Our first full day in Helen, GA, we enjoyed Babyland General Hospital, and then we headed back to the cabin for lunch. Brad got a few pictures of around the cabin. We set up a little memorial to Tam’s mom with a pink flower Tam found and heard her mom saying she was loved (“I love you, Tam”), and some little cute gnomes and flowers. We got a picture of Brad on the porch, and one of the many butterflies around the cabin. We also got two shots of the bridge right next to the cabin, which goes over a beautiful river.
After lunch, we headed into town. We walked there, it was about a quarter to a half mile walk. It wasn’t too difficult of a walk, though the sidewalks were sometimes in disrepair, and it was fairly hilly.
We saw lots of signs for Bavarian pretzels, but most of them were sooooo expensive, like $12 for a pretzel and $3 for dipping cheese!
We went to Hansel and Gretel Candy Kitchen early on in our shopping. We happened to go in a side door, which was 100% accessible. As we came in, apparently we reminded the shop owner of something she had been meaning to do all day! Apparently their front door is technically accessible as it has a ramp, but the ramp is so steep that my wheelchair wouldn’t have made it. And there’s no way to call out for help as the ramp is away from the workers. So they had laminated signs. One for the steep ramp entrance, to say there’s a better accessible entrance on the side. And one on the side saying this was the accessible entrance, and if the door happened to be locked, to ring the doorbell. They had already installed the doorbell.
We were very happy that they were so conscious of accessibility! We made sure to tell them that. The owner was awesome. She told us about getting candies from the display case being cheaper than getting the packaged candies. And she helped us look at ingredients to see what was Brad safe. Actually there was a lot there that was! Brad got some candied nuts and some jellies there.
Most of the shops had ramps to enter, but several did not. And while a few shops had wide aisles that were easy to maneuver, most were really narrow and Brad and I got stuck a lot and had difficulty in our chairs.
The pictures below show pretzels, the candy kitchen, and some of the neat archways and side streets in Helen.
We found our way down one of the side streets to a shop that was mostly outdoors. It had cool garden statues in it. We were taking pictures with the garden status when we saw a little girl in a Bigfoot costume. She was having so much fun! We got some pictures of her interacting with Felix, who didn’t care a lick about the costume!
It was at this shop that Tam found an awesome blanket on clearance, and I found the mug I had wanted at every shop for the cheapest price! At other shops it was $20+ for this mug. But at this shop, we found it for $15. So of course we had to get it! I should have gotten a picture of it, but it is a yellow Bavarian looking mug with Helen, GA on it. It is perfect!
We made it all the way down one side of the main drag of Helen. Near the end there was a Japanese Maple and some pretty flowers, so Brad got some pictures of the tree and flowers, and one of me and my Cabbage Patch Kid Rose Tyler.
We were all very tired after spending a couple hours shopping and our earlier time at Babyland! So we decided to head back. On the way home, we had to cross a big metal plate, and as I went over it in my wheelchair it made a very loud banging noise, which scared Felix. He backed up and before I knew it, he had backed right out of his harness and was loose! He didn’t know quite what to do, and ran up on some grass. A couple of passers by ran over to help, but it was pretty easy to go over to Felix and pick him up. I made sure not to go over that metal plate with Felix anymore!
We pretty much fell in bed after eating dinner that night. It was a wonderful first day in Helen! We really did a lot, and our vacation was off to a great start! But we had an early morning the next morning, so we had to make sure to get our beauty rest. Bet you can’t wait to hear about what we did the next day!