, well, I'm looking forward to a nice ride in
the mountains with the girls. It will be a change from the ride in
Alaska where the ground was very rough and roots everywhere.

The zip line issue...well, we'll wait and see what I really feel about
that. I didn't do it in Utah - but this one is very different where you
are right next to the cable, not 6 - 10' below the cable. You have a
brake if you feel you are going too fast - as if... I didn't use it much
on the alpine slide and it had curves. This is a straight shot, not
thinking I'll want to slow down, but you never know!

White water should be OK as we'll have a guide and it won't be in a
canoe. Can't be as bad as the trip I took with mom in the 80's, right?

A shot In the foot

Stylish, don't you think? I finally gave up after fighting Plantar Fasciitis for a bit over two years off and on, I gave up and went to the podiatrist. After a shot in the foot and a stylish boot to wear at night to hopefully resolve the issue. Lets hope this des the trick. I wait two weeks and go back to see how I'm recovering. Fun, fun, fun. Gettin older sucks. Just sayin. :(

Change of pace

Decided a while back to put hooks in the girls bath for towels. I even bought the "rack" from Ikea. I just hadn't put them up cause I dreaded THIS


Yes - huge holes from what I can only describe as towel cramming. We put the old bars back up with the butterfly wall hooks which, by the way, simply make BIGGER holes. Sigh.


And after patching and painting a new way to hang towels. ;)