Sell's Mill Park

Hoschton, we have a problem (not really) MAP

From Sells Mill Park

Sometimes I want a great walk in the countryside. Sometimes I want a quick stop by that leads to great pictures. I was able to find the latter at the recommendation of a reader, who understood my passion for moving water and old buildings. On this particular instance, my merry band of travellers stopped by Sell’s Mill Park in Hoschton, Georgia, about an hour and 15 minutes Northeast of the city.

Now, if you are looking for a heart pumping hike, this is probably the wrong place. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth the effort. The Jackson County Parks department has been doing a stand up job building the living spaces in the area. The old Sell’s Mill was a rather obvious addition to there collection. The mill is rather beautiful and difficult to photograph poorly. I will say that the restoration of the mill makes it look a bit more modern that I would have liked, but it was attractive nonetheless.


The Park itself still appears to be under construction, and at current times has a pavilion, a short walking trail along the creek, and the Mill and Dam area. We stopped by a couple of days after some fairly heavy precipitation, which made for some nifty waterworks. The water itself is brackish like the Oconee River. I wish I knew more about the Mill but can’t seem to locate any information except that it was built in 1914.


On the bright side, the renovated Mill, although not rustic looking is available for rental. So it will be guaranteed a longer life and is available to us, should we need that sort of thing. And the water flowing over the dam is reminiscent of the dam at Roswell Mill, just a little smaller, a little cleaner, and a lot more accessible. Sell’s Mill is a fitting addition to the Metro Atlanta Countryside.



Trail Essentials
Approximate Time: 30-45 minutes
Approximate Distance: 1 mile
Features: Dam, River, Mill
Overall Rating:

Scenic Quality: A
Athleticism: C-
Solitude: B+
Value: B+
Parking: Free
Hours of Operation: Daylight Hours
Facilities: None
Maps: Not Necessary, just along the river and back
County: Jackson

Snowy Amicalola

Obligatory Snow Post by Atlanta Area Resident Map

From January 2011 Snow at Amicalola Falls

Ok, everybody heard that it snowed pretty significantly this January. And every blogger, twitterer, and facebooker put up their photos of the Atlanta Blizzard. And those who know me and who I am said to me over and over again, why don’t you do something. Well, as the good weather is right around the corner, and my website is technically not open for the 2011 season just yet. I thought I might show you my snow pictures, specifically a revisit to Amicalola Falls the week following the major snowstorm.


Now I thought, with the snow melting that the falls might be raging. And the winter time is best for Amicalola because you can get the full view of the falls through the naked trees. However, the snow had no quite melted enough just yet and the falls, though flowing were not tremendously powerful. I placed a short video at the bottom of this post, so you can see for yourself.


Hiking up to the top of the falls was my first outdoor excursion this year. I was a bit out of practice with two months of relative inactivity literally under my belt. And the climb up to the top of Amicalola is no walk in the park, but we survived a little better than I expected. Never really having clomped up a mountainside over a snow covered patch, I felt good that no one fell and we made it up in one piece. The discovery that frosted trails are pretty slippery wasn’t really a shock, but it did slow the pace a bit as paying careful attention to footwork became a much higher priority.


The bright blue January sky made for beautiful vista views and the waters of Amicalola, though subdued, still came through with enough show to make the day in the Snowy Metro Atlanta Countryside well worth the effort. Amicalola is truly one of the can’t miss sites in North Georgia and well worth returning trips snow or no snow.

Cirque du Soleil

The Big Top in Atlanta Map

photo by Denny Wood

As many of us drive down the 75/85 corridor, we see the amusing blue and yellow tents standing outside Atlantic Station. This sight is instantly recognizable as a circus tent, and specifically the trademark coloring of the world renown, Cirque du Soleil, which has a sort of permanent home in Atlanta’s midtown. And this week, the cirque came back to town, for a month and a half of performances of their Ovo show. Of which, I had the good fortune to be invited to attend their pre-opening preview this past Wednesday.

photo by Denny Wood

Cirque du Soleil is a new interpretation of the Circus, and is not the type of place your parents took you as a child. Cirque du Soleil’s style is to do themed productions focused on a story, and the theme of Ovo is the insect world. The story revolves around a group of bugs and their encounter with an egg. This dramatic convention’s biggest enhancement to the evening’s entertainment is brilliantly colorful costumes. But there’s more to it, remaining true to its circus roots, Ovo focuses on the more exciting elements of the Big Top: the feats of incredible athleticism and coordination. You get to see a firefly do some incredible juggling, a dragonfly perform feats of hand balancing, ants perform feats of tumbling, and butterflies sore gracefully on ropes above your head. The three most compelling pieces were: a single spider on the slackwire; the trapeze act performed by a beetle troupe; and the finale, an incredible trampoline act dominated by grasshoppers, but with more than 25 acrobats leaping, flipping, and bouncing off the walls.


But of equal note is the homage to the true face of the circus: the Clown. Although there are no bright red noses or huge shoes, the story is carried along by three performers acting in the true spirit of clowndom. First is the ringmaster, a multicolored beetle of sorts, who orders folks around. Next, a spiky, quirky, nerdy insect, who falls in love with the final entertainer, a larger and brightly colored lady bug. When these folks were on the stage, it was like watching a cartoon from my childhood, and I have to admit that I chuckled and laughed probably more than I oooed and aahed at the feats of daring. The remarkable thing was that not a word of English was spoken. They conveyed their meanings via motions and action, accentuated by some verbalized gibberish intended to evoke the idea of insects speaking, if they could talk. In probably the funniest moment from the show, they were even able to get three audience members to act in a funny and harmlessly foolish manner which brought roars from the crowd.


So I am telling you all that I am very glad to see the circus come to my town of Atlanta. In interest of full disclosure, I will tell you that they comped my tickets, which aided my enjoyment because of my personal focus on financial utility. As I have mentioned before, I am not poor, but I am frugal, and I am proud of it. The price range for tickets runs from $50 dollars to as high as $230 (the tickets I was given normally run $70 on a Wednesday night), but there are cheaper prices for children under 12 and discounts for weekday shows for students, seniors, and military, which could bring your cost down $5. A simple google search for “Ovo Atlanta Discount” brought up a couple of ways to find discount pricing the day I wrote this. The only other regret is that I wasn’t allowed to photograph anything under the big top, but this is understandable of the inherent danger of some of the feats high above our head. Some of the photos here are not mine but actually provided by a friend of mine, Denny Wood (shot with a Sony Cybershot Pocket Digital H55 - photos 1 & 2). The exterior shots I took didn’t come out well as hers as Wednesday was a dreary, foggy night (and were taken with the Fuji Finepix Z pocket camera).

Watch Video of Cirque Du Soleil’s Ovo
official trailer 1
official trailer 2
Trampoline Grasshoppers
Ants Juggling Ants
Canadian Performance of OVO