We are continuing our day trips to places not too far from home.

Our first stop is to Dahlonega.. this was the site of the first US gold rush when it was discovered on Cherokee land in 1828.  Within 10 years, several boom towns were constructed and thousands of people moved in to seek their fortune.

Dahlonega gold is the purest gold in the world in it’s natural state; lodes can run >99% pure when other sites (in California or Canada, as example) run at 75-80%.  However, the easy money was made only the first 10 years.  Once gold was discovered near Sutter’s Mill in CA 20 years later, most folks moved west to seek new fortunes.  Gold mines did continue right up until the beginning of World War II.

Dahlonega is now a tourist town; the town square has buildings from the 19th century that are renovated and transformed into ice cream shops, boutique stores and the like.

Randy waiting for an educational movie to start at the Dahlonega Gold Museum.

Complete set of US gold coins pulled from Dahlonega mines and minted in Dahlonega.  The US had a federal mint here from 1838 until the beginning of the Civil War.

We then moved on to Helen, GA… another tourist town in the north east Georgia mountains.  We’ve been to Helen many times in the past with the kids.  We would come here each spring to eat German food, candy and get an “old timey” photo taken of the kids.  They aged out of this some years back and we stopped coming.  It was a first visit for Rita and Randy, though, and we wanted to see the Christmas get up and get a meal full of wurst, sauerkraut, pretzels and beer.

Even the local signs are in Georgia redneck German (see above).

Late afternoon walk along the Chattahoochee river.

Brenda at night after dinner.  Temps up here were in the 20’s.