Dear Dahlonega,

Nothing quite compares to your beauty during the holiday season. The leaves turn and fall from your branches, there is always a nice cool breeze that brushes past us while we walk through the square, and for a few months orange is our favorite color. For a little mountain town, you sure get hot during the summer, but we forgive you. Being a student here, we sometimes forget to notice your beauty as we get caught up in the swing of classes and exams. But for a couple of months, we get transfixed with this town.

First, there’s Gold Rush. We welcome the return of fall with the Gold Rush Festival. If you are a resident of this town, you are either going to Gold Rush or leaving town altogether, because there is no in-between. The whole square shuts down and vendors pop up. The streets are lined with food carts and tents and live entertainment. We buy everything we don’t really need, and somehow don’t feel guilty for it. Every year, I spend about 30 minutes looking at the jewelry made from china pieces, but I always talk myself out of it and buy another spoon ring.

It is practically a rite of passage for anyone who lives here in the fall to experience Gold Rush at least once and go to Uncle Shuck’s Corn Maze as many times as you can. After Gold Rush, there is no more waiting—fall is here. Go buy your pumpkins and replace last year’s worn out boots. By this time, the town is yellow and brown, and there are creepy scarecrows all over the square (Honestly, we could do without those, Dahlonega). As fall fades into winter, our love for you grows even more, but that is a letter for another time.

Thank you, Dahlonega, for this beautiful little mountain town that we have all fallen hopelessly in love with. You have instilled in us a sense of tradition, as well as appreciation for you. Even though the scarecrows are freaky and give us heart attacks when we drive at night, it is always a little comforting to see them as we drive into town to start college every fall.

Keep doing you, Dahlonega.