Chenocetah

We had a pretty full day today!  First thing we did today was go to church - of course online, of course.  It was week #2 of "The Quest," and today was special because we started to introduce our praise and worship segment to the service as well.  Daddy helped out with the filming this week as always, and it was great to see the boys start their comeback towards victory this week, winning a pretty funny game where you had to find a solid path across a whole lot of boxes, some of them empty and some able to support your weight.  Whoever found the right path first was the winner, and it was another close contest today!

After eating some delicious meatloaf, it was then decided that we needed to go for a ride, desperately!  So we loaded up in the car, and off we went with the primary objective being Jaemor Farms.

We were up there for produce, getting all kinds of fresh fruits and vegetables, and honestly there to help support the local farmers in the area.  The great thing was seeing so many other people there doing the same thing.  Half of us were wearing masks, and the other half were not.  But we were all doing our best to keep socially distant, despite the fact that it was super packed up there.  Madison brought her camera along, or at least her iPhone, and was taking a lot of very interesting pictures, like the one you see above, and these below:

Of course, we had to get some ice cream while we were there.  The peach ice cream was very tempting, but the strawberries looked so good and fresh!  So we got ourselves some absolutely astounding strawberry ice cream, perfectly blended with strawberry chunks in there - so delicious!

We were enjoying those as we walked along and looked over their crafts and produce.  And we also picked ourselves up another sugary treat:  birch beer!

Madison took these pictures as we went along.  We got some watermelon, corn, and strawberries of course.  Daddy got some Cheerwine soda as well, and we got ourselves another carpenter bee trap as well, because those carpenter bees seem really desperate to try and make holes in our house.

Speaking of bees, we also got ourselves some honey from the area too.  This was one of the reasons for heading up here, to help with the allergies lately.  Natural honey from the area is good for that.  It was nice, and it was good to see so many people there supporting farmers.

We left there, and instead of going back south to home, we went north, because Daddy had a few other stops to make, including downtown Cornelia for some photo shoots:

Madison found this bench at the railroad park there, which of course is right next to an iconic spot in Cornelia, the legendary Big Apple there!

We've seen this apple so many times growing up, but it's been a while since I've been up there.  Madison has only been here once, I think.  I just looked it up, and it was May 26, 2011.  Click on that link and see how tiny she was back then.  Here she is now:

They have a couple of cabooses there on display, and while you can't go inside, you can go up on the front and back to pose for pictures, which of course we did.  They also have a few train station items there, old signs and so forth.  Here's a nice picture that Madison took of one of those:

It turned out rather unique!  Here below is another picture that Madison took of some of the lights that go alongside the track:

We didn't expect all this at the little park.  The idea was just to get out and take a picture of the apple, and move on.  But we saw the train items here, and we had to explore a little more.

I'm not sure where these train tracks go, put it's entirely possible they're still usable to get things in place here or there.  They actually had two cabooses here - you can see Mommy and Daddy posing for a picture on one right now.

As you can see, the place was deserted.  It was a Sunday and nobody was here.  The whole downtown area looked deserted too, even the small businesses.  Of course, it's technically a Sunday and many places might have been closed anyway.  But it was so empty down there, and somewhat eerie.

Daddy took this picture of one of the railroad signs.  They had a lot of things around here to see, and this was a completely pleasant stop for us.  The weather was nice outside, cool and sunny, and just perfect for hopping out of the car to do a little exploring.

Here's Madison on the other caboose - this picture turned out nice!  Here she is in the same shot, this one a little further back.

Of course, the whole reason for our stop wasn't really the trains.  But I'm a sucker for trains and cabooses, so we had to stop for at least that.  The apple is what we stopped to pose in front of - here's Madison and Mommy together in front of Cornelia's second-biggest apple.

I say that, because I think we passed a slightly larger copper-looking apple a few blocks away.  This was dedicated in 1926 in Cornelia, donated by the Southern Railroad.   

While there, we saw the marble slab commemorating the visit by President George HW Bush in 1992.  They had a few items like that there, a nice little visit.  Imagine all the people there that day.  Today, it was just the three of us.

Now this wasn't the end of our visit to Cornelia.  For some time, I've been wanting to see this fire tower up there, one I heard was just outside the town city limits.  It's not that far away, and I figured we were right there, so why not go check it out.  So we did!

This is the Chenocetah Fire Tower, something we had to look up how to pronounce when we got home.  It's on top of Chenocetah Mountain, and again, it's a super short drive.  It's right there in Cornelia, and I remembered a little later that there's this big drop off right at the edge of Cornelia, where things suddenly get lower in altitude as you drive southeast towards Banks County and beyond.  So up on the tower, there's a huge view.  We walked up to the tower to see if we could get a better vantage point.

This was built in 1936 during the Great Depression, and now serves as a seasonal fire tower, the only stone fire tower in the state.

We walked up to the tower, and it was locked.  It only opens I believe once a year, during a local Big Apple Festival.  We anticipated this.  Also, again, to begin with, there was nobody else here.  It was also deserted as well!

Madison took some pictures and so did Daddy.  We both walked along the platform beneath the tower, and the tree line was so high all around that you couldn't see anywhere in particular.  The only indication that you were up a little higher was the marble label on the tower:

Anyway, we walked up to the tower, walked around it once, and took some pictures there of the stone work, the windows, each other, and the tower itself.

Madison took this wonderful shot of one of the windows there.  You can see the window on the other side as she's looking up through this window.  Madison had the camera with her, taking all sorts of interesting shots.  Even taking a picture of her shadow!

We decided to go down the hill after that, and suddenly it occurred to us there was an opening.  And suddenly, there we saw it, a most amazing view!

Madison took this picture from the vista, and how wonderful that there was a bench right there.  We took a few pictures posing in the bench, just because of the amazing backdrop.

Here's Madison above, and she took a picture of Mommy and Daddy on the bench as well:

Finally, a picture of Madison and Mommy together as well.  It was such a nice view there on a completely perfect day.

The temperature was perfect, the sun shining, and the clouds rolling across the sky.  You can see the shadows moving across the green landscape below, and Lake Russell as well.  We've never seen Lake Russell before, so this was a nice introduction to it.

We took several pictures from this viewpoint - in some of these pictures if you look very closely, you can see the fishing boat that was floating by.

It was a short visit, to a place all very close by to us.  It was a wonderful surprise, and when you put together the three stops we made, it made for a very nice day together!

We got home, and Mommy blessed us with something incredible later on - chocolate covered strawberries.  Oh my, these were so good!

Tonight we concluded our Malefithon, watching the second "Maleficent" movie, which all three of us enjoyed.  I think we liked the first one better, but this second movie was fun too.  We ended the day watching this, and a few extras afterwards, and after that, prayers and reading as well.  We had a great day.  Despite being limited with our ability to travel or do things, we still had a nice outing this afternoon, and had a very nice day.