City Slickers meet Deliverance

This past weekend Brandon, myself and several other friends trekked our way to Clayton, Georgia for a wedding between two other friends. The wedding was beautiful/fun but that will be in the photo albums. Let me tell you about Clayton.

Last Thursday, I decided I would look up some info on the town of Clayton to find what we could do for the two days Brandon and I would spend there. It’s a lovely mountain town along the boarder of South Carolina and Georgia I also discovered Margaret Mitchell lived there while she wrote Gone with the Wind and the movie Deliverance was filmed there. (Cue fiddle!)

As Brandon and I drove the good old SUV toward the wedding site (and making a pit stop in Greenville...oh the memories, but that’s for another blog) we noted how pretty the area was becoming. From the beaches to the mountains in less than a day; it was lovely to see the change in our surroundings and the climate. We arrived in Clayton around three o’clock and I couldn’t believe how cute the downtown was.

It looked as though a town had been picked up from Germany and plopped down in the middle of Clayton. The woodwork on most of the buildings and the "gingerbread" styling to some of the larger establishments was adorable! Brandon and I parked the car and checked into our hotel. The people were sweet and though our lodging was definitely old (and really could have used some renovation) it was still quaint.

As we unpacked our "hangables" and toiletries the phone started ringing unexplainably, who could possibly be calling us, no one knew our new room number. Whenever Brandon would pick it up it would be dead. Creepy! So we tried calling the front desk. Busy. Hmm, something’s wrong here. So Brandon made his way downstairs. The phone rang again, this time the front desk clerk was on the other end, saying he’s cleared all messages and is not sure why the phone isn’t working. He asks that I call the front desk to see if it fixed the phone. I hang up dial "0" still busy. Nope, room phone is definitely broken.

Ok, no biggie. Both Brandon and I have our cell phones we’ll just talk to people on those like usual. WRONG! When Brandon came back to the room we checked our cell phones only to find out our carrier doesn’t get signal up there! WHAT?!

(Cue Michelle freaking out) "How are we supposed to get in touch with people without our cell phones?! What did we do before cell phones? Ohmygod...I need to sit down."

We asked the front clerk if there is anywhere we might be able to get service and he mentioned going to Walmart (surprise) and trying up there, as it’s the highest, most open space in the city. Ok, so to Walmart we went...we needed to buy s’mores supplies anyway for the bonfire that night. Brandon pulls into the Walmart parking lot, still "no signal". In a last ditch effort I stand on the car and reach my hand as high in the air as possible hoping and praying for a signal. NO FREAKIN’ SIGNAL!

This means, no text, no voicemail, no alarm clocks (FYI, there weren’t any in the hotel either), no calling! What were we to do? Luckily most of our friends were staying in the same hotel, so we did it old school, we made meeting times for in the lobby and carpooled or caravaned our ways around the city and to and from the wedding site.

(In a side note, after the wedding several of us went to a local pub as we walked in the locals seemed to stop what they were doing to look at the newcomers.)

It was a great weekend and as Brandon said the Mayor of Clayton probably threw a block party when the "Charleston Folks" left.