Helen, Georgia: "Sing and Make Music from Your Heart"

 Evening in Helen, Georgia latte October after the Octoberfest and everyone had returned home.  The streets were very quiet and only a few people were dining.  This is after all the merriment and celebrations of the fall season.

Sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvelous things, his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.

The LORD has made his salvation known and revealed his righteousness to the nations.

He has remembered his love and his faithfulness to Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God.

Psalms 98:1-3 NIV

Adirondack Mountains Gallery 4

Adirondack Mountains Gallery 3

Adirondack Mountains Gallery 2

Adirondack Mountains Gallery I

The Adirondack Mountains may be covered in snow now but this was the gorgeous landscape in late October at the peak of the fall foliage. 

Raquette River "An Unchanged Eden"

These photos were taken in October at the peak of the fall foliage.  Beautiful orange and golden trees along the river banks.  The Raquette River is the second longest river in New York State.  Ralph Waldo Emerson's poem "The Adirondacs" is about his explorations in 1858.  He made the journey with several prominent men of the time including painter William James Stillman and the group became known as the Philosophers Camp.

 

 

"The Philosophers' Camp" painting by William James Stillman, at Follensby Pond, 1858, a momentary natural center of the Transcendentalist movement, w/ poets Ralph Waldo Emerson and James Russell Lowell, and scientist Louis Agassiz. 

The Adirondacs

DEDICATED TO MY FELLOW TRAVELLERS IN AUGUST, 1858

Wise and polite,--and if I drew
Their several portraits, you would own
Chaucer had no such worthy crew,
Nor Boccace in Decameron.

We crossed Champlain to Keeseville with our friends,
Thence, in strong country carts, rode up the forks
Of the Ausable stream, intent to reach
The Adirondac lakes. At Martin's Beach
We chose our boats; each man a boat and guide,--
Ten men, ten guides, our company all told.

"Tumbling Waters" Amicalola Falls

 

We hike the trail up to the falls and drove to the top level and walked the trail with the deck in front of the falls.  There was no way I could get a complete shot of the falls.  Amicalola Falls State Park is an 829 acre Georgia state park located between Ellijay and Dahlonega in Dawsonville, Georgia. The park's name is derived from a Cherokee language word meaning "tumbling waters".

Vogue State Park

We visited Vogue State Park and the waterfall is not as spectacular as the one we saw at Amicalola Falls.  These photos were taken from the road because we did not have time to hike the trail from the top starting at the lake to the bottom of the falls.  There is a hiking trail around the lake and it was a nice day to hike among the trees and the shoreline.

Entering "Happily Ever After"

While driving to Brasstown Bald Mountain, we turned at a sign that read "Entering Happily Every After".  Within a few miles, the valley had pastoral rolling hills similar to New Zealand. Where are the dwarfs?  Where is Snow White?

"Happily Ever After - Snow White"

If Once Upon a Time is when we all first met,
Our smiling future among the stars is set.
Welcome bright mornings of romance and laughter,
For these two and us, it's
Happily Ever After...