5/4/26

Location: Top of Georgia Airstream Park, Helen, GA – only full day
ChILL
Chevron
Touring the Alpine Village in the City of Helen
Hofbrauhaus Restaurant
ChILL

After a good night’s rest for both of us, we had a leisurely start to our day over coffee and bagels. The temperatures started out in the mid 40s but did warm up as the day went on to the mid 70s, perfect temperature for spending time outside.

The sites do not have picnic tables so I did my exercises in ChILL, not as good a setup as outside but I can make it work.

Then we took a walk around the campground where I guess you could say, “All roads lead to Airstreams.” We saw several other Airstreams with only a few occupied at the time. The campground hosts explained that some of their local club members choose to pay the monthly site rent and leave their Airstreams for extended periods of time as a getaway spot for them. It is very affordable to stay at the campground for us and local club members receive an even lower rate.

The campground has a vintage Airstream that was used in Huntsville, Alabama during the Apollo Space Program. Now it serves as the Hosts office at Top of Georgia Airstream Park, a fitting way for an Airstream to “retire.”

When we arrived yesterday we approached from the north and the roads were definitely challenging. We were happy to see that the drive south into Helen had a few curves on the 2 lane road but nothing like the ones encountered on yesterday’s journey. Skip reminded me that what goes up must come down so we probably have more curvy roads as we head south in the morning.

The Top of Georgia Airstream Park is located about 8 miles from the city of Helen with an area that is referred to as the Alpine Village. It is a quaint German themed village with little shops and restaurants nestled in the mountains. After a short drive through the little village we filled the truck with gas before parking and sightseeing.

At the Hansel and Gretel Candy Kitchen we bought some handmade candy for gifts. It was difficult to choose from the delicious looking variety they offered. Hoping that we can keep the temperatures consistent enough on our travels home to keep the candy at its best.

After walking around enjoying the beauty surrounding us and occasionally going into the shops, finding nothing else we wanted to buy, we headed for a late lunch/early dinner at a place that Skip chose, Hofbrauhaus Restaurant, featuring German cuisine. As so often happens when Skip and I are presented with menus, we both chose the same thing, Jaeger Schnitzel. Our waitress suggested that we get the gravy on the side so we could try two different kinds. One was rahm sauce, a white gravy, and the other was a bacon mushroom gravy, both were delicious with maybe my slight preference being the bacon mushroom gravy. Although their dessert options looked great we were too stuffed to take advantage of them.

Our table was in the outdoor Biergarten with a view of a small river, charming is the word that comes to mind and so relaxing. A guitarist setup near our table. He was a very talented young man who played and sang songs from the 70s to current at a volume that was easy to enjoy his music without limiting our ability to have a conversation.  

Back at ChILL Skip did his usual black tank clean out to make our morning departure quicker while I wrote some postcards I bought in Helen. The campground hosts advised I could put them in the mailbox out by the road.

For travel tomorrow I made turkey sandwiches for our lunchbox along with some grapes. After our big German lunch we opted for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner.

A little TV, showers and off to bed in anticipation of our next stop at our first Army Corps of Engineers campground at Cotton Hill in Fort Gaines, GA.