A weekend away...

This weekend we did something very out of character... on Friday afternoon, we decided to take a weekend off and head north for a quiet weekend in the mountains. Last fall, as we were considering a mountain weekend, we'd found a nice B&B not far from Atlanta in one of the local travel magazines. The Overlook Inn is just 20 miles west of a little town called Ellijay GA, home of the Georgia Apple Festival. The Inn is on top of Fort Mountain and is just what a mountain B&B should be. It sits at the top of the mountain about a mile away from the only big hotel in the area, the Cohutta Lodge & Restaurant.

The Inn is very quiet, with only 4 rooms and a picturesque common room that has a really great fire, shelves of books, roomy leather sofas and reading chairs, and soft music playing most of the day. There's only one TV, the one in the common room - which remained off 90% of our stay. When we got there the inn keeper was putting out afternoon wine and cheese for everyone.

Perhaps the only flaw in our last minute trip was probably the weather. As most of you know Atlanta got hit by a Tornado this weekend and thankfully we were out of town for that. But we did get a fair amount of rain in the mountains this weekend. In fact, we took this shot of the view from the common room during the 10 minutes that you could actually see something other than a white wall of fog.

We were told that pretty much the only place to eat around was the Lodge. Although it was only a mile down the road, it was definitely as far as we wanted to venture that first night. The visibility in the fog that night was approximately 5 feet - and I'm not kidding. I don't know what we expected, but we found the dining room and all you could eat seafood buffet to be not unlike a senior center cafeteria with an amazing view - which again, we couldn't see. Perhaps the best part was the music... they had the radio tuned to the John Tesh show. We heard some UB40, Madonna, and Bryan Adams... even Straight Up by Paula Abdul. Classic.

We tried to keep an open mind and search the menu for just about the safest thing you could order in such an environment - something fried. I ordered the Jumbo Coconut Shrimp and DG got the Fried Chicken. Surprisingly- they served us the best shrimp & chicken we've had in a while! Yes, there we were, facing the two story window wall of white fog & dining on, as he put it, "More chicken than his plate could contain." And just to drive the point home -in case any of you should ever be passing through Ellijay, we had to take a picture once dinner arrived. This was the coconut cream pie... easily the best we've ever tasted. Mammoth!

Saturday we enjoyed a nice quiche breakfast at our Inn, then got some directions to the Fort Mountain State Park entrance. The fog was still really thick, but there wasn't any rain, so we thought we'd chance it. The hike started out well, we saw the "mysterious" stone wall & tower... origins unknown - i.e. the mysterious part. However, the fog started to set in pretty thick as we got to the overlook platform. We took a few shots along the walk and a little video from that platform. It was a little like being on the set of Harry Potter. Literally all you could see in any direction (including below you) was white. Then as we were filming, all of a sudden the wind kicked up and we could see the town below peeking though the clouds. In case anyone wants to see it, we'll attach it for you below.

Sunday as we ate breakfast, we did finally get to see the view as the storms had passed and the sun was shining. We were glad we got to visit, and will surely keep this place in mind for a quick weekend getaway in the future...