Helen 2010- Day 1

**** Lots of unnecessary details ahead that you probably will not care about! ha!*****
This past week, we went on a family trip to Helen, Ga. If you've never been, it's a cute little "Alpine Village" where everthing looks like you're in the Swiss Alps. It's very cute but also very touristy. I prefer beautiful mountain scenery/quiet of nature to tourist traps and cliche shops.

We went for this year's Georgia Council of the Blind convention. It was my first time going to the convention. We stayed at the Unicoi State Park which I learned has the most amenities of any state park (but still no swimming pool!) and it was pretty nice. A little on the 70's style, but still nice. We shared a room with Alicia and Audra since they had "lofts" in the rooms so we could save money. Adam and I slept in the loft which is just two mattesses on the floor!! ha!
We left home around 11:30 on Thursday and arrived in Helen about 4 hours later. It was a long ride but Alabama slept a good bit of the way there.

We had a "Welcome Cookout" when we got there so we had hamburgers/hotdogs and fries but the hayride was cancelled because a storm was coming. This was defnintely a mountain type of storm. Huge lightning/thunder and rain. It was an awesome display of God's power! The lights went out for about 45 minutes in the lodge. I thought that was pretty funny that the lights were out for a blind convention. ha! I guess it didn't really bother them at all! While the lights were out, Adam, Alicia, Alabama and I (just realized that everybody's an "A" except me and Mama. ha!) went to town and to the Betty's Country store (which is now an IGA) and to the toy store. We had to buy some milk and a couple other things and we bought a little sock monkey at the toy store because I felt really bad for the lady who was showing us EVERYTHING in the store and I wanted to purchase something from her. After that we went back to the lodge and got Alabama a bath and to sleep and then we waited on Audra to arrive (she came in our car after work and had all our luggage with her). She finally got there and we laughed forever while we told her about the people we encountered at the cookout. haha! I would tell you, but you really had to be there and know these people! ha! I'll do another post about the next day.