FLIGHT Magazine October 2022

Anotefromour

Itwas this time last year that I discovered North Georgia for the first time. I’d moved here sight unseen, bags still dusty from a couple of years in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert, to take on the mantle of life editor at The Times.

Being a native of the East Coast, I’m partial to the Appala chian Mountains and changing of seasons, so you might imag ine my delight upon finding I’d arrived at the peak of fall. The lakeside park by my new digs was alive with Technicolor foliage, Inman Perk’s apple cider was piping hot and Tantrum Brew ing Co. in nearby Cleveland had pulled out all the stops on its Oktoberfest-inspired libations.

I fell in love hard and fast with this sweet corner of Earth, its hidden gems and endearing quirks (Gainesville Chicken Festi val, anyone?), the kindness and hospitality of its people. Argu ably simple things all by their lonesome, together, they’re ingre dients that make a place a home.

Much like the Morrill family, who you’ll meet a little further into this issue, I’m convinced there’s something special about this place, something almost magical that tugs at your sleeve and maybe even heartstrings, beckoning, “Make yourself at home.”

And, goodness, I sure have. Perhaps it’s just nostalgia talk ing, but I can’t, for the life of me, figure out exactly how a whole year’s gone by — wasn’t it just yesterday that I was trying to learn my ZIP code?

You blink once and, ready or not, time just unravels. But they tell me that’s prone to happen when you’re having fun.

Rachel Estes Life Editor

GENERAL MANAGER

Norman Baggs

GROUP PUBLISHER

Stephanie Woody

GROUP EDITOR

Nate McCullough

MANAGING EDITOR

John Chambliss

LIFE EDITOR

Rachel Estes

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Lauren Freeman Scott Rogers

ADVERTISING SALES

Jessica Shirley, Advertising Sales Manager

Jenna Wellborn, Multimedia Account Executive

Stacy Smith, Multimedia Account Executive

Megan Smarz, Manager of Event Sales and Regional Sales

CREATIVE SERVICES

Tracie Pike Chelsea Sunshine Claudette Keeley

April Seymour

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MULE CAMP

Mule

Camp Market began years back as a farmer’s curb market near the downtown square, organized by James Mathis Sr. of Home Federal Bank. This market evolved into the Corn Tassel Festival, which was a fall festival with local craft exhibitors.

About 1993, the Gainesville Jaycees began running the festival and changed the name to Mule Camp Market. In the short period of time since then, the Jaycees have brought the market from a local event to a regional fall festival with crowds of 75,000 for the annual three-day weekend held the second weekend in October every year. The Jaycees also sponsor a carnival that is held in con junction with Mule Camp every year.

With craft vendors from all parts of the U.S. and top-quality country and bluegrass entertainment, the Jaycees have turned the market into the single largest annual event hosted in Hall County.

The city of Gainesville, or Mule Camp Springs as it was once known, hosts this rich Appalachian festival at the foothills of the North Georgia mountains. This festival showcases various moun tain arts and crafts. The family can enjoy mule rides, live music and great food while the kids enjoy the petting zoo and many other activities.

ontis Water is family owned and operated and delivers the purest, best-tasting spring water from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia to homes and businesses throughout Hall County. Call us today, or visit us online, to learn more.

FROM DETOUR TO DISCOVERY:

One family’s route to making North Georgia their home away from home

BY RACHEL ESTES

When the COVID-19 pandemic tossed one family a sack of lemons, they chose to make lemonade — and the result was sweeter than they’d bargained for.

Bill and Lara Morrill’s bags were all but packed for a grand European adventure to celebrate their 15th anniversary when the pandemic struck, rerouting their travel plans much closer to

home. Parents of two, the couple started researching day trips and outdoor activities within an hour’s drive of their Marietta home and landed on North Georgia and Lake Lanier.

“We found a lot of great hiking spots, we spent a lot of time on the lake — our friends have some boats, or we would rent a boat from the marina and we would just be out and about as much as possible outside,” Lara said. “There are so many beautiful things here. We just fell in love with it.”

With Ava, 12, and Austin, 10, the Morrills uncovered instant hits across the region: Amicalola Falls, Edge of the World Trail and Burt’s Farm in Dawsonville, Dahlonega’s wine country, and, in Gainesville, Cool Springs Blueberry Farm, Lanier Point Park and the Solar System Walking Tour that runs through the Rock Creek Greenway, Wilshire Trails and Ivey Terrace and Longwood parks.

