Lake Allatoona

A few days ago J wanted to take the boys and go do some fishing, but there's not really any good fishing places around here. I told him we'd go over to Lake Weiss and fish one day.

At some point after that it dawned on me that we live maybe a half hour from our own lake, Allatoona. I don't know why I never remember it's so close. I practically grew up going to Lake Allatoona, we've had family reunions there, went for an EMS family day.

Checking my calendar and seeing J was off on Sunday, I decided to plan a picnic and a day of fishing.
Researching the lake on the internet turned up alot of options. Found out there was a Visitor's Center with a museum and a Dam overlook, and day use parks with picnic areas and grills.

We headed first to the Visitor's Center and checked out the museum, then walked up to the overlook and looked at the Dam and back out over Cooper's Furnace and the Etowah River. Beautiful View.

Then we drove down to the Cooper's Branch Day Use area. I didn't realize it at the time, but we arrived at a great time. There was hardly anyone there. We got our pick of spots right down beside the water. Not long after we got there, within thirty minutes probably, the place started getting more and more crowded.

J got the charcoal burning then they got the poles ready and fished, while I kicked back in my chair and read my book. Aaaahhhh. Lovely, relaxing, day.
When the charcoal was ready J cooked the burgers and dogs. We also had potato salad, cole slaw, chips, chocolate chips cookies for dessert and sweet tea to drink. Yu-u-um!
 

  Unfortunately the fishing wasn't as good as lunch. After lunch we packed up and went to another part of the lake, off the side of the road in a cove, but the fish weren't biting there either.

So we gave up and drove over to Cooper's Furnace park and check it out. It was muy crowded, but we viewed the Furnace and read about it and walked down by the River.

Georgia Renaissance Festival

This weekend was opening weekend of the Georgia Renaissance Festival, and they were having a special BOGO (Buy One Get One Free) ticket sale. This was something we had been wanting to visit for years but had just never got or made the opportunity to go before. Me and Ryan heard the commercial on the radio and he said we should go, and J was off on Saturday, so it sounded like a good time to go.

It was terrible time to go. Everyone in the entire world was all trying to go at the same time. The interstate was backed up for hours. Once we finally got off the exit, there was a two-lane road for a couple miles, which while those of us waited in line, other jerks would drive up the left lane and cut in front of people. I mean literally cut in. We had a car force it's way in on us. They absolutely were going to hit us if we didn't get out of their way.

We finally arrived to the festival and paid our $39.95 to get in. Thank goodness we didn't pay twice that much.

We had tried to get there around 10am, but because of traffic it ended up being after 2pm before we got in.

We caught a show called "All the Kings Horses". It was boring. A couple of girls running the horses in circles mostly.

I guess we missed the joust show.

There were some neat mid-evil "rides", but the rest of it was mostly shops and eating.

I tried a turkey leg, because that was the thing to get at a Renaissance festival. It tasted okay, but was tough to gnaw on.

The prices of everything was outrageous, even for an event like that.

Everyone left at the same time, it seemed like, and trying to get out of the parking area was crazy. We were parked in cow pastures, and some people tried to form lines, while others were just barreling out through the middle and cutting into the line at the front.

After a couple of hours, and ending up having waited behind an apparently parked car, we cut through the middle and into the line and was out of there in less than 5 minutes. Crazy!