[happyjack]

will be taking a road trip beginning this friday from DC to the blue ridge, GA area. would love to hear everyone's best daytrips for some spirited driving.

wife wants to check out helen for one day, so i was looking at a map and a loop route consisting of rt 348, rt 19, and rt 60 looks pretty tasty.


we'll be leaving blue ridge and heading to nashville on tuesday, i plan to hit cherohala skyway + the dragon on my drive there.

what else you got? i'm there for 4 days and would love a different drive every day.

[Bruuuce]

I just did the drive recently. the drive from Durham over to north GA is a nice drive. But that is prob on the list any way.

From Blue Ridge there is the Suches gap area. Basically HW 19 and 129, Mountain Crossing is the place at the top of the hill everyone stops at. You could drive south through there then over to Helen and up 75 and back on 76, but that part of the drive is just 2 lane...

Point from Blue Ridge to Cleveland, then Helen basically. You have the basics figured out from your post above.

I may be in the area, not sure yet how the week will end up. I would also say, be careful, there are lots of patrols in the spirited areas...

[happyjack]

Bruuuce thanks for the info!

we just realized that oktoberfest is happening in helen...was kind of a 'duh' moment. need to figure out which day we're going over there...probably sunday or monday.

any idea how parking works for oktoberfest? i'm sure we need to be there early, but do they have separate parking set up somewhere? we went to helen way back in the 90s and happened to show up on a day when there was a huge mountain bike race. we couldnt even get into town!

[Bruuuce]

happyjack

I have never done the Octoberfest in Helen, not totally sure why. Overall in Helen there are many paid parking areas. I am sure they will have those prices marked up and busses to haul people around.

To be honest, I avoid Helen almost all the time. But it is one of the fun things to do win the area.

Another place to go is the local apple orchard, https://mercier-orchards.com
It's another tourist trap and they bring in tourist busses there, but they do have good apples. It's apple season now as well.

The drive on 60 from Blue Ridge to Suches might be fun as well. I don't recall doing it, but should be pretty none the less.

Also quite a few wineries up here. Cane Creek is near a couple miles from my place, many people like it. Hightower Creek is good as well east of Hiawassee. They are both somewhat on the way back from Helen. Little diversions from the main road, but something else to do up here.

[happyjack]

Bruuuce well, color me jealous! had a great weekend driving all around the blue ridge, GA area, and that loop that i mentioned in my OP (rt 348, rt 19, and rt 60) from blue ridge to helen was really a blast.

even the "bad" roads in this region are better than the best of anything that i can find in central maryland. i told my wife that my car would have 100K miles on it already if i lived in NW GA! i have a LOT of brake dust to clean up, along with the bug guts.

no tickets...and i did see a handful of troopers...but there was a death toll. one squirrel just could not make up its mind, and decided to zig back across the road after already making it 80% of way to the other side. he, unfortunately, chose poorly.

from an overlook off rt 348...

[Bruuuce]

happyjack Glad you had fun. You hit it at the right time of the year as well. There is like a 2 week window of good fall colors with the leafs changing. Then they are all gone.