Avid adventurers, the Morrills rarely visit a place more than once, going all in on exploring a locale before moving on to the next one. But North Georgia, they soon found, had a magnetic pull they couldn’t ignore.

“This area has been one that’s excited us so much that we enjoy coming back over and over and over again,” Lara said. “There’s something special about this place. There’s a lot to do, but also you get this feeling of calmness. It’s like you have this crazy lifestyle back in Marietta, and as we’re driving up here, you just feel the tension go away. You get here and there’s just a sense of peace.”

“Marietta is really busy — surprisingly busy,” Bill added. “Be tween work and raising a family, our lifestyles are really busy, and when you come up here to North Georgia, especially with the lake,

it’s just relaxing. It’s a great way to escape the hustle and bustle of the city lifestyle.”

Raised near the coast outside Boston, Massachusetts, Bill and Lara were prone to take their family on beach vacations, often in Florida — that is, until they hap pened upon Lake Lanier.

“Lo and behold, there’s a lake near us that’s only an hour away where you can create the same experience,” Bill said. “We were never really ‘lake people’ to begin with, but once we found that we could do weekend getaways and day trips up here, hike in the morning and go spend some time at the lake and go fishing and eat good food, we were pretty much sold.”

The Morrills’ love affair with North Georgia — and, more specifically, Gaines ville — spurred their purchase of a cottage on Lake Lanier, now affectionately known as Lakeview Landing.

Nestled in a quiet cove mere miles from the busy din of Thompson Bridge Road, Lakeview Landing proved to be a breath of air amidst the pandemic, forging an even tighter bond between the members of the Morrill family.

“Raising a family with young kids, we’re trying to teach them to appreciate the out doors and adventure, and there’s so much to offer here,” Bill said. “Of course, Lake Lanier is the main draw for us and what we love, but we’ve developed new hobbies, too. We always were hiking and camp ing, but now we’ve gotten really into fish ing and kayaking. You just kind of change as you get to experience new things, and that’s been fun and exciting not just for us, but to see our children kind of evolve and change as well and enjoy coming up here and just spending hours and hours out side. Instead of spending a night indoors watching TV, we can sit by a fire pit and do s’mores and hangout and talk.”

To help other families become ac quainted with North Georgia the way they have, the Morrills turned Lakeview Land ing into a short-term vacation rental so that, when Ava and Austin’s busy school and sports schedules keep the family in Marietta, family bonding and connections can still go on between — and outside of — the cottage walls.

“To know that our house is being used for purposes that are bigger — family con nections — that makes it worth it,” Lara said.

The lakehouse is equipped with a fully

stocked chef’s kitchen, outdoor fire pit — a prime spot for watching sunsets — single slip dock with a sundeck where Bill and Lara like to sip their morning coffee, kay aks and fishing poles.

“We’ve really enjoyed trying to create an experience for people so they feel the same way that we feel when they come here,” Lara said. “We made this home a place that we would want to vacation at for ourselves, and I think people really notice that.”

Guests can book their stay at Lakeview Landing up to six months in advance via lakeviewlandinglanier.com, Airbnb, VRBO and Expedia.

It’s hard to say the Morrills would have prioritized getting to know North Georgia had their travel plans not been thwarted, Bill said. But if they could turn back time, they wouldn’t change a thing.

“At that point in our life, we were like, ‘We need to experience things outside of the United States and big ger than Georgia,’ and when the pandemic occurred, it helped us realize there’s so much right here that we can explore,” Bill said. “We don’t have to go to Eu rope to get a break from the busyness of our work and the day-to-day lifestyle in the metro Atlanta area — you can just go to North Georgia, just drive to Gainesville. There’s so much to do right here, from an outdoors perspective, that it provides the same excitement and release that you’re looking for.”

The family aims to uncover something new and different with each trek they make to North Georgia, like a new restau rant or hiking trail. But they’ve also found some staples worth sticking to, like Avoca dos and Atlas Pizza, family favorites on the Gainesville square.

“There’s always something new that you’re finding,” Bill said. “That’s what it’s really about — giving the kids these unique experiences, getting them off their screens for good chunks of time and enjoying the outdoors so they realize that life’s big ger than video games and their computer screen.”

Sit and sip for FOR A SPELL in NORTH GEORGIA’S Wine Country

BY RACHEL ESTES

Once a hotbed for gold mining, visitors to Dahlonega often un cover a resource that’s just as valuable in its own right and available by the glass.

Nestled in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Dahlonega is home to eight win eries and a dozen tasting rooms, earning the city bragging rights as the heart of Georgia wine country.

