Back on September 7, I was lamenting the fact that another summer had come and gone without us being able to take a vacation. We still haven't, exactly, but we did get a long weekend at a fantastic resort.
These folks are one of our advertising clients and the guy with whom we interface had told The Boss he'd offer a special 'friend' rate if he wanted to go up sometime, which he did. Later on, The Boss said he could get us that special rate and also offered to subsidize our stay, up to a certain amount, as my birthday present! Yay! So we chose this past weekend. I left a bit early on Friday, hoping to drive up before metro Atlanta rush hour started (a plan which crashed and burned most spectacularly, but that's okay).

When we got there, our client had set us up not with a room but a suite - a HUGE suite - I think it's about half as big as our house, seriously. It was gorgeous.

This is only part of one of the three rooms. They take their luxury seriously. Not that there's anything wrong with that.




French doors looking into our bedroom, from whence another balcony opened.








Friday we had a nice dinner at one of the restaurants on the property; I drank a Cosmopolitan, one of which I hadn't had for quite some time and so enjoyed immensely, went for a pleasant walk afterward and then relaxed with a Pelligrino (him) and a glass of wine (me) on one of our balconies (yes, plural, ha!) enjoying the breeze and listening to the sound of the water. Heavenly.

Saturday after a yummy breakfast buffet, we made a run to a nearby Publix. Water and sodas from the machine were $2.00 each so we bought a bag of ice, a cheap styrofoam cooler and our own bottled waters, plus a few Rolling Rocks for me. We explored the beautifully landscaped property and hung out variously on balcony and couch, reading books and being fantastically lazy. We took many pictures of passing boats and planned to rent one for a couple of hours Sunday, but that didn't work out because the day was very windy and it would have been too cold to be out on the water. However, we did rent a golf cart for an hour and zipped about all over the resort - there are many things besides the lodge: a water park, stables, a spa, lake houses and condos you can rent if you don't want to stay in the lodge itself, and the entirety is delightfully landscaped and well maintained.
















We ate two lovely meals here and here. We are definitely going back to Aqua Terra, despite the distance, because it was just that gastronomically amazing. If you go to their site and check out the menu, I had the grilled salmon, Alan had the rib eye and Mom had the scallops. Oh yeah, Mom drove up to hang out with us Sunday and go golf-carting, which was very fun. She got lost in a roundabout getting there, which I find funny but it's okay for me to poke fun on the blog because I already teased her about it in person. Oh, and Nancy? If you're reading this, you and Mark are legally obligated to join us at Aqua Terra for dinner sometime, preferably in the near future.

I overpacked as usual but this time, it wasn't entirely my fault. This place is about an hour north of Atlanta so I didn't expect it to be any different from home, weather-wise, except that it would probably dip down a few more degrees cooler at night. So I packed both my black and faded denim skorts and three t-shirts, as well as an extra pair of jeans and two long-sleeved shirts. However, the wind off the water was really cold! Sitting in the car wearing a sweatshirt, I was too hot but once outside, there was no question of me putting on a short-sleeved shirt or a skort. We even bought a sweatshirt for me at the gift shop, because the long-sleeved cotton shirts (with camisoles!) I'd brought weren't nearly warm enough. We bought Alan a sweatshirt too, but his was more a souvenir than a necessity. Each day I wound up changing tops several times, totally unlike me, because I couldn't seem to get the right clothing-to-ambient-temperature ratio figured out.

There are more vacation anecdotes to follow, involving snails, the power of being nice, and 'it wouldn't be me without a disaster' but I'll conclude this post with more pictures that I liked.