Donna and I took the afternoon Saturday to ride up to Pine Mountain and Callaway. We stopped on top of the mountain for lunch at the Country Store. It is a popular tourist attraction for good reason. There was about a 30 minute wait so we took the time to enjoy the view and sample some of the homemade fair at the country store. When we got a table we waited a couple of minutes extra to get a corner table next to the glass with a view off the mountain. This was definitely worth a couple of extra minutes. This area is much like north Georgia where I grew up.

When the menus came I decided on the Callaway Classic burger which includes a half pound hamburger with cheese and bacon strips and a true southern thing - fried green tomatoes. While we waited for the burger they brought a plate of biscuits and cornbread with muscadine preserves. If you haven’t had muscadine preserves you have truly missed out. It was a great lunch in a relaxing atmosphere.

After all that, we needed a walk, so we went to the gardens to walk thru the 40 acre azalea bowl of Callaway a 13,000 acre resort in Pine Mountain. The Cherry trees are in full bloom and the azaleas are in the beginning stages of blooming. We will be back over the next couple of weeks to see the azaleas go into full bloom. There are over 4000 azalea bushes in what they call the azalea bowl.

We walked from the azalea bowl to the Ida Cason Memorial Chapel. It is absolutely stunning and worth the walk.