28 years ago

The PW and I had a very short honeymoon back in 1982. It was not only short, two days; it was fairly close from where we were married in Ft. Lauderdale, only a few hours north in St. Augustine.

The Air Traffic Controllers had gone on strike and I was one of the supervisors at the Opa Locka control tower training new controllers. I cannot remember how I managed to get two consecutive days off, but I did and the honeymoon was successful with very little time for sightseeing.

The next year we had enough newly trained controllers to cover the shift work with five persons on each shift. One week vacations were again allowed and we took our second honeymoon up in the Smoky Mountain, Gatlinburg area where some friends were also vacationing.

Colors of the season

It was during the changing of colors tourist season and getting a motel room when we arrived was not successful, we had to sleep our first night there in a pup tent the friends had taken along. This set the tone the PW has used ever since for our vacations of calling motels in the area, getting a reservation secured. Luckily our friends managed to get us a room for the rest of the stay.

Neither of us had ever been to the Smoky Mountains, we were very impressed with the beauty of the mountains and colors that the trees were presenting in early October.

We decided that if we ever got the chance we would like to live there, and we did some five years later.

Cabbage Patch Kids

We were advised to go back to Florida on a route that would take us through Cleveland, Georgia where Cabbage Patch Kids were being born daily and there was the beautiful Anna Ruby Waterfall in Helen to visit.

A few of you will remember the original Cabbage Patch Kids, in 1983 they were the rage, you could adopt one for under fifty dollars and see it born right there, coming up in a head of cabbage. These had the original soft nylon face, each individually designed to your taste or lifestyle.

We could not afford it then and we learned later that the originals were selling for hundreds of times more that the early adoption fees because when a mass producer toy maker bought them out, the head and face was made out of hard plastic, the charm was lost.

The Babyland General Hospital is much larger now it looks like a plantation on a large piece of acreage.

The original owners had sold their copyrights to a large toy maker that eventually went bankrupt followed by others that also failed. The babies are again made in Cleveland with the original soft individually designed faces and clothing born at the Hospital; adoption fees begin at $199.00 and go up.

Beauty of nature

Anna Ruby waterfalls was a beautiful sight, we have a photo of us standing on a wooden bridge with the falls in the background displayed in our hallway.

It has been 27 years since that first visit. Today, Anna Ruby Falls is even more impressive, it's now possible to get much closer with a half mile paved pathway up to a platform almost to the base of the falls. There was no charge back then but with all the improvements and a new visitor information building, there is now a small fee.