Tubing the 'hooch

It's hard to believe I didn't have a blog post ready to go last night. I've gotten in to the habit of preparing my posts ahead of time and it seems by the time I got home last night I wasn't up to the task. At any rate, a friend of mine and I took our children up to Helen yesterday to tube the Chattahoochee. There are a couple of companies up there that you can go through, one is Cool River the other is Helen Tubing. My friend had been up that way tubing last year and used the Cool River company. She said they were good, but that her boys wanted to try the 'pink one' that went a little further down the river. It turns out that the 'pink one' is Helen Tubing and they have a small water park as well. For $15 you can tube the 'hooch unlimited times and have access to their water park. Their water park consists of 4 water slides (2 open, 2 closed) and a lazy river. The kids thought it was fun, but they're just as happy tubing as playing there. In fact, they decided they'd rather JUST tube than play at the park next time.

I don't have pictures ready, but we went down the river 3 times. 2 times on what they call the 'short route' and once on the 'long route'. Difference between the two is an hour long float. The long route goes further up and will eventually pass the entry point for the short route. Our one problem on the float was that we could have used an extra inch of water to avoid some of the 'sticking points' in the river. We managed, though, while having a blast.

We did hang out at the water park as well. The kids went down each set of slides as well as played in the lazy river. We were there for MAYBE an hour before they decided they were ready to return to the river. By the time we got home last night, my kids had crashed once in the car already. They were out again not long after getting in to bed.

All in all, a very nice end of summer activity. If you're willing to drive, the cost to tube is very reasonable. Pack a picnic lunch and make a day out of it.