A friend and I decided to drive into the mountains for the day. Being October 9th, we thought it was the perfect day to go to Helen for Oktoberfest.
Helen is a German sleepy town in North Georgia. This is your typical mental picture of Helen. Every building has the same facade, including the Wendy's down the street.
(Click for big on any photo)
Oh, I'm sorry. What's this? Is that? Is that a rebel flag hanging out of a shop window marked "Tattoos?" I believe it is.
In case you can't read the lettering, the This -N- That store offers collegiate and NASCAR merchandise.
Here we meet Hansel and Gretel. Hansel is sporting a Harley Davidson t-shirt while Gretel checks him out in her trucker hat and chaps. That's right. I said it. Chaps.
Marbels-- 25 cents. Not to be confused with marbles, the glass balls.
Lesson: You can call it a German town all you like, but if it's located in the Georgia mountains, Deliverance could be filmed there.
Not pictured: a stop at the Habersham winery where you can "taste" for free.
Which may or may not have contributed to our impromptu stop at Babyland General Hospital, the birth place of all Cabbage Patch Kids.
Babyland General Hospital hasn't changed much since my last visit when I was three. Note the caution tape next to the sign.
We walked in and the 80-year-old nurse at the front desk exclaimed, "Hurry! You're just in time for a birth!" Her enthusiasm didn't wane for the pair of 20-somethings.
I responded a little too excitedly, "Oh boy!" and ran back to the cabbage patch. See? Babies really do grow from cabbages. Those little bodiless heads kind of freaked me out.
The birthing nurse has all her instruments out. She peeled back the cabbage leaves and reaches in for the baby.
It's a boy!
The healthy baby boy will be placed in the viewing room where the stork can watch over him.
Not all babies are born healthy. Here are the premies which need extra love and care. AIDS needles sold separately.
I mean "adopted" separately.
Babyland General Hospital was built in the very early 1980s. Therefore it was decorated in Lite-Brites. That toy was cool.
So after a day in Deliverance, Georgia where we were the skinniest girls for miles, I realized that I am indeed a city girl and was very happy to see this:
Traffic included.
9 comments:
I just had so many flashbacks that I got whiplash. Jesus Christ, Helen has really gone seriously even further down hill. It was kind of going the way of HICKVILLE in the 90s, but that is just sad.
And the cabbage patch place...well, I actually think that it is amazing that the place is still open and gets as many visitors as it does. It is in serious need of a make-over.
Give me Athens, Savannah, or even Augusta any day before North Georgia. Scary, except for Lookout Mountain. You should have gone up that far, beautiful place just beautiful
Damn, all we have around here is a place run by the Amish that sports such things as a child's clubhouse made entirely out of 7-Up bottles (and an assload of mortar). We also have a winery conveniently located on the same road where the sheriff likes to shoot radar.
Is it wrong for a grown man to seeth with the jealousy of a thousand flaming suns over someone else's trip to a doll hospital?
There is still wilderness out there? I forget sometimes!
Am I strange for really wanting to go to the Cabbage Patch and see the babies being "born?"
Congrats: I think you're now the first person to be happy to see the hideous yellow bridge (even if said happiness was only by association.)
I wish I could say I spent my day with such adventures! I'm very glad to see where the Cabbage Patch babies are from, formerly an unsolved mystery.
why do i feel sick to my stomach after reading that?
sick! it's just sick!
the traffic was nice though.
VG- I was just in Athens the week before. My line of thought was giant beer. How could giant beer go so wrong?
Chuckie- I'll photoshop your head over a picture of my friend visiting the baby in the incubator. :)
TDG- I hadn't been since I was three and I still remember it in vivid detail. Talking about it today, every girl was able to name her first Cabbage Patch by both her first names, but not who she sat next to in the fifth grade.
Will- Hey, I like the 17th street bridge!
Karen- yes, from a cabbage patch indeed. :)
Me- no love for the Cabbage Patch?? :(
i liked my little ponies and barbies and carebears. i don't think i every had a cabbage patch doll...
Aha, I was just going to raise my eyebrow at your love of the city & traffic and you caught me just in time. I would probably agree. Especially after that C.P. birth. I'm a bit skeeved out.
I mean, I loved my dolls when I was young but I just don't see the appeal anymore.
That's right, my heart is a ball of yarn.
LOL on the hick german-esque town. As I was scrolling through before reading my first impression was of a town I visited in Germany but the details of GA win.
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