Friday Night Adventure to Young Harris College

For the grandparents, I'm posting about our Friday night adventure. Probably going to have a few photos and very little depth! I'm still trying to wake up. :)

First...LEAH! As we were driving up to Young Harris, I grabbed my phone to text you, I left my planner with my Siesta numbers at home....BUT I prayed for you as we passed signs for B'ville! ;)

Our adventure started with a trip to the gas station to top off Chad's car! PRAISE THE LORD there was gas at the station close to our house!!! That was the first praise.

We began the 90 mile trip to Young Harris College to enjoy the "Black Holes" show at the Planetarium. We weren't exactly sure how long it would take, so we gave ourselves plenty of time.

We stopped for dinner in Helen, GA. Dinner wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either. It had been SEVERAL years since we had been in this little German village tucked into the North GA mountains. We forgot how much it reminded us of Gatlinburg, TN...the part we never go to. You know the place....packed with cheap t-shirt and airbrush shops. My personal favorite was the shop that advertised a "temporary airbrush tattoo". I guess that is a good thing to offer seeing as it was Oktoberfest! I'm sure there will be some that will make a tattoo selection under the influence! I'm just saying, not judging, that there will probably be more than one person who will pick out something in that state that they normally would not want permanently marked on their body. Judging from the number of people hanging out at that store, it was a popular thing.

So after dinner, we HAD to go into the Hansel and Gretal candy shop. The girls walked out with chocolate covered marshmallows. YUM.




No trip to the mountains is complete without a picture with a bear.



It wasn't too long until it was time to jump back in the car and head on to Young Harris. What a beautiful drive it was. The mountains, the sky, it was all so beautiful.

Once we got on campus and parked, we entered the science building and waited with a lobby full of people for the doors to open. I wish I had taken a picture of the mural in the lobby of this building. It was absolutely beautiful. At first glance, it appears to be brightly colored tropical plants...BUT look a little longer and you see all sorts of hidden objects...satellites, R2D2 from Star Wars, the girls had a blast seeing how many different "hidden" things they could find.

Once in the planetarium we settled in for about a 45 minute show on "Black Holes".
(a peak inside the planetarium and an example of the info they scrolled overhead while we waited.)


While the "Black Holes" show was great the host, I'm guessing a professor at the school, was INCREDIBLE. He was SO excited to show us so many different things and honestly, he could have talked to us for an hour and my girls would have been just as happy. When he started showing us constellations and naming them, Chloe and Emma about jumped out of their seats...we had studied these names in Latin last year and they were SEEING those constellations on the ceiling. Science came off the page for them last night and they were in love.

The professor introduced and explained a little about the show and mentioned that it was narrated by Liam Neeson. Chloe leaned over and said "Who's that?" Once I told her he was the voice of Aslan in the Narnia movies she about had tears of joy. That was all it took to send her excitement over the edge.


After we were done in the planetarium, we headed down the road about a mile to the school's observatory. We parked and walked up the path, in the dark by the way, to a little domed building tucked on a hill. We walked in and the professor was there and let the girls look at Jupiter. Emma went first. As she came down the ladder I took her outside and she pointed up to Jupiter, and said "I SAW JUPITER UP CLOSE!!! MOM IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL!!! IT LOOKED A RAINBOW OF COLORS!" I used all caps to let you know that even though she was whispering, her excitement was definitely in all caps!

Chloe's comment was "Awesome!" Chad's comment(s) were a little more detailed. He was in heaven. He kept describing in great detail for me what it looked like. He was on a high the entire way home. (Because there were several behind behind us and it was a very small space, I stepped outside with the girls after they were done so others could get in out of the cool air. I'll check it out next time.)

The best part of this entire adventure was other than gas money and dinner, it was free. The college does this for FREE. It was incredible and we are already talking about going back for the holiday show. In fact, it is what I asked to do for my B'day in December.