Gold and Beautiful

Although North Georgia is full of beautiful mountains and waterfalls, you don't necessarily have to drive for 2 hours to hike and enjoy nature. The Red Top Mountain State Park is about a 40 min drive from the city and is surrounded by Lake Allatoona. Of course it has quite a few hiking trails, a couple of them around the lake. The Homestead trail is a 5.5 mile loop that goes along the lake and offers some really beautiful views of the lake. We spotted some deer when hiking and a fellow hiker informed us that they have become too tame. He was right, we were able to click quite a few pictures of the deer from a short distance. Just outside the entrance of the park there was also a small marina from where many people were launching their boats. This would have been an amazing spot to just sit and watch. The weather was perfect on the day we went hiking. Even our Mini loved being there :-)

Hiking options are abundant in North Georgia mountains. Although we love to live in the city, we also enjoy hiking in the mountains on weekends. Helen is a touristy German town about 2 hrs drive from the city and is surrounded by mountains and waterfalls. I personally don't think there is much to Helen. You can probably visit the place once, but there is lots to see around Helen. The Unicoi State Park and Lodge has many cabins which are great getaway options. Our favorite hike this season so far has been Raven Cliff waterfalls (in GA, not SC). The hike to the waterfalls is only 2.5 miles and is along a steady stream of cascading waterfalls. There are many spots where you can just sit and enjoy the beauty or take pictures. We took our own sweet time to hike the 2.5 miles, stopping and admiring the cascades at every point.    At the end of the hike you can see the falls peeking from the opening of the raven claw (the crack from the otherwise surrounding rocks). You can al

The first time I visited Atlanta was for a job interview. I took a shuttle from the airport to Lawrenceville. I was the only passenger in the shuttle and the driver was amazing. When he found out that I was interviewing at GGC he told me everything I needed to know about Lawrenceville, from population to average monthly rent :-). On the way he also pointed out the major tourist attractions of Atlanta, World of Coca-Cola, Aquarium, TBS TV station and Stone Mountain. When he told me that Stone Mountain was the world's largest piece of granite, I dismissed the idea as an usual "American" self-absorbed opinion rather than as a fact. When I first visited the place and saw the engraved civil war heroes it reminded me of Mount Rushmore in South Dakota. If you really want to feel like a true Georgian and experience the country life-style, you should attend the laser show on 4th of July at Stone Mountain. The place gets crowded hours before the laser show begins. For someone who

Some of the quotes attributed to Bill Gates annoy me to no end. I am not convinced that these are his quotes. Here are two examples: His father was a PROMINENT lawyer. Now we all know what prominent lawyers make. I agree that he might not be tipping outrageously, but that's not because his father was a farmer. Moreover, Bill Gates is giving all his money to charity with only a billion dollar going to his children (2 daughters and one son). So, if anything his son should be careful when tipping!!! My biggest problem is with the second quote. Bill Gates dropped out of HARVARD..... I think only students admitted to Harvard and equivalent schools should have a right to post that quote. I don't think he got into Harvard after failing Math. Moreover I don't think he could have contributed to developing an OS without having a strong background in Math. I think these quotes are posted and reposted by  people who are looking for some kind of validation when they know that there i