Recently Ali and I met up with Gabe and Jana for an extended weekend of relaxation. Gabe sold the trip as being at a cabin in the North Georgia Mountains. We pictured it as rustic, secluded, and sparse. After they picked us up from the airport we headed East down I-20. It turns out the cabin, lovingly named Old Sandwich, was located at Cuscowilla on Lake Oconee in Eastern Georgia – a golf resort. Not quite what we expected, but the place rocked. It had two bedrooms plus a master suite each with a private bath. The living room and master suite had a fireplace. There was a full service kitchen. The back deck looked out at the green on hole #2. In a word, gorgeous.

It was my kind of vacation too. My days consisted of getting up late; eating breaking; taking a nap; and lounging around. In the evenings, we would go out to dinner; come back to the Old Sandwich; and hang out on the back deck until we couldn’t stay awake any longer. It was very relaxing. We stayed there Wednesday afternoon through Saturday morning.

One interesting thing about Cuscowilla is all of the pine trees looked funny. The bottom two feet of the trunk had a larger diameter than the rest of the tree – almost like they ballooned out. It turns out some sort of genetic research was conducted there before it became a golf resort. This alone would have been fine, but then the Squeaver’s showed up. These things were scary! They were very large and black – so black they just seemed to absorb light to the point that you couldn’t quite make out all of their features. Ali coined the term “Squeaver,” thinking they might be some sort of mutant squirrel – beaver combination. We kept a close eye on them; we were sure they were going to drag us off at any second to some hidden layer. There was also the less intimidating “Sqwunk,” which was the mutant squirrel – skunk. It just looked friendlier with that big white stripe running the length of its body.

On Saturday morning, we left the beautiful cabin and strange mutant animals behind and headed to Atlanta. The Georgia Aquarium was at the top of our list for the day’s activities. We spent several hours there wondering around looking at the marine life. The highlight for me was the whale slide in the children’s section.

Later that night Gabe arranged for us to go to dinner at Chops an upscale restaurant in the Buckhead section of Atlanta. I thoroughly enjoyed the filet mignon, and mashed potatoes. For desert I had the crème brûlée. After dinner we retired to the hotel for a night cap of sorts while sitting outside and enjoying the evening. We had to get up early the next morning to make our flight. We all met for breakfast around 6am, and then Gabe and Jana drove us back to the airport.

Ali and I had a great time – Thanks guys!

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