Becky and I had planned to visit Johnny in Illinois this weekend for an early Thanksgiving. However, after scheduling time off from work, we found that no hotels were available in Champaign-Urbana. Something about a home game and “Dad’s Weekend”. So Becky decided to visit Helen, Georgia on Friday, instead.

We began the day by stopping by LifeWay Christian Stores in Buford. Becky wanted to pick up a Veggie Tales DVD for the church library. LifeWay was giving away a one volume edition of The Chronicles of Narnia. The only problem is that it’s a “heretical” version: the stories are presented in chronological order instead of publication order, so “The Magician’s Nephew” is in the first instead of sixth position. Still, it was free and my seven volume set is somewhat dogeared.

We drove to Helen and ate lunch at North Georgia Bar-B-Q. The pulled pork and sauces were very good but the beans and stew were average at best. All seating is outdoors.



We spent some time at the Helen Arts and Heritage Center as part of the 2010 Arts Tour. We watched pottery being made and spent some time with a wool spinner. This sea serpent caught my eye and I took a picture since my daughter likes dragons. Sea serpents are related to dragons, aren’t they?



We went to Raven’s Cliff Falls and hiked somewhat over half of the trail. We weren’t able to cover the full five miles as we arrived too late in the afternoon and we wanted to be back to the car well before sunset. On the way back to Helen we stopped at an overlook to take some pictures of Mount Yonah.