The annual Helen to the Atlantic Hot Air Balloon Race kicks off May 31 (weather permitting) at 7 am. Starting in Helen, the race heads to its finish line – anywhere along the Atlantic coast. (The shortest distance is 225 miles.) The race usually takes two days. Other balloonists will compete in local events beginning Thursday and continuing through Saturday.  It’s a great time to head up for photos of balloons, or maybe even a ride in a balloon to get photos of the landscape.

Can’t make it that weekend? The next Saturday is the annual Northeast Georgia art tour, with events in galleries and studios scheduled in the counties of White, Habersham, Rabun and Towns – including the small towns of Sautee Nacoochee, Clarkesville, Clayton, Hiawassee and Young Harris. Download the tour map at the website. Almost 50 different galleries, stores, studios and restaurants have specials scheduled. The Sautee Nacoochee Community Center is holding its annual (juried) 12 Rivers Arts Festival, at which some 50 artists will be gathered exhibiting fine arts.

Good food can be found at all the locations – and good wine as well. Many of Georgia’s wineries are located in this area, including Crane Creek Vineyards in Young Harris, Sautee Nacoochee Vineyards, Habersham Vineyards and  Winery and Mount Yonah Vineyards in Sautee Nacoochee.

Blackstock Vineyards and Winery is located on the edge of White and Lumpkin counties, and is holding its annual Fine Wine Festival the same weekend – where you’ll fine good wine, good food and music, as well as some more arts and crafts booths.  Check the  Northeast Georgia Arts Tour website or Helen’s website for some suggestions as to where to stay – you’ll want to plan more than just one day to see it all.

Like food? Lots of food? Something like the Taste of Atlanta? Alas, that terrific event isn’t scheduled until October 5, 6 and 7. But the Taste of Alpharetta is this Thursday, May 10, from 5 until 10 p.m. and offering tastes of 65 restaurants, cooking demonstrations, chef competition, activities and entertainment.

There’s no admission charge (a big bonus) and parking is free. Tickets are for sale at the event at a sheet of 10 tickets for $5.  Food samples range from .50 cents to $3 (1 to 6 tickets) for a sample (example: salad to shrimp) and most Fun Fare children’s activities charge two-four tickets per item. There’s an opportunity to vote on your favorite restaurant and music will be provided by the REMakes, an R.E.M. tribute band and the RETURN, a Beatles tribute band.  (No wonder this is such a popular event!) Some 65,000 people attend annually. This is the 22^nd year for the Taste. Because this taste is compacted into one night (and the Taste of Atlanta covers serveral days) Alpharetta considers it the largest Tasting event in the Southeast. You can see the list of restaurants at the website. 

This year it will be located at 2 South Main Street across from Alpharetta City Hall, in the historic section. Take 400 north to Old Milton Parkway. Go right at highway 9.  Park and walk from City Hall or the Milton Center, or park at Wills Park or the nearby Publix. A free shuttle will pick you up and take you to the festival, returning you to your car at the end.

How’s your luck been lately? If there’s been a run of bad luck, it could be that you need a bottle tree to catch and hold the attention of the evil spirits who may have begun to plaque your house. You may have seen bottle trees driving through rural Georgia, and not have known what they are.

Based on African tradition, and brought to this country by slaves, bottle trees have brightly colored glass bottles hanging on the branches. According to folklore, the evil spirits are attracted to the pretty colors and leave the nearby house and its occupants alone. Another belief is that the light created when the sun hits the bottles renders those ‘ol evil spirits harmless.

Many of the bottle trees you may see have mostly blue bottles, because it is considered to be the most powerful color, or the most attractive to spirits intent on mischief – or maybe those plagued with evil spirits have taken solace in blue wine bottles or old fashioned milk-of-magnesia bottles and have an abundance of those with which to decorate their tree.

Some literature suggests cedar trees are traditional. Eudora Welty’s story “Livvie” refers to crepe myrtles decorated with blue bottles. Some of the artistic trees used to decorate gardens today are made from welded rebar. Others are made from a post with nails driven into them and the bottles are just placed upside down on the nails. Some claim that the whistles or moans heard when the wind blows across the mouth of the bottle is evidence that the spirits are trapped inside. (Apparently evil spirits and fruit flies share the inability to find their way out of a small-necked bottle once they enter.)

Those of you who love to visit North Georgia’s little slice of Bavaria -- Helen, that is -- have a new reason to go.  ZipNTime! has just opened with five fun zips. By May there will be six – the 2,300 foot Sautee-Nacoochee, on which you’ll ride from the top of the mountain down, down into the Nacoochee Valley.

If you’ve not tried the latest trend in adventure tourism, consider the fun of resting in a secure harness (you sit down in it) and zoom through the trees from one little deck to another. The deck platforms are built in an environmentally responsible manner, with every effort made to keep the tree healthy and growing. The guides have been professionally trained and will make sure your harness and helmet are secure, then they will double-click you safely onto each platform, and safely onto each zip.

