In early August, we flew into Charlotte, North Carolina, because we had American Airlines credits to use by the middle of August and it was one of nine US airports with non-stop flights from Houston on AA (we didn’t want to mess with connections). After booking, we had to decide what to do once we got to Charlotte. So, I called our travel buddies, Keith and Paula, for some recommendations. They live in South Carolina near the North Carolina border, about 2 hours from Charlotte, and they were looking to go somewhere nearby for a few days in the same time frame. So we ended up going to their house, then went together for a few days to Northern Georgia.
Reunion Time
We had the opportunity to reunite with another couple who live in Keith and Paula’s community that we’d travelled to Australia with back in February 2020. The evening we arrived, the six of us went to a farm-to-table restaurant near Hendersonville, NC, called The Silo Cookhouse at The Horse Shoe Farm for an upscale family-style dining experience. We ordered a variety of dishes including pork belly, duck rillettes, polenta gnocchi, summer carrots, pork chops, rib-eye, and the smoked tomato and crab rici. It was fun catching up with Mary Ann and Charles and we had a fabulous gastronomic experience, too!
We also found “a Baylor Bear in the Wild” as we walked from the parking lot to the restaurant. A young man staying on the property spotted Dave’s BU shirt and gave us a “Sic ‘Em!”. We chatted with him briefly – he is starting his senior year this fall in the Business School. It seems like we always run into someone with a Baylor University connection, no matter where in the world we travel!
On the Road Again
In 2022, the four of us met in Michigan for a road trip along the shores of Lake Michigan and Lake Superior. Now we were on the road again for a much shorter trip to Northern Georgia, specifically the region around Dahlonega. Despite several country songs about Dahlonega and its rich gold history, I wasn’t familiar with it! I am now!
On the way, we stopped for a late lunch at a traditional family-style restaurant that Paula’s son had been recommending to her for years called The Dillard House, in Dillard, Georgia. The Dillard family has been in the area since the mid-1790s and “Dillard House” has been serving up Southern hospitality since 1917. There is a set menu for each meal and all options are brought to the table.
Their specialty is fried chicken – a Southern staple, but there is always a second and sometimes a third protein option as well. The day we were there it was stuffed bell peppers. A variety of side dishes are served from mashed potatoes to green beans to whatever else is in season from local farmers.
And, of course, any true Southern meal is topped off with cobbler! The day we went it was strawberry. I’ve had plenty of peach and blackberry (dewberry) cobblers in my life – but this was my first strawberry cobbler!
As we turned out of the parking lot, we spotted a sign for a winery just up the road and decided to be spontaneous and go check it out.
12 Spies
12 Spies Vineyards is located in Rabun Gap, Georgia. They have a beautiful setting and offer 16 varietals of wine.
The name comes from the Bible and the story of the twelve men selected from each tribe of Israel to scout (spy) the land of Canaan. In Numbers 13:23 (NIV), it states: When they reached the Valley of Eshkol, they cut off a branch bearing a single cluster of grapes. Two of them carried it on a pole between them, along with some pomegranates and figs.
According to the winery’s website, the name honors the owner’s “willingness to listen to the larger plans of the Lord”. Although we didn’t buy any wine there, it did serve as a reminder that God’s future plans for us are often beyond our current comprehension, but we still need to trust Him to guide us along the way.
Bear Footin’
We booked a very new “cabin” near Dahlonega that we found on VRBO. It wasn’t lacking any amenities and was comfy, quiet, and fun! The owners’ call the cabin “Bear Footin’” and there definitely are real bears in the region because we saw warning signs. There was a foosball table, cornhole set, and hot tub on one deck, also a fire pit and chairs below the cabin. The owners provided lots of local information and responded quickly to a couple of questions we had. It made a great base from which to go out each day on our adventures and return to relax and play games each evening.
Amicalola Falls
On our first morning, we headed over to Amicalola Falls State Park about 45 minutes from our cabin. The 729-foot cascading waterfall is the third highest east of the Mississippi River. The park also includes the 8-mile Approach Trail to the southern terminus of the famed Appalachian Trail.
The Cherokee word “Amicalola” means “tumbling waters” – a fitting description of the falls. We visited the Top of the Falls and then did a short hike to the Lower Observation Platform.
Keith and Paula wanted to hike a loop trail, but I decided the terrain was steeper than I wanted to tackle. They live in the mountains, so are used to it, but Dave and I are sea-level people and definitely not used to “hills”. Dave and I hung out by the reflection pool while Keith and Paula started down the loop trail. Dave was talking to some guys fishing the stocked pond there while I was taking pictures a little bit upstream. Suddenly, someone goosed me from behind – it was Paula – they were back in less than five minutes having found the trail even steeper than they wanted to tackle! LOL!
