Rainy Day

Yesterday there was a 30% chance of rain and we saw all of it on our motorcycle ride. Today's prediction was a 70% chance of rain, so we did not chance it. We disconnected the trailer and went off in Speedy to tour the Greater-Helen metropolitan area (actually the countryside around Helen). We started off with a stop in Nacoochee Village, just south of downtown Helen. It is a collection of shops in old buildings and we'd seen the Jumping Goat Coffee Roasters sign as we passed by on our way to the park. A morning latte from a local roaster is always a stop.


Unlike any roaster's store we've ever been in, they don't have espresso (or cappuccino or cafe latte, as a result)...so disappointing. It was just a retail store for their coffees and accessories and only had brewed coffee sample cups of one of their blends. Next door made up for the lack of coffee; it was the local grain mill. It is an old water-powered mill, still stone-grinding corn and wheat after nearly 150 years. Today it seems mostly for the tourist trade though, since their various flours, grits and cereals were only available in 1-2 pound sacks. No 40 pound sacks of flour here. They also sell preserves, kitchen wares and such, all in the original mill building surrounding the milling equipment. As we don't have an oven in Speedy, we settled for an enameled serving spoon and some jelly.

Across the street was the tasting room for the Habersham Winery. We are in the wine growing region of Georgia and there are about a dozen wineries in the area. This is the Spring Wine Highway Weekend, where you can buy a glass for $25 and go to about ten of the wineries and have it filled. As we arrived, we passed a bevy of women leaving with glasses in hand. Although it looked like the winery had some nice varietals, 9:30 am was a bit early for Ellen, so we passed on a tasting.

It was then off to the Folk Pottery Museum in Sautee-Nacoochee a few miles down the road. As we rolled into the center of Sautee, I spotted Sleepless in Sautee, a coffee cafe—we quickly braked for a break. It was a real cafe, complete with wi-fi and the barista with plugs in his earlobes...in the middle of farm country. As I sat on the porch with my cafe latte, Ellen wandered off to the gallery across the street and we both met in the old general store on the opposite corner. The entry was into the old general store which is a virtual museum of an old-time store with brands on the shelves that I'd hadn't seen since I was a kid...and some I'd never seen. Once you stepped into the back, it was a more modern place with food and clothing and gifts.

Off to the Folk Pottery Museum, just a couple of hundred yards up the road. The museum is in a great open new building added onto an old school housing the Sautee Nacoochee Community Association. The museum featured the history and exhibition of local pottery from several families of potters who have been making crocks and churns and jugs (including the famous face jugs) for generations, from when they were the vernacular containers. This type of mostly-utilitarian pottery had almost died out as pottery was replaced by mass-produced glass and metal. Then the Smithsonian did a documentary on one of the families of potters in the late-70's. This sparked a desire for these folk pots as collectibles, particularly the face jugs and a market revival for the local potters.

After touring the museum, we headed back to Alpine Helen and its pseudo-Barvarian buildings for lunch. We had spied the North Georgia Barbeque just down the street from the visitor center when we first arrived. It had cars out front and the smoker out back, so it seemed like a good bet. It was.

They had ribs, chicken, pork and Brunswick stew. Under the sandwich menu was the Pork Melt, the Pork and the Porker. The pork melt is a pulled pork sandwich with cheese. Ellen asked what the Porker was. The answer was "a large pork sandwich", which elicited the comment "So if you eat too many, is that what you turn into?". This did not not seem to go over well with the woman taking our order. I wondered that if they had a Pork and a Porker, there should also be a Porkest...but I kept that to myself.

We each ordered a Pork and a single rib. Of the four varieties of sauce, we chose the spicy. They have no inside seating and only two tables under cover outside. As they were both taken and it was raining, we returned to Speedy to dine in comfort. It was excellent BBQ—good smoked pulled pork, good ribs and nice spicy sauce. Since they gave us a large cup of sauce, we've saved the rest for later use (We have a pork tenderloin in Speedy's freezer).

After a stop at Betty's General Store, a very nicely stocked small grocery in Helen, we headed back to camp with detour up to Anna Ruby Falls. The falls are about 5 miles uphill from the campground in the National Forest just outside the park. Fortunately, there is a road to the NFS visitor center just below the falls and we didn't take the strenuous 5 mile hike from the campground, only the half-mile walk up a paved trail to the falls. It was an interesting side-trip and we got a little walking in today.

Tomorrow we hope to move on, probably to Great Smoky Mountain National Park. We were there for a few days last spring when we went down to Knoxville to pick up my new motorcycle. We really liked the park and didn't see enough of it. It also looks like there are quite a few nice motorcycle rides in the area.

The bird of the day is the Pileated Woodpecker. One spent much of the morning pecking away in a dead tree just across from our campsite. He certainly made that tree boom.

Today's photos.