Head for the hills

Just got back from a nice little two-day excursion up to the North Georgia Mountains. I came back with a nice sack of apples, a hacking cough and a greater loathing for the Metropolitan Atlanta area.

We stayed in a cabin on top of a mountain, a really rustic place with authentic foosball, air hockey and pool tables, satellite TV and a four-person hot tub. As I sat in the hot tub, sipping a glass of cheap wine and looking out over a peaceful valley, I knew exactly how the Indians who used to live in those hills felt. You know, before my ancestors chased them out.

The cabin had a nice gas fireplace, which I could never figure out how to work. What kind of a fireplace comes with a remote control? Every time I tried to get the fire going, I wound up changing the channel on the TV. So I finally gave up.

It is quite beautiful up there near Blue Ridge, Ga., and the surrounding areas, though some of the inhabitants are a little bit sketchy. I saw a lot of Confederate flags, which seems unnecessary. The war is over, boys. We ran out of bullets.

It rained harder than a cow peeing on a flat rock all day Monday, so that limited our outdoor activities. I didn’t see much wildlife, though I did spot what I believed to be a giant peacock outside our cabin one morning. But then it spread its wings and went soaring off the mountainside, and I changed my mind and decided it was a wild turkey. As God is my witness, I didn’t know turkeys could fly.

The mountains weren’t too crowded this time of year, which is the number one reason to go there. And it was too cold for all of the Harley riders who take over that region in warm weather, which I don’t mind, except they’re so damn loud it’s like you’re vacationing on an airport runway when they go rumbling past.

The rain stopped Tuesday and we ambled our way back, stopping for a few minutes in Helen, Ga., which looks like a town built by Disney. The town has an “alpine” theme, with all sorts of Bavarian and German-sounding names, like Edelweiss and Hofbrau, and polka music blaring over loudspeakers. We were hungry, so naturally we spent the first 30 minutes looking for a good old “country cooking” restaurant. Believe it or not, we found one, and I had a country-fried steak that would make Heidi proud.

After that, I had to stop somewhere and get a sack of boiled peanuts, because I don’t feel like I’ve been to the mountains if I don’t do that. I washed them down with a nice, cold Peach Nehi, and then we were on our way back to hell, I mean, Atlanta.

Specifically, Atlanta traffic. It was brutal. I knew better than to try to go through town, but when I was coming down Ga. 400, I picked up a traffic report on the radio and the woman said, and I quote, “Not much going on out there, except much lighter than normal volume.”

Two hours later, as I passed through downtown, a scant 10 miles from where I heard that volume was light, moving slower than the speed of smell, I decided that I would hunt down this traffic woman someday and make her pay for her sin. I began to believe we would never get home. Every way I tried was backed up – 1-75, 1-285, 1-675, Highway 138. I felt like Griffin Dunne in “After Hours.”

Finally we made it, and I began plotting some way to retire early and move away from this madness. To keep from sitting in that traffic again, I would fly a Confederate flag in my yard, listen to Harleys all day and even learn how to work a remote-control fireplace.