The Brucato's Hit the East Coast!: Still keeping busy!

Hello!

Wow, we certainly have had an amazing couple of days visiting our wonderful friends, the Lowders!

Up yesterday morning about 7, and out the door heading to Helen, GA about 8-ish. Helen is a town that apparently decided some years ago that they wanted to be a tourist destination, so they adopted a German theme! We were interested in seeing how it compared to Frankenmuth, MI and to Solvang, CA.

First stop, though, in Cleveland, was Glenda’s for breakfast. Really home-y place, with, I am sure, lots of regular traffic. We ordered breakfast at the counter, and then sat down to wait for delivery. Amazing breakfast, and plenty of it, that’s for sure! I ordered one (ONE, 1) egg, and unless that egg came from a dinosaur or ostrich, I rather think I got three or four! It came with hash browns and smoked country sausage – which was huge as well! The sausage was unexpected, but according to Robert, was more like bratwurst in flavoring and texture. Just excellent! R had an order of country ham (vs. ordering “city” ham) and hash browns. The girls ordered pancakes (which they ate without syrup, which I think is a fabulous idea!) and Chris ordered biscuits and gravy. Brenda had eggs and bacon. Talk about proportion sizes … Chris’ order was immense as well!

We then drove to Anna Ruby Falls Park, which was about 10 miles on the other side of Helen.

Driving through Helen, it was really quite lovely. Not nearly as “kitchsy” as Solvang, and much smaller than Frankenmuth. Chris commented that the road through town could get absolutely grid-locked on weekend afternoons, so we wanted to do our hike and get away early, as we had evening plans we didn’t want to miss.

Anna Ruby Falls Park was truly beautiful. The trees made such a lovely, high canopy, and the trail, while paved, did tend to go very much uphill in a very short time.

Now seriously ... does that look line ONE egg?

Chris' biscuits and gravy

It was only about half a mile to reach the falls, but there were many interpretive signs along the way which were fun and interesting to read, and we could hear and see rushing water everywhere. Anna Ruby Falls are actually two different waterfalls – in fact, one of the falls came down in two huge sections down the side of the mountain. Truly wonderful! They were named by the Confederate Colonel who first rode up to them, and named them after his only daughter, Anna Ruby. There were other people on the hike and at the falls as well, but fortunately, not too many to detract from the experience. I am so glad we went!

Before hike!

Stunning river!

On the way home, we stopped at a big general store in Helen, which had lots of unusual things, including a big candy and cookie section; always a good idea!

We got back to Lawrenceville about 2:30 pm and I promptly went upstairs and fell asleep! When I did wake up, my first question to Robert was “what time is it?” to which he replied: “10 minutes to 4.”

Anna Ruby Falls

More falls

Group at falls

Arden and Dara on rock

Well, Chris had wanted to walk out of the house at 4 pm sharp, so we had to scramble to change clothes and head to our first visit to Medieval Times for their dinner and tournament!

To be honest, we’ve neither of us ever been especially interested in going to see a so-called tournament. (They have a similar show in Buena Park, very close to sister Kitty’s house.) But when Brenda emailed and asked, and we talked about it, our feeling was, the girls wanted to go, so we were sure it would be enjoyable. And boy, it certainly was!

Dara and Arden were beautifully dressed in their princess dresses – Arden’s was very regal, with a fur lining to her cape and everything!

Arden and Dara all dressed up!

Exterior of Medieval Times

Chris and Brenda in lobby with our crowns!

Interior arena area

In our seats waiting for the "competition!"

We were all given paper crowns when we entered, and as Chris had gotten us wonderful tickets – we were VIP Royalty (!!) and got to sit right in the center of the arena in the front row! Our section – VIP Royalty (doesn’t that have a great sound?) was seated first – royalty goes first we were told. We were taken to our seats, and one of the serving wenches (?) explained how dinner was going to work. There was NO flat ware anywhere (had I known better, I might have been inclined to bring a discreet knife and fork …) and basically, everyone ate with their hands! Just hope they’re clean! Also at our seats were rally towels (in our knight’s colors, of course, and ours was in yellow and red) to wave, as well as red banners.

Then, the “King” was introduced, and the show began. I can only reiterate: Wow! There were six knights (one representing each section of the audience) as well as a group of about five or six talented “dancing” horses. Just incredible! There was also a hawk that swooped low over the crowd and his trainer. As dinner progressed, we were entertained by a competition pitting each knight against another, until only one champion remained. Then, he was pitted against an enemy (I knew immediately by the black paint on the rider’s face that he was the bad guy.) until a winner – fortunately, the “good” knight remained. Applause and shouts everywhere!

During the actually jousting, there was a net that came down in front of the seating areas, so there was no chance of debris hitting anyone. (Did make taking photos a bit difficult, as the camera wanted to focus on the net leaving everything blurry behind.) These men were extraordinary; excellent riders and horsemen, as well as accurate with lances! They were spearing small rings set out on the course; the rings were so tiny, it’s hard to see how they ever hit them in the first place, but most of them were spot on! During the course of the evening, the knights were passing out flowers to some of the ladies in the audience, and Dara was one of the lucky ones!

Beautiful horse!

Our "favorite" red knight

In comes the King!

Support staff (and clean up crew!)

Her lovely pink carnation is now in the middle of the kitchen table. I think Arden may have been a little disappointed that she didn’t receive a flower, but when the knights came out, before the competition began, each knight got to select a “special” lady to receive a “Queen of the Tournament” ribbon – and that was Arden! Her yellow and red banner matched her outfit perfectly, and I hear that she is going to be taking all her souvenirs to an upcoming show- and-tell!

All the while this was going on, we were being served our dinner. First came “dragon’s blood soup” which, roughly translated into tomato basil soup along with warm garlic bread. This was poured into a pewter bowl with handle – again, no spoons. This was followed by half a roast chicken (excellently prepared), half a potato with herbs, and half a piece of corn on the cob, already buttered. Dessert was a warm apple turnover, which could be handled easily. They did provide a hearty napkin and a wet wipe, and after all this, they came around with warm hand wipes, so everyone did have the opportunity to be quite clean!

Finally, the good guy won, and the bad guy was dragged off to the East Tower, and the show was over! Just amazing, as I said, and if all the other Medieval Times are like this one, we would both highly recommend going to see it! It was interesting, fun and the entertainment was superb!

Back to the house about 7:45 pm and Chris and Brenda got the girls ready for bed.

Truly stunning horses

Knights in racing competition

Head horseman & trainer

Taking a bow!

The adults went downstairs for a special screening of the new Star Wars movie. Robert really enjoyed it, and I enjoyed parts of it … although have to admit that I did my fingers-in-my-ears and eyes-closed at various parts of the movie. Glad to have seen it, though, as it was great fun meeting the new characters – also seeing some of the old ones!

Bed after that, around 11:30 pm and we were so lazy this morning that we didn’t wake up until 7:30 am! Wow! Hopefully a nice, easy day today, as the girls are at school, but Chris has taken the day off, so we may explore downtown Old Lawrenceville and watch movies!!