3 T's; Tugaloo, Taccoa & Tallulah

With Zoe off at college now, Gretchen & Connor dealing with High School (teaching & attending, respectively), and myself traveling so much I'm starting to get "airport friends" again, it was so very nice to be able to sneak away for some dedicated family time.  Our basecamp for the weekend was Yurt #4 at Tugaloo State Park (I've been to 3 of the 5 Yurts of Georgia State Parks now!).

That view alone was worth driving a couple of hours right up next to the South Carolina border on Lake Hartwell.  What beat it?  Well, the sunrise views weren't too bad either.

A nice view looking back up at the yurt and then finding Gretchen enjoying the sunrise, too!

And, of course, so glad to see the kids welcoming the morning and (like always!!) enjoying time with each others.  I am a blessed father, husband, and individual.

Now, let's see some waterfalls!!

We had a little trouble finding the Taccoa Falls College campus, but so glad we stuck with it and were eventually treated to the giant 186 foot (that's 19 feet taller than Niagra Falls!!) Taccoa Falls.

We then headed over to Tallulah Gorge State Park, but we were much too late in the afternoon to take full advantage of this beautiful resource and see all that it has to offer.  As shown on the park map, we did get to explore the some of the North Rim Trail.  The best views we had were of L'Eau d'Or Falls from Lookouts 2 and 3.

From those same vantage points, we really couldn't get a get a good view of the Tempesta Falls.

Backtracking to Lookout 1-A, I could zoom in on the bridge that spans Hurricane Falls (again, just too darn late to try to go down 600+ steps and then turn around and come back up them!).  Here's a blog post from a fella who took some good photos from Hurricane Falls Loop Trail.

Just a bit further we got to Lookout 1 and were able to zoom in on the backside of Oceana Falls.

Maybe someday I'll make it back and give the park a more thorough visit, but I did give it a check in my copy of Waterfall Hikes of North Georgia. 

On the way back to the yurt, we drove through the town of Martin (dang, I should have taken some photos of the Martin Fall Festival) again, but did get a photo of the cool water tower this second time through this little country town.

We then made it back to Tugaloo SP and enjoyed the early evening down by the lake skipping rocks and talking.

We wrapped up the evening with a campfire, hot dogs, and (of course!) smores!  After a rather peaceful rest we headed back home, but we were all so grateful for our weekend of the 3 T's.