We headed towards the park’s lodge where they have a daily buffet lunch which had good reviews. Rather interestingly, the lunch theme that day was “Thanksgiving”. I got a salad and cup of chicken vegetable soup to start, but when the others went back for turkey and dressing, etc., I ended up skipping the traditional fare and went back for more soup. Sometimes, a good hearty soup is all you need!
Thar’s Gold in Them Thar Hills
Following our waterfall adventure, we headed towards Dahlonega and the Consolidated Gold Mine which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Dave and I are fans of the Discovery Channel’s Gold Rush series, and we were intrigued by the history of America’s first major gold rush right there in Northern Georgia in 1829. For twenty years, the Georgia Gold Rush was easy pickings for miners – the gold was literally laying right on top of the ground, and it was nearly 100% pure (aka 24 karat)!
By the time of the California Gold Rush of 1849, prospectors were having to work a little harder for the Georgia gold, building sluices and digging deeper. The famous saying “Thar’s gold in them thar hills” although often attributed to Mark Twain (The American Claimant, 1892), was yelled by the Dahlonega Mint assayor, Dr. M.F. Stephenson, in 1849, from the steps of the Lumpkin County Courthouse as he attempted to keep miners in Georgia from leaving for the new California gold.
Side note: Yes, there was a U.S. mint in Dahlonega from 1838-1861 – all the coins minted there were gold, of course! The Dahlonega Mint used ‘D’ as the mint mark. The Denver mint, which also uses ‘D’, didn’t open until 1906.
I’d always heard this saying in the context of the California Gold Rush but didn’t know until now that the “hills” referred to were in Georgia, not California! As Paul Harvey would have said, “And now you know the rest of the story!”.
So, back to the Consolidated Gold Mine tour – it was a hard-rock mine with its beginnings in the 1880s when gold-containing quartz veins began to be chased through the area. Most veins are a few inches thick, but one vein was found to be 22-feet thick – still one of the largest ever found. The Consolidated Gold Company was formed in 1895 by buying up many smaller mines in the area. But, by 1906, due to a variety of reasons was out of business.
We took the 45-minute tour of the mine and got to try our hand at panning for gold afterwards. Our tour guide into the mine was informative and entertaining with her mine pun jokes. She covered the types of work each miner did and how much they were paid based on the skill and/or danger in doing specific jobs. She even briefly demonstrated the decibel level of one of the drills to drive home how the operator would become deaf within a few months and have to move to another job with a hearing partner to be aware of warnings in the mine.
Afternoon Wine Time
It seems the number of wineries and wine regions has grown exponentially over the past twenty or so years and you can find “wine trails” almost everywhere now. Northern Georgia is no exception. We had researched beforehand and had a short list of wineries in the area to visit depending on our other activities. We’d driven by Kaya Vineyard and Winery on our way in the day before and since it was on our list as the largest in the area, decided to return and check out their wines and the view.
They do have a great view of the Blue Ridge Mountains and a large variety of wines – red, white, and rosé in several styles. For example, they make both an oaked and unoaked (stainless steel) Chardonnay as well as oaked and unoaked Viognier. They have a nice white blend of Muscat (traditional southern grape), Chardonnay, and Viognier, which they call Grace. On the red side, they have single varietal wines for Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Malbec, along with several red blends, too. We found a couple that we all liked and bought some bottles to take with us for later.
It was still about an hour before closing times for the area wineries, so we decided to go to one more on the way back to our cabin. We stopped at Frogtown Cellars – but they’d already closed for the day – apparently the hours are flexible! So, we continued down the road behind it to Three Sisters Vineyards.
Their vineyards were planted in the mid-1990s and it is known as “Dahlonega’s first family farm winery”. Three Sisters Vineyards is named for the nearby three-peaked mountain known as Three Sisters Mountain.
We enjoyed a selection of truffles along with our tasting here by their beautiful bar. They also have a nice patio and picnic table area outside. With only 20 acres of vineyards compared to the hundreds at Kaya, Three Sisters wines still has a nice choice of reds and whites, focused on North American varietals like Cynthiana or Norton, but also better-known grapes such as Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Chardonnay.
Evening Game Time
That evening we enjoyed the back porch playing foosball and cornhole, along with a beautiful sunset. We finished the evening inside with our nightly games of “Jokers & Pegs” (kind of like the board game Sorry!) and a little bit of 313 (similar to 5 Crowns, but with two decks of regular playing cards).
I’ll wrap up our trip in my next post.
Notes By Nancy 
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