Fielder's Choice

I got to take one brief nap in the sun during a four-day vacation last week.

Pam and I escaped to a new spot for us ­ Weiss Lake near Cedar Bluff, Ala.

My wife is good at finding peaceful, relaxing locations. This one was one of the best yet.

However, the weather didn't cooperate very well.

It rained for a good bit of the four-and-a-half drive there on Wednesday. Then it turned cold and extremely windy Thursday and Friday.

We saw some sunshine Saturday, our last day of the trip.

That's when I managed to take it easy in a lounge chair on the deck of the cabin overlooking the beautiful lake.

Despite the spring chill, we were actually able to do lot of things we enjoy ­ visiting small town shops, taking in beautiful scenery and sampling several restaurants. And, I even went along with Pam on a Geocaching adventure.

We went to Centre, the county seat of Chickasaw County, a few times. The first included browsing through some antique shops. The second was to pick up some great food at Bar-B-Que Place & More, no doubt one of the most popular places in Centre.

We drove across the state line, into the Eastern Time Zone, and experienced the City of Rome, Ga., for a few hours. We did a little shopping and then enjoyed dinner at Blue Fin Restaurant. The sushi was excellent.

We spent the good chunk of a day in Ft. Payne, Ala.

One of our first stops was at the Big Mill Antique Mall. Pam found the item she was looking for ­ a piece she can convert into a cookie jar. Then we had an appetizer, while watching the NCAA Tournament, at Vintage 1889 Cafe ­ attached to the antique mall. The experience at Vintage grades an A-plus.

We stopped at a downtown park, complete with a tribute to the singing group Alabama, whose members call Ft. Payne home.

On the way back to Cedar Bluff, we walked a short distance to get a close-up view of Little River Falls.

Wow! The 45-foot waterfall is at the beginning of the Little River Canyon, which extends 12 miles to the southwest.

In 1540, Hernando DeSoto and his army of Spanish soldiers passed through and wrote about the long mountain with waterfalls.

We also visited Cornwall Furnace, which was just a couple of miles from the cabin on Weiss Lake.

The Confederate States of America, in 1862, commissioned the Noble Brothers of Rome, Ga., to erect a cold blast furnace to produce needed pig iron for the war effort.

The Geocaching adventure started at Cornwall Furnace. Efforts were unsuccessful there. Surely, the container had been moved.

But we found the next one, hidden under an old piece of metal in downtown Cedar Bluff.

And I almost forgot some of the best hamburgers in the world that we bought from a small shack, The Burger Place, in Cedar Bluff.

Experiencing new places is something Pam and I enjoy the most. And we drove to Sand Rock and Leesburg, too.