Great News:
Fantastic lodge prices: a one night stay cost me…read moreonly $58!! (for 1 adult and 2 seniors!!)
Scenic state park featuring an 18 hole golf course (I refrain from golf for embarrassment reasons)
Friendly small-town staff.
Small airport directly across the highway.
VERY effective room air-conditioning.
Single story buildings.
Small "Restaurant" inside the lodge (did not dine there).
Color Television with Cable.
Iron & Ironing Board.
Coffeemaker.
Hair dryer.
Space-age built-in soap/shampoo/conditioner dispensers.
Glamorous News:
This same lodge was recently used by the crew of one of those family-fixing "Nanny" reality shows while they were filming an episode in the McRae area. The lingering cloud of "Hollywood Glamour" at the lodge is palpable, though you should be careful not to confuse it with the teeming hordes of angry gnats (see below).
Non-Glamorous News:
Location may be perceived as "isolated" by resort-conscious (there is no "ocean view").
Woods be full of Captain Drew's lubber kinfolk and ticks (in equal measure).
Teeming hordes of angry gnats. Angry, angry gnats that should not be confused with Hollywood Glamour (see above).
Bad News:
Firm mattresses.
Relentlessly firm mattresses.
Unforgivingly firm mattresses.
The Deal:
If you've a bad back, drive south Jim m'lad and don't stop 'till you've arrived at the wooden sign for the Little Ocmulgee State Park (and Lodge). Located about 35 minutes south of Dublin in the heart of Gnats-Up-Your-Nose County, this state park be the same locale where Captain Drew goes for his annual family reunion of inlaws and outlaws.... partly because we be such a wild bunch that we can't be contained by anything smaller, but mostly because it only costs us a couple hundred groats to rent an air-conditioned pavilion with its own surface parking lot.
Perhaps one day I'll take one of you sweet-bottomed lasses down there on me arm to show off to me cousin/wives....
In all these years of herding my parents down to the reunion we've never stayed overnight in this state park's lodge UNTIL last week, when we found ourselves compelled southward by familial love and memorial duty. En route we agreed to give this state-run lodge a tryout since our former favorite, the Magnolia Inn, is now operated by a friendly family with a penchant for curries so indescribably pungent that the scent has permanently permeated the molecular essence of every structural component of their flophouse. While I enjoy a good curry as well as the next fellow, I also enjoy the delicious aroma of 78% nitrogen, 20.95% oxygen, 0.93% argon, 0.038% carbon dioxide, trace amounts of other gases, and a variable amount (average around 1%) of water vapor.
We were certain to find fresh air at the Little Ocmulgee State Park Lodge, and we did!!
Signing In
A breeze.... super fast.
Our Stay
Our lodgings were VERYsatisfactory. With the exception of a missing ice bucket (we had the lid), the room was as fully stocked as any other contemporary hotel room you'd find anywhere else in the nation. Why spend more somewhere else?
Checking Out
My only recommendation is to make every effort to prevent men in golfing togs and pronounced drawls getting in line ahead of you (especially if they're in the sawmill business) because they will delay your departure by 20 minutes as they kibitz with the friendly staff, loudly declaring how much money they make, detailing how much their monthly income surpasses the annual income of their fellow townfolk and generally strutting about acting "all rich and stuff".
One solution to this dilemma is of course to nip out onto the nearby "wetlands" boardwalk (ie, swampy-path-to-nowhere), secure some sort of non-venomous-but-nontheless-agitated indigenous wildlife and insert it into the open golfbags in the back of the rich guys' pick-up trucks. Alternately, you can simply stand in line behind them with a fake smile plastered across your face, pondering at how marvelously ridiculous your little planet can be~