We went up to a campground in north GA for 2 nights and had a great time, despite the bears and little to no water. When we got there, the people in the site next to us on the end started packing up and came over to bring us their watermelon and some veggies they did not get to cook. They told us that the night before, there was a huge mama bear and her cub getting into the garbage bin right next to the campsites and they could not sleep all night. They ended up with 10 people in their popup camper. We were intrigued, but not worried.
Well, that first night, Brooke and I were coming back from the showers and I was unzipping the tent for her to get in and I saw some people with flashlights standing next to the garbage. I looked up and saw this pretty BIG bear sitting at the top of the hill looking down at the garbage. I told Brooke to look...then to get inside the tent. We watched for a longtime from the window in the tent. Needless to say that was a very restless night for me. Everyone else seemed to go on off to sleep pretty good, but I would doze off then jump at the banging near the garbage. You can see how close we were to the garbage in one of the first pictures.
They told us that they had an electric wire around the garbage bin to keep the bears out, but then they started going to the tent sites, so they cut it down to keep them from the tenters! I would say that was the smartest thing they could have done! The next night was not bad at all, I never heard her out there, probably because I was so tired from the night before!
We did decide to go on a hike to the 400 ft. waterfall onsite, but when we entered the woods to start the trail, there was a new sign on cardboard put up: "Lots of fresh bear signs. Be careful and just make lots of noise when hiking." Yea, that wasn't setting too good for me, but we kept walking a little ways, then I looked up and saw the woods lit up with red painted trees (which is what they did when they found a bear scraping on a tree, they would paint a red ring around it.). At this time I told Michael we should not do that hike since we had the kids. That was too much of a risk...then I told him later I used the kids as an excuse to get out of there! The kids could care less, but I was so uneasy.
Brooke met a friend there the first few minutes of getting to the campground. We had a creek that ran through every campsite, so her and her new friend played in the creek the entire time there. It was extremely cold water too. They also had a little farm there and at 4:30pm everyday, they let the campers come and feed the animals. Brooke got to milk the cow and pet the ponies, Logan just wanted out of the pen from the animals! He liked playing with a stick instead!
On the last night there they had both water pumps go out, so the showers had a trickle of water coming out of them for the most part, but we managed and still got clean! On out way out the next day, we stopped in Helen to play a game of putt putt with the kids. I had played on that course about 22 years ago with my mom, Grandma, Aunt, Uncle, brother, cousin and a friend. It was really cool to play it again and tell my kids that I was there when I was just a little older than Brooke is. They did not think it was as cool as I did though! LOL! They keep that course absolutely beautiful, it looks brand new! After that, we headed home to unpack and then load back up and head down to Stone Mountain for the laser show that night with some friends. We were exhausted! The next night we went to watch the Gwinnett Braves play at home for the first time and enjoyed that too!
I am not looking forward to work tomorrow, but am so blessed to have had the time off with the family! I love spending time with them!!!
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