Walk in the Woods: We Travel to Callaway Gardens

Hi Everyone!

As I mentioned earlier this week, Saturday the three of us, along with the dogs drove over to Callaway Gardens, a privately owned recreation/garden area about an hour and a half from here, located in Pine Mountain, Georgia.

A very happy older dog!

It was an almost impromptu trip; I say “almost impromptu” because any trip involving a car ride with Mandy requires a 30 minute head start to allow her motion sickness medicine to kick in.  She is the only dog I know who gets car sick but loves riding in the car anyhow!

One of the lakes at Callaway Gardens

We really didn’t mean for this trip to be a scouting expedition.  There is a lot to do at Callaway Gardens – walking trails, biking trails, a chapel, a butterfly house, a vegetable garden and greenhouse garden area – but we ended up only getting to walk through the forest with the dogs around the chapel forest area so we will have to go back!

Another Lake We Drove By After Our Walk

This was the first such expedition I can recall Darwin coming on since we got him two years ago, and on the drive up there, one huge Lab/Great Dane mix was losing his mind in the back of the Ford Escape!  Tyra was excited, but without a camper behind her wasn’t excited as she could be – Tyra loves to go camping and has missed the travel trailer since we decided to get rid of it.  Mandy likes riding in her own unique way – she plants her front paws on the center console in the front, plants her back paws firmly on the back seat and alternatively lays her head on Mark and my shoulders.  (Hence the reason the motion sickness medicine is imperative!)

Tyra Looking Back for Me

When we got to Callaway, it was about 12 Eastern Time, so we decided we would walk the dogs first.  Three dogs, three people was the perfect ratio, too, although we didn’t let Kayla walk Darwin.  He is too strong and too young to trust completely.  Mandy has mellowed out enough to let Kayla walk her once in a while.

Tyra and Mandy Confer

We went to the chapel area first, and would have loved to go inside the chapel but realized that a wedding was going on (we saw the bride and bridesmaids walk by on the way to the entrance; that is what is known as “a clue!”).  Still, the forest was beautiful and the walking or biking path made it very easy to stroll along.

Come on Mom!

I had the camera, so I tried to take photographs as we walked; this made the rest of the walking party have to wait occasionally.  The forest was beautiful.

A view of the trees at Callaway Garden from inside the forest

After we had walked for a while, we came to the lake that borders the chapel, and sat down to rest for a minute.  Tyra had been trotting along gamely, but really needed the breather.

Tyra laughing during her break

Surprisingly, under Mark’s firm hand, Darwin sat still during our break and just watched the world go by!

Darwin waits patiently for break to end

Even Kayla was willing to sit down for a minute!

Kayla resting

The lake we were sitting beside was calm and surrounded by color filled trees mirrored by the water.

After our break, we followed a footpath around the lake for a little bit to see if it would take us back to the chapel.  While doing so, we found another good view of the lake.

We finally struck across the forest back to the trail so we could get back to the car, because it had been about two hours, the dogs were ready to rest and we were hungry.  That was where our plans hit a snag.

While it was one o’clock our time, it was two o’clock in Georgia and we couldn’t find a restaurant in the gardens that was open at the time.  We went by several, but not all, and then decided we had to leave the gardens to find somewhere to eat.  We found a nice little mountain grill in a shopping center at the crossroads outside Callaway, but by the time we did that it was getting late, so instead of finishing at Callaway, we took the short ten minute drive over to Warm Springs to see FDR’s Little White House.  We got there about 45 minutes before they closed, and while we could have spent a little more time there, we did get to see the house and explore the museum a little bit.  It is well worth traveling to see, too; the house itself is not nearly as grand as you might think it would be but it is comfortable and perfectly suited to the woods that surround it.  (The dogs, of course, were not allowed in; we left them in the car sleeping with the windows cracked, and they were happy to be doing so!)

Then it was time to head home, so we had to leave everything else for another day.  It is a matter of record that Mandy traveled back with her head on my or Mark’s shoulder the entire way!

Have a great weekend everyone!

Nancy