Thankful Thursday, back from the mountains.

It’s Thankful Thursday again over at Truth for the Journey. I have a huge post today since I have been away. If you don’t want to read it all, just read highlighted portions and skip the rest. Of course you will be missing all my usual humor and I know you won’t want to do that.

The first thing on my list this week is that I am thankful for a great vacation. We had a great time in the mountains of Georgia and North Carolina.

Our trip:

We stayed in a little town called Dillard Georgia. There isn’t much in Dillard but it is very close to some places you may want to visit and it is a very nice little town. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express. It is a little hotel that only has about 50 rooms. There were quite a few people staying there on Saturday night but after that there were only about 5 other rooms occupied. Nice and quiet, just like I like it. This hotel has an indoor pool and hot tub and they offer a full complimentary breakfast. They offered a mean biscuits and gravy and some other great items every day. That alone saved us about 30 dollars a day.

Day one, we took the short 15 minute drive up to Franklin NC to visit a ruby mine. We chose Masons Ruby Mine because they advertise that they are unsalted. That means that they don’t add any pretty rocks to the dirt to make you think you found something good. And they didn’t do that, believe me. I panned most of the day and only found a few rubies. I think the biggest one that I found was about a half carrot. That is what most people found during the day. There were about 30 of us panning for rubies. One local man did find a nice 12.7 carrot ruby a few minutes after he arrived. Talk about lucky. He arrived about 10:00, got a bucket of dirt and while talking with the owner found a really nice ruby. They made a really big deal about the find too. That kept everyone optimistic about finding a nice one too but no one else did.



One thing my son noted was that almost all the workers were missing most of their teeth. So maybe instead of a ruby mine this would be a better gold mine. (For the Dental Maven anyway.) Talk about land of opportunity. Get going Maven, there’s gold in them thair hills.

Day two we visited Tallulah falls and gorge. This very picturesque part makes one stand in awe over the wonderful beauty that God created.
So number 2 on my list is: I am thankful for all the beautiful things that God created including Tallulah Falls. I highly recommend visiting these falls if you are ever in the area.





As an added note, this was the site of some of the scenes from the movie Deliverance. Perhaps some of the workers from the ruby mine were in that movie. I'm just guessing.

While in the park, we took the long walk down the stairs to a suspension bridge over the gorge. I love swinging bridges and I was able to get this bridge really rocking. (Much to this dismay of my family and some other passerby’s) It is almost 400 steps down to the bridge so if you go down there, just remember; what goes down, must come up.


The climb wasn’t that bad though since I have been getting my legs in shape at my spinning class. Last night I had another awesome class thanks to our inspirational leader Mary. She again pushed us to new limits during the class.

So number 3 is that I am thankful for a great spinning instructor Mary who keeps us motivated and pushing ourselves. At the end of the class last night, she said: “let’s all do a few pushups to limber up our shoulders a bit.” I wanted to wimp out but all the girls did it so my macho ego wouldn’t let me. I dropped and gave her 10.

Number 4 on my list is that I am thankful for our boys in blue. I wouldn’t do their job if they paid me well and that job doesn’t pay well enough in my opinion. Our local policemen do a great job doing things like fighting crime and writing speeding tickets (right Mary), but when it comes to directing traffic, let’s just say, they leave a lot to be desired.

Last night on my way home, I got to the intersection of Main Road and Highway 17. All of a sudden a police car pulled right in front of me, blocking my path. Three other policemen showed up and began directing traffic. At first I thought the light wasn’t working but that wasn’t the case. The simply wouldn’t let our lane of traffic continue onto Main Road. They did however let the people on highway 17 go that way. Confusion set in and after sitting there for about 15 minutes, I decided to turn right and do a U-turn and get into that traffic. It worked and soon I was moving toward home again.

After crossing the bridge onto Johns Island, I was again instructed to turn off of Main road by a police woman. I still didn’t know why so I made a short detour and came back to Main Road and continued on. So did a lot of other people. This was making no sense at all. Then up ahead I saw enough blue lights to light up a small city. The first policeman to pass us, instructed us to pull off the road so we did. That policeman was followed by about 20 motorcycle police, then some other police cars, some unidentified cars, more police, more cars and finally another long string of police cars. Can anyone guess what/who this was?


Some guy named Joe B, who was leaving from his vacation on Seabrook Island. Apparently while we vacationed in the mountains, the Vice President and his family were vacationing here. I only have one question. Does this count as South Carolina’s stimulus package? I’m just asking.

The #5 thing I am thankful for is my children who have been helping out around the house this summer. Unfortunately, school starts for them next week. The party is over boys. For them anyway.

We are already thinking about taking another trip to the mountains. It is only 5 ½ hours by car which is almost a staycation. Close enough anyway. At least we didn’t have to take a private jet to get to our destination. Ahem.

Have a great day,
Greg