Well, I'll never be much of a general; my tactical foresight is too poor.  When the girls awoke this day, I said "We are going on another hike today -- 7 miles roundtrip to Helen".  Joya whimpered, rolled over in bed and said "I'm NOT going".  Jordan looked at me incredulously and said "You're joking, right?".  Chelsea, seeing that I was serious, said "Do you enjoy torturing us?".  It appeared that everyone had suffered some damage during the previous day's hike.  Most of them were complaining about infrequently-used gluteal muscles that were complaining too.  Given a little time to warm those muscles up, and a hearty breakfast of 'breakfast burritos' (thank you, Diana Sisk), morale rose, and off we went.

We did not pack a lunch this day, since we were headed for 'town', where we hoped to find something suitable.  Given the shortness of the distance and coolness of the day -- there was a nice cloudcover, so temperatures were in the low 80s -- we only brought two quarts of water, and no pump.  The walking was really easy, through a nice wood and running along a spring branch and the Chatahoochee River for some of the time.  We did take pictures, but you will have to wait a bit to see them, since the digital camera is still in the shop, we are using one of those ancient devices that actually uses film (we call it our 'analog' camera).  On the way we saw a beaver swimming in the river (apparently to get away from us),  a humongous spider, and lots of birds of various species.

Helen is a tiny town.  I am at a bit of a loss to describe it:  its founders apparently  determined to attempt to re-create a German Alpine village.  They succeeded to some degree, in that exterior architecture has a sort of disney-esque German feel to it, complete with 'A'-frame roof lines, flower boxes in the windows, and lawn dwarfs.  However, all the businesses cater exclusively to tourists, and thus there are a half-dozen places to buy fudge or ice cream or funnel cake, WAY too many stores selling kitchy plastic souvenir stuff, and even a store that sells nothing but refrigerator magnets.  Mostly, we hated it.  To really drive home our loathing, we had to walk it entirely end to end, in order to find both the post office and the grocery store.  To show you how bad it was, we ate lunch at Blimpies, a sub sandwich franchise you can find anywhere.

We did find Betty's, a wondrous grocery store where we purchased too much, considering that we had to carry everything back in our hands.  Chief among our purchases (by weight) were 4 dozen eggs for Easter egg dying.  At a thrift store, we also purchased a 1959 pocket book dictionary, at its original cover price: 50 cents.  This was fun for me since that was the year of my birth.  Most of the good words had already been invented by then, so it should prove pretty serviceable.  Besides, we all already know the definitions and spellings of contemporary words like 'humongous' or 'cyberspace'.  It's those older words like 'hirsute' or 'obstreperous' with which we have trouble.  We had for some time needed a small dictionary to carry with us, and were happy that need was satisfied.

The walk back was longer, since we were all tired and carrying stuff, but was still pleasant.  The weather stayed tolerable, and the time passed quickly.  We noted how amazing it was that Jordan and Chelsea could talk continuously, about almost everything.  Their conversations ranged rather far a field, covering God and religions, and a retelling of the plots of nearly every film either had seen.  They had a lot of fun, and seem well suited to each other.

By the time we got back to camp, it was time for showers, dinner, some cards, and another early bedtime.  We had walked 17 miles in 2 days, and felt it.

April 12 - Eggs, Gear, Errands and Chelsea