Cheerwine and Stairs

The great thing about having a food guy who's a college football fan is that you usually get to go hiking on Sunday afternoons. Lots of dogs have food guys who always watch football on saturdays and sundays. Don't get me wrong, the NFL is great, but it's nice to get outside whenever possible. This Sunday we went up to Tallulah Gorge for a great hike. I don't have any red-leg black-leg stories today, but I do have a pretty good hike to tell ya'll about today. 

So, my food guy used to kayaking all the time. It was before I was around, but from what I can tell he used to never to anything but find crazy creeks to go down all the time. Now, he's a little more diverse, which works out well for me. This week, our big adventure was to Tallulah Gorge, which is in North Georgia about 25 minutes from North Carolina. It's a really pretty place. Food Guy used to go kayaking there all the time. But today was all about hiking. First we stopped at this little store overlooking the Gorge. It's awesome. It's like a little microcosm of Southern Appalachian culture. Since one of my jobs is showing people from Oregon around, I figured stopping at this store was a good idea. There's all kinds of crazy Southern trinkets and, best of all they have Cheerwine in glass bottles. Food Guy didn't let me drink any (he's so crazy with the no people food rule) but he said it's really good. Then we hiked along the path to the stairs that go down to into the Gorge. It was pretty cool, and Food Guy seemed pretty happy not to be carrying a kayak. 

See, he used to carry a boat down the 1122 stairs and then paddle the crazy rapids. He was pretty psyched not to have to paddle Oceana today. It's a pretty wild looking rapid. See

So, he seemed pretty happy just to be enjoying the view, and he kept saying how much easier it was to walk down there without a 50 pound piece of tupperware on his shoulder. It was a pretty cool place. I had to stay on a leash because there's all these rules about not stepping on the endangered species of plants in the Gorge. I kind of felt like a dirty hippy being worried about the Persistent Trillium and all that, but I suppose it's a good idea not to trample rare plants. Anyway, we got down to the put-in and took it all in. 

  Usually, there's a lot more water when you go down there to paddle. And it looks a little more like this:  

So, today's activities were on the mellow side. We saw lots of people breathing hard going back up the stairs who have little different idea of what mellow is, but I guess it takes all kinds...

Anyway, we got back up to the top of the Gorge and walked around a little more. The overlooks are pretty cool. Check this one out:

The Food Guy was a little tired after walking down the stairs. It's a long way down to the river from the top, so we walked back to car to head back to Athens. As far as hikes go. This one was pretty tame. It was short, and more like walking on a path than a real hike, but it wasn't too shabby. I suppose it's ok to go on an easy hike once in a while. Especially the day after the Food Guy goes on one of his long runs. Anyway, ya'll have a good week. The Food Guy says he has too much homework to do this week, so it'll probably be next weekend before we have another adventure. But you can be sure that I'll have some things to say about his crazy, "landmark" pants at the Vandy game next weekend. GO DAWGS!