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Allatoona Paradise
By: Bob Sabin
My family has been blessed to be able to spend several weekends each summer on Lake Allatoona for the past few years. Lake Allatoona represents a wonderful slice of demographics that is characteristic of north Georgia, and we generally enjoy every minute of it. A country singer named Craig Morgan has a song titled, “Redneck Yacht Club,” and we can definitely relate.
Small bass boats with humongous outboard engines drift by at sunrise and sunset with lines hanging out. Once the fish stop biting, the boats roar away at 60+ miles an hour. I don’t think those guys really like to fish. I think they like to drink beer and go fast and fishing is the excuse.
Our home base on the lake is near Cartersville at Wilderness Camp where there are about 20 modest units near the marina and some floating cabins. A precondition of owning in that locale is that each family member over the age of 13 is required to have a tattoo. There are more tattoos and piercings in our cove than all of Fort Benning and the Goth commune in Decatur combined. We petitioned the Board and fortunately, got an exception for two of us – but I’m not allowed to disclose which two.
The lake is busy again this summer. Last year, weekends on the lake looked much like weekends in downtown Atlanta. Not much happenin.’ But this year is more like 2007. The water is up and the price of gas is down. On July 4th, I thought I was on 285 at rush hour. I literally had to stop the boat and wait for traffic in order to cut left in to our cove. The difference between car and boat traffic is simple. In a car, you don’t generally bounce three feet in the air when another car passes in the opposite direction. My wife thinks I can control that on the lake. She gets a little ticky when we hit a big wake. “OK dear. I’ll tell the idiot in the forty foot cabin cruiser to go to idle speed when approaching our dinghy.”
The guy in me thought it would be cool to get a jet ski for our weekends at the lake. Fortunately, three years later, we still have the jet ski and all three of our kids. They think there are two speeds on that thing. Stopped and “wake ramming speed.” If they don’t get air, it hasn’t been a productive day. However, the boys have kind of lost interest in it. It’s an older model and it doesn’t fly as high as it used to. The jet ski is a brand that isn’t manufactured anymore, so we have a problem getting parts for it. Heck. I have a friend who can get parts for a ‘58 Austin-Healey. It just doesn’t seem fair.
We love to sit on the dock and watch the sunset. But on the busiest days of summer, it can be uncomfortable for us when the guys who are insecure in their masculinity blow by just below the speed of sound in their racing boats. It throws our Margaritas – I mean – soft drinks – off the table. Sometimes I feel like I’m back in college – not losing points for “spillage.”
Dining out on the lake is a unique experience. Restaurants on Allatoona all remind me of the Texas Road House from the movie “Blues Brothers.” Very similar – except the band isn’t protected behind a chain link fence. It is fun to pull up to a restaurant and dock your boat, then cruise down a completely dark channel after sunset thinking, “is this the cove where our cabin is?” It’s always a good idea to leave before last call however. Otherwise you are one of 20 boats speeding off down the lake – only there are no lanes or lane markers to keep the impaired drivers in a single line.
We still have one or two visits left this summer, but we are already looking forward to next year. Does anyone know a doctor who does a good job of tattoo removal? I’m just asking…..