Camping in the Cohuttas

I almost changed the name of this post to "Green and Blue" due to the dominance of those colors in the photos attached. Mark and I went camping with Bevin and Zellyn at Lake Conasauga in the Cohutta Wilderness a few weekends ago, and all of our photos are green trees and blue lake. It's so zen.

We drove up Friday afternoon, stayed through Saturday night, and drove back Sunday. It was entirely too short. It was so relaxing, even with our noisy campground neighbors listening to college football.


We were afraid the weather would be too warm, but it was actually quite nice. While it was about 85 in Atlanta, it was more like 75 up in the mountains. And it cooled down quite nice at night.



















Gwennan came with us and she had a blast. She explored all over the campsite, collecting rocks. We took her down to the lake and showed her how to throw rocks in the water. Once, while she and I were quietly sitting on the grass by the lake, she pointed at the lake and said, "Joos!" (Juice.) Everything liquid is juice to Gwennan.













We hiked on the path around the lake and played hide and seek with her. I would run ahead and hide behind a tree waiting for her and Mark and then jump out to surprise her. Sometimes she and I would go hide behind a tree together and then jump out and surprise Mark.

Lake Conasauga is not a big lake, and only electric motor boats and canoes/kayaks are allowed. We rented a canoe for the weekend and had fun paddling around. Bevin and I went out Saturday morning and explored the whole lake. Bevin is so much fun. At one point she said, "Let's paddle as fast as we can and see how long it takes to get to the other
side of the lake. It'll be like we're Indians."

That night Mark and I paddled out and marveled at the stars. I even saw a shooting star - finally. Bevin had seen like three of them on Friday night and I was jealous. One thing I love about camping is actually being able to see the stars. Light pollution sucks.













On Saturday we went for a hike up a nearby mountain. There was an old fire tower at the top of it, and you could climb up the stairs and get a beautiful view of the Cohuttas. Unfortunately you couldn't actually go onto the platform at the top of the stairs. The door was locked.
So we sat on the stairs and enjoyed the view from there.



















On Sunday we went for one last hike with Gwennan before leaving and she fell asleep in my arms before we got back. I had wanted to take her into the water before we left. Mark and I had taken swims in the water after we went hiking on Saturday and it was so cool and refreshing, I wanted Gwennan to experience it too. But she had fallen asleep and we debated whether to just put her in the car and head home or wake her up. We decided to wake her up, which seems mean, but you should have seen her when we stuck her in that water. She loved it. I waded in with her and we looked at rocks and little fish and all sorts of stuff.

I'm so glad she's learning to love nature. She'll be a little granola girl yet.