Each zip at ZipNTime! has its own flavor, including a little information about the history of the area (which was chock full of gold mines in the early 19^th century.) By the 20^th century, the area came into its own as a lumber town. Helen was named for the daughter of a sawmill owner. The lumber industry peaked around 1930, and by the ‘60s, Helen was all but a ghost town. (The idea to turn it into an Alpine playground was developed by a few enterprising locals, who wanted all those people on their way north to the mountains and south to the beach to stop a little while in North Georgia.)

One of the zip lines takes you across an actual gold mine. On another you’ll see a replica of a moonshine still. This is Appalachia after all. In fact, Helen’s new motto is “Where Alpine meets Appalachia.” Keep your eyes peeled – you just may see a bear on the ground some 65 feet below as you go zipping among the trees. The guides have reported seeing a sow and her cub along one area.

There are no ropes courses at this time, although plans are to have them by next year. There’s just the thrill of the wind rushing past as you zip through the air. And of course, for the real adventurer, the high point is that trip down the mountain.

ZipnTime is open daily and reservations are recommended. Admission is $69 for the five zips, $39 for the mountain side zip or $89 for the whole package.

Margaret Mitchell started her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Gone With the Wind,  at the end of the story. And according to legend, she wrote it because her husband John was having trouble finding books at the library that she hadn’t read.

She lived in a small apartment on Crescent Ave when she began, and she worked on the novel off and on over the next ten years. That apartment is part of the tour available at the Margaret Mitchell House, located at 990 Peachtree Street. The entrance is located on Crescent Avenue, where Mitchell’s apartment is. Now Midtown, this part of Atlanta was considered suburban when she moved here after her marriage to John March in 1925. You may have heard that she referred to it as “the dump.”

You’ll see how self-effacing Peggy covered the typewriter and the pages she was working on with a towel when visitors came, because she didn’t think the work was good enough. A competent and confident writer at the Atlanta Journal Sunday Magazine, she was less sure about her work of fiction. 

Tours start every 30 minutes, and the tour guides  tell stories about her marriages, her Scarlett-like flaunting of conservative society with a daring dance and other parts of her life. That dance was a large part of the reason that the Junior League refused to accept her among its ranks. Later, when she became famous, they came and asked her to join. She said no.

While GWTW has come in for its share of criticism over “romanticizing slavery,” it was widely read in war-torn Europe. Mitchell herself wanted it to be about a people’s determination to survive in a devastated land. There’s also information at the museum, which has come to light only recently, about her secret support of scholarships for African-Americans at Morehouse College.

The Margaret Mitchell House is operated by the Atlanta History Center, and is open Monday through Saturday from 10 – 5.  Admission is $13 for adults, $10 for seniors and students, $4.50 for ages 4-12. Group rates are available and a dual admission ticket gets you into both the Margaret Mitchell House and the Atlanta History Center.  Or consider an Atlanta City Pass, a 45% off bargain for admission to five Atlanta attractions. To celebrate the 76^th Annual Dogwood Festival, the Margaret Mitchell House will have free admission this coming weekend. April 20 – 22.

Most of us who live here don’t give a thought in our daily lives to the antebellum history that Georgia has. But for people who’ve never been to Georgia – plantations, the story from Gone with the Wind and Southern heritage are the first things that come to mind when Georgia is mentioned.

The fourth annual Antebellum Trail Pilgrimage takes visitors and natives alike into the storied world of that time. The self-guided trail stretches 100 miles from Athens to Macon and also includes Watkinsville, Madison, Eatonton, Milledgeville and Gray/Old Clinton. The pilgrimage weekend is April 19-22, 2012 and not only are there special museum tours and events but historic private homes will be open to tour participants.

The trail was originally put together as a University of Georgia project in 1984. It was recognized by the state as a designated trail the next year.  Because it is self-guided, you can check the website and choose where you want to start based on the events or festivals in any or all of the towns on the trail.

In Athens, for example, four house museums, each illustrating a different architectural style will be open. On the porch of the Church-Waddel-Brumby House (Athens’ oldest surviving residence) there will be a praline-making demonstration.  In Watkinsville, visit the Eagle Tavern, built about 1801. It served as a stagecoach and tavern during the Antebellum period. (Plan some time to visit Happy Valley Pottery – there’s much more than pottery at this converted chicken house!) Madison is considered the town that Sherman refused to burn – it has many beautiful and historic homes. Eatonton is the home of two famous writers – Joel Chandler Harris and Alice Walker. The town’s charming historic district has over 100 antebellum and Victorian era homes.

