This weekend I took off with some friends and coworkers to head to north Georgia for some whitewater rafting and hiking adventures. We left after work on Friday (thankfully we were able to leave early) and arrived at our location about 6:30pm. After checking into our hotel, our first order of business was to find a place to eat. We ended up at a place called Universal Joint. It was a cool place. They had lots of outside seating and we all enjoyed our food and drinks.

Saturday morning we got up, had some breakfast at the hotel, and headed on out to our whitewater rafting destination. When we arrived, we discovered that most of the people that were going out on our trip were actually staying at the same hotel as us and we had seen them all at breakfast. One of the guys came over and introduced himself and let us know that they raft this river every year and at the end they were providing a cooler full of beer for EVERYONE to enjoy. Score! We went through all of the safety talks and fitting of the gear and boarded the bus to head to the river. Our group was hoping for a good guide this time since we did not care for the one we had last year in West Virginia. We were pleased with the one we ended up with. She did a great job getting us in the right spots and keeping us all in the raft (except for when she let me jump in the water to cool off). We had such a great trip down the river. The weather was beautiful except for a little bit of rain towards the end of our rafting, but by the time we got to the end, the sun was back out. During our journey down river, we stopped at a spot where they allowed us to hike in just a bit to see a beautiful waterfall. It was a nice way to get out and stretch our legs since we were going to be rafting for several hours. We did stop about half way through to eat lunch on a giant rock. The guides had packed up sandwich fixings, fruit, and water for us to have. We sure did do a lot of laughing and screaming on this trip. At the end of our trip, we ended up in a lake. Because there was no current, if we paddled to the take out point it would have taken well over another hour. So instead, they had a motorized John boat meet us and we all hooked together around the boat and he motored us to the take out. While we were being towed, they broke out the cooler of beverages that the one group had provided and we were able to enjoy some cold beer or water. Once we got to the take out point, we had to carry our rafts (which are very heavy) up a steep hill to where the buses were parked. We all loaded up on the buses and made our way back to the outpost. We were able to continue enjoying the cold beverages on the bus ride back. It was a much longer ride back than the one we had in the morning. It was also a lot curvier and bumpier. I guess that combination along with some beer consumption was not too good to one of the rafters because he decided to upchuck on the bus while heading back. GROSS! I mean poor guy. But seriously, GROSS! He happened to be sitting right across from me. Thank goodness the windows were down and we were cruising with minimal stops so that I was not able to smell it. Otherwise, I may have joined him. Once we made it back to the outpost, we retrieved our keys, got our dry clothes out and changed.

Here is the waterfall that we stopped to see while rafting.

Some of the scenic pictures that the photographer took.

Our plan now was to drive to a waterfall that I had found for us that was not too far away and did not require any hiking to get to. The directions that I plugged into the GPS were wrong so we had to stop and ask for directions. We stopped at this cute little cafe and they were super nice and gave us exact directions to get there. Since they were so nice and the place was so cute, we decided that after we saw the waterfall we would return to have dinner there. The food was delicious and the service was very friendly.

We made it back to the hotel after dinner and we all passed out pretty early.

Sunday morning we got up and had breakfast in the hotel and packed up and got an early start. We were heading to Tallulah Gorge State Park. I had found this place and it looked pretty awesome. It was only about 15 minutes from the hotel we were staying in. It was a beautiful day and because it was early, it hadn’t got too hot yet. We walked a couple of miles and about 700 stairs! It just so happened to be a water release weekend so all of the falls were much more impressive than they normally are.

After our hike, Jay and Chelsea headed on back home. Liz, Bobbie, and I were going to head back to a place we passed on the way to the park. Goats on a Roof. It was just a cute little roadside attraction with a gift shop, ice cream, a food truck, and of course, goats on the roof. It was just an excuse for us to feed the goats and to stretch our legs after all the stairs before we were stuck in the car for a long time.

We found this cute little pizza place on the way home to stop and have lunch.

After lunch, we headed back home. Everyone had a blast. We are already planning our next rafting adventure!

*There are some pictures that I took with my GoPro and some that I took with a waterproof film camera that I may add later.