And yes, was that a bit too much nature for me. Who knew there were so many spiders in Georgia woods? My gosh, I hate them and no logic of “they eat the mosquitoes or they are magicians with those webs, so intricate” will convince me I should appreciate these creatures. Anyway, our second ever yurting trip was in Tugaloo State Park on Lake Hartwell, border of GA and South Carolina. Off we went, with a commitment to leave all electronics behind – except my phone to navigate and eat!

Car ride was “from Russia with Love” movie time. Once we got there, it was dark but we made it to our yurt – had to walk about 200 m with our very fragmented luggage (one would think we are moving here for a month). 1 bunk bed, 1 sofa with heater that we didn’t need and table, small porch and table to eat with grill and firepit was it for the 2 nights. We decided to eat in local Mexican in Lavonia, GA – by the way, I finally realized why Republicans are so focused on Mexicans as the evil representation of all immigrants – that is because these small white towns in rural America have one ethnic restaurant and that is Mexican! It is THE representation of ethnicity, immigration and diversity. Not Korean, Japanese, Indian or Lebanese – Mexican.

I was regretting it in about 8 hours. Well, Lucas was and I was too. After a fun night of board games (Telestrations was a winner), I was awaken by gagging. Lucas and Mexican food didn’t mesh. If you want to feel completely helpless, try locking yourself in the middle of the woods, in a 10×10 yurt with just the bare necessities and then have one of your kids barf about 5x in the middle of it  – so it splashes across everything. Mind you, you have no cleaning supplies and one roll of paper towels. After his first 4 gags, I literally pushed him out to the darkness so he can provide some fertilization to the nature as I was picking my brain on how the hell am I going to clean this up – with the 2 other kids and B  beautifully asleep. This was an exorcist kind of exercise. Poor Lucas was out there throwing up as I threw the 2 sheets we brought on the yurt product of his stomach. What a welcome to the nature – with all bells and whistles! After an hour of hanging out together outside, in pitch black darkness, spider webs and constant gagging (and noone else even blinking), we went back to sleep in strangely smelly yurt. The net windows were actually perfect for this. The joys of self-imposed parenting experiences. I stunk, Lucas was comatose, yurt was not the place I wanted to be.

Morning – two of us groggy, everyone else cheery and ready to hit the adventures. Why are  you two so tired? What stinks here?

We spent the next day in Helen, GA, a bit odd town – small German/Alpine thing in rural Georgia with bizarre southern accents discussing Bavarian food and traditions. We all found it a bit awkward, honestly but did manage to have Czech food in the Mueller cafe there – I was in heaven and kids (even Lucas) just gobbled the fried cheese. Back at yurt, we did hot dog grilling, fireplace and fit a bit more with the yurt crowd which were hard core campers – who had sinks and every gadget possible available. Not us – the city campers who brought the ice coffee in the fancy Whole foods bottle. Last day – we hiked 4 miles, I did my weird mushroom picking as everyone reminds me and we headed home.

What was a big success was the electronics free time. Noone missed it and the kids were lovely,  no fights, no talk on Fortnite, nothing! They loved the board games and laughed like crazy, the boys were shooting with sling, throwing ball and doing pillow fights – they did entertain themselves and survived!! This was a relief for B and I as we thought they were utterly incapable of doing the regular kids stuff. We saw a turtle, woodpecker, we got bitten by fire ants, played mini golf, fished, started fire…..

Resolution we made – once a month we need to do the “disconnect” weekend!