Of all Dahlonega’s unique offerings, there’s one winery whose casual, laid-back atmosphere extends guests a warm invita tion to make themselves at home: Cavender Creek Vineyards and Winery.

“I wanted guests to feel like they were guests in my living room,” owner Claire Livingston said of Cavender’s tasting room, which she’s outfitted with sofas and arm chairs tailored for lingering. “I love the so cialness of it (wine) — the history, the cul ture, the chemistry, the science behind it. But I think what appealed to me was creat

At Cavender Creek Vineyards and Winery, Southern hospitality reigns supreme

ing a space where people really felt comfort able to sit, enjoy their wine, visit with their family and friends in a nice, relaxed environ ment and have all their needs taken care of.”

Guests might sit for a spell inside the tasting room or mosey out to the screenedin porch or outdoor patio, which is just a stone’s throw from the playground built for underage patrons.

While you’re outside, you’ll likely en counter Elliot and Dulcinea, the winery’s resident miniature donkeys, or a couple of alpacas.

“People just love it out here,” Livingston said. “It’s just as crowded as it could be on a Saturday.”

A retired anatomy and cell biology pro fessor, the Dublin, Ga., native was hardly an expert on winemaking when she moved to North Georgia several years ago; she simply had a penchant for reds and an itch for a new adventure. She tested the waters by working at Cavender on the weekends under its orig inal owner, Raymond Castleberry, until, in

2015, the opportunity to purchase the win ery fell into her lap.

“I used to half joking, half serious say, ‘I’m going to retire up here, (and) I’m going to buy a winery.’ I did and I haven’t looked back,” Livingston said. “I did not know any thing about grape growing or winemaking. I just would go home and read, read, read — that’s all I did for about a year. I’d talk to people, I’d go to other wineries. You jump into it and you learn.”

Today, Livingston tends to 15 acres there at the vineyard, four of which are planted in vines. Those vines are Norton, a black Amer ican wine grape that produces an earthy, spicy wine, and European varietals cabernet sauvignon, petit manseng and petit verdot.

“Before I started coming up here, I didn’t know North Georgia had a true wine coun try,” Livingston said. “I thought all Georgia wines were muscadines. I didn’t know that you could actually get real wine here, and I was so surprised.”

Livingston has about 16 wines in rota

tion, representing both the sweet and dry sides of the spectrum. All of Cavender’s wines are made in-house using either the grapes grown in its own vineyard or grapes imported from California, New York and Washington State.

“I was very proud of the fact, when I first bought this winery, that we were all Georgia made, Georgia grown,” Livingston said. “If I didn’t grow it outside, I would source my grapes from local wineries. But my wine maker said, ‘You know, you can only offer so much,’ so he convinced me (to) look at Cali fornia and Washington State for grapes, and that’s what we’ve done.”

Although some of the grapes may come from elsewhere, Livingston said guests can rest assured they’re still, in a sense, drinking local wine.

“A lot of people say, ‘I want something lo cal.’ I get that. You want to drink from grapes that are grown here, but at the same time, I, personally, found it very limiting. Even though the grapes may come from Califor nia, we still made the wine here and it’s still to my specifications. I think it still highlights what we’re capable of doing here in North Georgia.”

While the menu sees frequent changes, a few staples tend to make the cut, such as sau vignon blanc, viognier, chardonnay, chenin blanc, pinot noir, zinfandel, merlot, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc — an earthy white with a bit of spice on the finish — as well as some varietals visitors may not have heard of.

There’s Amendment 21, for instance — a bourbon barrel-aged Norton wine that nods to the repeal of Prohibition — and Castleber ry Red — a jammy, rich, bourbon barrel-aged Norton and cabernet sauvignon blend with a hint of merlot. Then there’s the perennial fa vorites: Donkey Hotie and Blackjack, a dark and jammy red with a touch of sweetness.

On the sweeter side of the menu, there’s Cavender’s Fox Collection, a series of mus cadine and vinifera wines that, like the rest of the vineyard’s operations, has significant rhyme and reason behind it.

“Historically, muscadines have been called fox grapes, because they have a foxy taste,” Livingston said. “It took a lot of re search for me to figure out what ‘foxy’ meant. It’s a musky, sweet taste that’s not like any other. Europeans call that a ‘foxiness.’”

The Fox Collection is house-made, just like the rest of Cavender’s varietals, though only one — the soft, almost creamy-textured peach — is a true muscadine. The collection’s strawberry, blackberry and cranberry, which is particularly popular around Thanksgiving, are made with a blend of vinifera grapes and fruit concentrates.

