So we did; we got up, I walked the dog, turned the television on for Snowy, and we went "adventuring."

 

After picking up a fast-food breakfast, we found ourselves driving north on a beautiful blue-and-white day, with delightfully low temperatures (it was in the low 60s; we had to wear our flannel shirts at first!) and a nice breeze, up I-575 until it dead-ended into Georgia route 5 and thence to the north Georgia foothills. No apple festival this year, but we weren't going to miss our fresh apples, and a little over an hour later we arrived in East Ellijay and pulled into Panorama Orchards, along with at least a dozen other retired-looking people.

 

So we wandered around gathering what took our fancy: another jar of blackberry spread to replace the one that did a nose-dive during the summer, a whole peck of apples, more Dionis goat's-milk moisturizing lotion for my soon-to-be winter-wizened hands, blueberry tea for James in those cunning little wooden cases (he's also trying apple and ginger peach), some applesauce cake, more pot-pie noodles. We also got the bright idea to buy some unique Georgia-food items for Christmas baskets for the folks.

 

Once done there, we traveled 20 more minutes up the road to Taste of Amish (they have a new store since the last time we shopped in Blue Ridge) and found the bonanza: more "soup greens" and also their "vegetable flakes." We were getting vegetable flakes on Amazon, but they had dried peas (ugh!) in them. Taste of Amish's "soup greens" are a mix of dehydrated onion, carrot, red pepper, celery, and a couple of other things, but no peas. The "vegetable flakes" are about the same, but have dried potato in them. I got three containers of both; we have been really enjoying "spiking" the Publix chicken and wild rice soup, which is thick like stew and rather salty, with sodium-free vegetable broth, and several handfuls of the soup greens along with a diced stick of fresh celery. Cuts the salt down and just plain delicious.

 

By now it was lunchtime. We turned back south and actually were headed for the Zaxby's in Jasper, but their dining room is so small they didn't have it open, so we went to Shane's rib shack for barbecue sandwiches instead. Rode home with the windows open, and it was just the most astonishingly wonderful day, the best we've had since we got to make it to Atomicon.

The only fly in the ointment was breakfast: none of the fast food places has oatmeal any more. I had to settle for French toast sticks (disappointing) and hash brown tater tots (okay).