eternally chaotic

Fall is here…although sometimes I think fall actually skips the southeast and winter tries desperately to blow in early, dragging wind and rain with it.  Such was this particular day.  With winter…fall, comes the annual Dahlonega Gold Rush festival.  This was a new festival for the girls and I.  We have been to the Duluth Fall Festival and the Norcross Art Festival but hadn’t ventured out much beyond.  It was fun from the beginning and much, much larger than the others – not to mention more organized.  There were certainly some planned destinations as well.  Carol and Bonnie wanted to eat lunch at the “Smith House“, watch the parade on Main Street, and checkout the goodies offered by the hundreds of vendors.

Lunch at the “Smith House” was like eating thanksgiving dinner with people you don’t know where someone else does all the cooking and cleaning.  The food was preselected by the staff and setup on the table along with ice tea – southern sugary sweet.  All that was missing was people.  We took up one end of the huge table and another family with a young baby took up the other side.  Lunch consisted of fried chicken, pot roast, ham and a variety of most vegetables.  Anything missing could be requested.  Each plate was passed around the table,  you took what you wanted and passed it on.  This ritual happened many times with the sweet potatoes as the chicken being the most popular – Shockingly, Piper even ate the ham and went back for seconds.

The parade started in the early afternoon, about the same time the rain and wind stopped.  It was full of school princesses throwing candy at the crowd lining the streets, pretty cars with loud roaring engines, gigantic trucks and tractors driven by young kids and farmers.  Politicians for local election oozed there along with the rest of the parade handing out fliers and candy.  The street the parade was on, Main Street, is very narrow and makes a sharp turn at one point.  The crowd was on the edge of the road with the vehicles passing mere inches from toes in some cases.  This is all fine and dandy until you notice the driver of the two-ton behemoth green truck with a lift kit and trailer in tow, filled with dancing cheerleaders and boy scouts, is probably not old enough to legally drive.  The parade was fun though.  Lots to see and look at.  Lots of military folks from both the armed services and a local military academy.  It ended without any fanfare – we weren’t actually sure that it had ended until some time had passed and everyone started going back to milling about and shopping.

Somewhere along the way, actually not to long after we arrived, the kids found a toy store.  This one sold hand made wooden toys.  Interesting and neat stuff and seemingly made well with good materials – hard to find these days unless you search around online.  Jacob left with a machine gun, Isaac found a crossbow and Piper opted to hold out and later found a cute hat – not that she wasn’t interested in the artillery as well, just that girly stuff was somewhat more appealing.  I thought she was going to go for an umbrella that had her name written on it, but the hat won out.

Related posts:

1. Indian Festival and Pow-Wow