As for the viognier, Cavender’s most popular “red drinker’s white wine,” connois seurs might taste notes of honeydew, melon and grapefruit, catching “a hint of citrus up front and lemongrass on the nose,” accord

3610 Cavender Creek Road, Dahlonega 12:30-6:30 p.m. SundayThursday, 12:30-7 p.m. Friday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday cavendercreekvineyards.com

ing to wine stewardess Mackenzie Mobley.

With expert stewards and stewardesses like Mobley, Cavender’s patrons will find themselves in good hands, Livingston said.

“They know their wine, they know how to give outstanding customer service and I think when my customers are here, they feel like VIPs. At least I hope they do.”

Cavender’s wines can be bought by the glass, bottle or case. For those who can’t settle on a single wine or want to do a little sampling, flights are available as well.

And, if wine just isn’t your thing, Caven der also offers a selection of craft beer and mocktails because, according to Livingston, “not everybody wants to come and drink, but they want to look like they’re fitting in.”

From the kitchen, guests can choose a variety of snacks to nibble on during their visit, like charcuterie, Buffalo chicken dip and fresh popcorn.

As for Livingston, she’s living the dream in what she describes as a slice of heaven on earth.

“I’m having the absolute time of my life,” Livingston said. “I mean, I loved teaching, but this is great.”

UPCOMINGEVENTS

OCTOBER

01

FLOWERY

BRANCH FALL FESTIVAL

10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 5302 Railroad Ave, Flowery Branch

01

ARTRAGEOUS ART FESTIVAL

10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Braselton Town Green, 9924 Davis St.

01

OKTOBERFEST

11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The Arts Council, 331 Spring St. SW, Gainesville

01

LULA FALL FESTIVAL

5-10 p.m., Oct. 1-2. Lula Train Depot, 5911 Wall St.

07

MULE CAMP MARKET

10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Oct. 7-8, noon to 5 p.m. Oct. 9. Midland Greenway, 682 Grove St., Gainesville

08

FALL ART FEST

10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

2454 Ga. Highway 17, Sautee Nacoochee

15

8:30 a.m.

BRASELTON 5K ZOMBIE RUN

Braselton Town Green, 9924 Davis St.

UNG-Gainesville Performing Arts Center, 3040 Landrum Education Drive, Oakwood

22

GAINESVILLE CHICKEN FESTIVAL

11 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Lake Lanier Olympic Park, 3105 Clarks Bridge Road, Gainesville

27

TRUNK OR TREAT BLOCK

PARTY

3:30-10 p.m.

Downtown Flowery Branch

NOV

19

HOLIDAY PARADE & FESTIVAL

10 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Braselton Town Green, 9924 Davis St.

19

CHRISTMAS TREE

LIGHTING & HOLIDAY MARKET

2-8 p.m.

Downtown Flowery Branch

19

JINGLE MINGLE & LIGHTING OF THE CHICKEN

4-8 p.m.

20

GAINESVILLE THEATER ALLIANCE NEW WORKS FESTIVAL

5-11 p.m., Oct. 20-23.

OCT. 1 -OCT. 30

12

1980S ADULT PROM

6-10 p.m.

Gainesville Civic Center, 830 Green St. NE, Gainesville

OCT 15 -OCT 16

OKTOBERFEST GOLD RUSH DAYS

1074 Edelweiss Strasse, Helen.

The longest-running celebration of its kind in the United States, the Helen Oktoberfest is home to German-style beer, brats, bands and, of course, lederhosen. The festivities begin at the Helen Festhalle Sept. 8, running Thursday-Saturday until Sept. 29, when visitors can raise their steins to gemütlichkeit daily through Oct. 30. helenchamber.com/oktoberfest.html

9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

1 Public Square, Dahlonega

Voted one of the region’s Top 20 events by the Southeast Tourism So ciety, thousands flock to Dahlonega every October to celebrate the city’s 1828 discovery of gold.

Throughout the two-day festival, Dahlonega’s public square and historic district will sprawl with more than 200 artisans, craftspeople and food vendors. goldrushdaysfestival.com

Gainesville square

OCT 21 -OCT 23

MOUNTAIN MOONSHINE FESTIVAL

415 Ga. Highway 53, Dawsonville

The 55th annual Mountain Moon shine Festival and Car Show is set to take place at the Georgia Rac ing Hall of Fame and Dawsonville

City Hall’s Main Street Park with three days of car shows and swap meets, a parade and the iconic Moonshine Run.

destinationdawsonville.com/ events/mountain-moonshinefestival