Then there’s Milledgeville where you can tour the Old Capitol Museum, the Griswoldville Battlefield in Gray/Old Clinton and some really fascinating places to see in Macon.  Tickets for the tour are $25 and can be purchased at any of the Welcome Centers along the Trail or online. If you can’t make it this year – next year’s tour is April 18 – 21, 2013.

Photos courtesy Georgia Department of Economic Development.

Anyone who has lived with teenagers has heard the whine, “there’s nothing to do around here!” Surely that is heard less in Roswell, where there is a 7-mile-long linear park along the Chattahoochee River. This weekend bikes, in-line skates and skateboards amicably shared the paved paths along the various parks. The river itself hosted kayaks, canoes, fisher-people and delighted swimmers. (The great thing about the bike paths along the river edge is that they are relatively flat. I live in an area with steep hills and that’s my excuse. I can’t wait to get my bike over to Roswell.)

Riverside Park is one of several parks along the river. A joint effort of the city of Roswell and Fulton County, It has two playgrounds (one for younger, one for older children), a stage, a boardwalk that offers great views of the wetlands area along the edge of the river. There’s also a Sprayground – a paved playground with sprinklers, fountains and spray showers. (It will open Memorial Day weekend – admission is $1.00.) Other parks include Azalea Park, Wileo Park, Don White Memorial Park and further down Riverside Drive is Garrard Landing Park.  If you’d like to canoe or kayak, check with Shoot the Hooch Outfitters, located at Azalea Park.

The city of Roswell has 13 miles of additional trails that are not along the River but have historic and scenic vistas. Their Vickery Creek park area is extensive, shady and very nice. If you’re bringing the children – plan to spend a little time at the Chattahoochee Nature Center. It will educate the kids about the watershed, the bog and some of the wildlife we have in this part of the country.

Are you into craft beers? Or maybe discovering award-winning regional wines is more your thing. You can get in touch with both at the third annual White County Cork & Keg Festival Saturday, April 7. Held at the Festhalle in Helen – you can enjoy the deck overlooking the Chattahoochee River (up here it’s still a trout-happy rushing creek), live music by the electrifying jazz trio Insonnia, interesting food from local restaurants and tastes of some of the country’s best craft brews and North Georgia’s wines. Not to mention the dogwoods are blooming, the rhododendron’s are about to and the little town of Helen is bursting with Spring.

There will be 40 varieties of craft-brewed beer (by the way, Georgia's own Sweetwater is one of the sponsors) and if you fall in love with any of the local wines, you can purchase a bottle at the festival. Your ticket entitles you to one small plate from either the Nacoochee Grill or Bigg Daddy’s, and more food is available for purchase.

Admission is limited to the first 400 ticket holders. Tickets are $30 through April 2 (best deal!), beginning April 3 they are $40. (Designated drivers are admitted for free – all ticket holders must be 21 years old and have photo-id.) For tickets, visit http://snca.tix.com or call 706-878-3300. Proceeds benefit the Sautee Nacoochee Community Association, non-profit organization committed to arts and culture, environmental protection, and historic preservation, located four miles east of the Festhalle, just off Georgia Highway 17.

Plan to come up early enough to visit the Sautee Nacoochee Center, which has a history museum, two art-galleries, an African-American Heritage Site and the Northeast Georgia Folk Pottery Museum. Located in Sautee, there are a number of other interesting places to visit while you’re there – the Shoppes at Sautee, the Old Sautee Store, Inside-Out Sautee and the newest addition, Lavender Cottage and Garden. This little area is one of the most picturesque areas in Georgia – turn right at the famous gazebo that’s located on the Indian mound and you’re four minutes from Sautee-Nacoochee.

If your house, or your closet is in need of something truly unique, you’ll want to attend the America Craft Council Show at the Cobb Galleria March 12-14. This prestigious show will feature 225 master artists and craftspeople  - and is not to be confused with crafts festivals that have barbecue, funnel cakes and cloggers.

These crafts are considered “fine crafts” and include decorative pieces, furniture, jewelry and other wearables utilizing fiber, basketry, wood, leather, stone, metal and ceramic. The ACC bills itself as the largest indoor craft show in the Southeast. But don’t let the idea of large fool you into thinking you’ll see the same old things or a number of similar items. These artists have worked and competed to get into this show – and the items you’ll see are beautiful, inventive and unusual.  Categories include Local, Greencraft (made utilizing recycling) Foodieware, Men’s, Brides-to-Be and the Blue Chip items of $10,000 and up. (And yes, it is the same weekend as the ACC Basketball Tournament.  You can do both!)

The show opens at 10 a.m. Friday at the Cobb Galleria and until 8 p.m.,  then 10 Saturday and Sunday, closing at 6 and 5 respectively. Admission is $13 per day or $20 for a three-day pass.  Admission after 5 p.m. on Friday evening is $5.