Been a while!

It has been a looong time since I have posted a blog entry. I'm hoping to pick it back up again on a regular basis - but until I get into my old groove, I will start small and just fill you in on what we did this weekend.

We decided to visit the local fish hatchery on Saturday. It's not a very large facility, but in a nice, scenic area where you can fish and picnic. There were lots of families, with small children running around with their kid-size poles. Brought back memories of fishing with my parents when me and my sisters were little. Dad would make us poles from small branches, set us on a rock on the side of the brook, and hope for the best. We only fell in once in a while, and we actually caught quite a few fish! The last time I went brook fishing with my dad, just the two of us, I was 5 months pregnant with my son. Dad spent more time worrying about me hopping from rock to rock with my growing belly than he did fishing.

At the Walhalla Fish Hatchery, they raise trout (brown, brook and rainbow) for stocking ponds and lakes around upcountry South Carolina. When you walk beside the tanks, the fish think they are going to get fed, and start flipping out (pun intended). They jump right up out of the water. A few casualities lay on the pavement... One tank held only display trout - and some of them were HUGE.

Today, we drove into Georgia and wound up at Toccoa Falls, on the campus of Toccoa Falls College. The campus is very pretty, with a stream running alongside the road, and several historical markers scattered around.

The falls has a drop of 186 feet into a small pool that is surrounded by large rocks and boulders. It is the largest waterfall we have visited so far.

 There is a memorial on the site, dedicated to the 39 people (mostly college personnel) who died in 1977 when the dam above the falls broke and flooded the campus.

We stopped at the South Carolina welcome center on the way home to pick up a bunch of pamphlets and brochures - offering up lots of possibilities for future adventures. A visit to Charleston this fall is definitely on the "must-do" list.  There are many events and festivals coming up, too, so I am sure I will have lots to blog about in the coming months.