A Quick Weekend Getaway

Brandon and I have lived less than 5 minutes away from this exclusive 5 star resort for nearly 6 years and have never been inside it's grand gates.  It's not that we didn't want to go to Barnsley, but let's face it - when we want to go on a getaway or vacation, we usually want to get away and we just never considered laying down the money to vacation in our back yard. (We had both visited Barnsley before it's incredible renovation on elementary school field trips.  Back then, it was just the gardens and the ruins.)  You can read up on the history, romance and tragedies of Barnsley Gardens here.

The service at this resort is incredible.  When we walked into the registration lobby, the clerk said "Hello Jessica.  Let's get you to your cottage."  I almost looked down to my shirt to see if I had accidentally worn my bank name tag in!  After signing in, the sweetest little man escorted us to our cottage.  The little cottages are so cute, luxurious and cozy.  Here is our cottage for the night:

The cottage had a separate living room with a sofa, chair & ottoman and a small table and four chairs.  The living room also had nice plasma television and a small bar area with a sink, coffee pot, mini fridge etc...  The bedroom was just as nice with a huge king-sized bed and a cedar armoire that smelled so good I could have slept in there.  My favorite part of the cottage however had to be the bath room.  The toilet was in a totally separate room altogether (like not even in the bathroom), but the actual bathroom had solid white mosaic tile floors, a grand claw foot bathtub and a separate standing shower flanked with more of the pristine white mosaics.  The bathroom floor wasn't the only flooring worth mentioning though - the entire cottage was covered in the shiniest, cleanest pine hardwood floors that I've ever seen (and with just the right amount of "creak" I might add).

After getting settled in, Brandon and I quickly headed outdoors.  We walked just a few hundred feet away to the entrance of the gardens, and then on through the the mansion ruins.  The weather was perfect for our walk - not too hot and we could vaguely hear rumbles of thunder off in the distance.  It was kind of the ideal mood for walking through the gardens and ruins of Barnsley (which legend has it is haunted by Julia Barnsley's ghost).

From the looks of the gardens, we had just missed all the tulip blooms.  A few still had their blooms, but the azaleas were blooming and were soooo beautiful.  I planted a couple of azalea bushes last spring, but alas.... they didn't survive :(

The ruins are so hauntingly beautiful.  You can't help but imagine what life inside this mansion in the late 1800's must have been like - with more than 4,000 acres of beautiful gardens surrounding you. 

Now I'm sure this chandelier has been added through the renovations, as this is a well-sought after venue for weddings and other romantic rendezvous, but this mansion was the first dwelling in this area with indoor plumbing.

If my backyard were this beautiful, I may never step inside the house...

After checking out the mansion ruins, we walked through the gardens to find what Brandon remembered as the family's cemetery.  I didn't remember that stop on our elementary school tour, but it has been proven that Brandon has a much better memory of such events than I do. 

We did find the cemetery, complete with the Barnsley family plots (only one of which was marked).  We also saw some lesser decorated, but still marked grave sights scattered among the woods near the family's cemetery.  Brandon remembered those as the family's slave's grave sights.  I didn't get any pics of the cemetery.  Too morbid for my taste, but still neat to see.

We saw this big guy on our walk back to the cottage from the gardens.  The thunder was getting a little closer and we had dinner reservations to attend to.  He was getting his picture made by several other people enjoying the gardens, but for some reason when I tried to take his picture, he jerked his head up and started hissing and almost growling at me!  I did what any other girl in my shoes would do - I threw my husband at him and took off running!

We also walked back through the mansion through the rear entrance and heard this beautiful dance music running through the mansion.  We didn't think much of it, again because of the types of events in the ruins it isn't unthinkable that they have it rigged with various romantic lights and sounds, but then we turned the corner and OOPS!  We walked right into this room where a lovely young man was asking the question of a lifetime - complete with rose petals, music, dancing and champagne on ice.  We tried as quickly and as quietly as possible to get out of there, and then only on our way out did we notice the rose petals leading through the gardens and into the ruins.  So much for this guy's romantic plans :/ 

We had dinner reservations at the Woodlands Grill on the resort that evening.  There are actually two restaurants on the resort grounds, but the Rice House (the more upscale dining) is closed January through April each year.  We were more than excited though to try the Woodlands Grill.  From our friends who are members at Barnsley, they all recommend the Grill over the Rice House anyway.  

They seated us right in front of a gorgeous window overlooking the driving range and practice putting green.  It was such a beautiful evening and we sat right next to Bobby Cox, the newly retired manager of the Atlanta Braves.  It's not unusual to see him here in Adairsville, as he has an "off-season" home here, but I was pleasantly surprised to see that most other patrons of the restaurant left him alone to have dinner with his family. 

We ordered the chili cheese nachos as an appetizer.  They were soooo good. 

I haven't been able to eat much chicken with this pregnancy (which is strange and new to me), so I of course opted for my protein of choice lately - steak :)  Oh.My.Goodness.  This was a bone-in ribeye (at least three inches thick) with asparagus, red potatoes, and mushrooms covered in a red wine sauce.  Believe it or not, I actually ate most of it.  We enjoyed our conversation and surprisingly, we didn't talk about the boys at all.  We talked about work, Bean 3 (Brandon has finally conceded to my choice for this baby girl's name.  I think he was just being stubborn all along, but he'll never admit it ;)) and we had lots of laughs over screwing up that guy's moment of a lifetime.  Brandon said the guy needed an interruption because he had inevitably set the bar wayyyy too high with that type of proposal and needed a good reality check.  He said the guy will have to live up to those standards for the rest of his married life....  (insert eye roll here)

After dinner, we walked back to our cottage through the streets of equally adorable cottages and then through the Beer Garden.  The Beer Garden is an outdoor (and much lower key) dinner option at Barnsley.  They have picnic tables set up under strings of paper lanterns and garden lights with an order-at-the-counter style burger, hot dog and beer stand.  They had two huge televisions showing the March Madness basketball events.  I could imagine that Brandon and I would have made a stop here for a few after dinner beverages had Bean 3 not been present ;)

We passed lots of couples playing the various lawn games - croquet, frisbee, horse shoes, etc.. and several more either making their way to the Grill or off to the gardens.  A few people were horseback riding, or renting bikes.  Not very suitable for me and Bean 3, so we just retired to our cottage for the night.

Fully intending to sleep past our boys' usual wake up time of 6:50 -7:00AM, we woke up promptly at 7:30AM.  Special thanks to the sweet little bird that sang us awake so early right outside our window :)

Because we were awake anyway, we walked back down to the Grill for breakfast.  While they do serve menu items for breakfast, they were also having a breakfast buffet that we had heard rave reviews about, so we opted for that.  I filled my plate with bacon, fruit, a cream cheese crepe and warm pancakes topped with fresh fruit preserves and syrup.  They sure do know how to make a pregnant girl happy at Barnsley!

After breakfast and a cup of coffee, we walked down towards the spa and pool area of the resort.  I've heard wonderful things about the spa at Barnsley, but we had so much in the way of yard work to do on Sunday, that we didn't have much time for that.  I did want to make a special trip down there, however because I had been told by a little birdie that Barnsley had planted a tree in my late cousin's honor right in front of the spa.  Sure enough!  Here is the cute little tree - I just had to take a picture.

We had a wonderful night at Barnsley Gardens.  I would definitely recommend it to anyone - even if you do live right next door.  They also have special accommodations for the even the smallest members of your family.  In addition to the pool and (obviously) lots of roaming room, they have little bicycle/tricycle rentals, a playground and even children's menu items at the Grill.  I don't see us taking our little bits there anytime soon though - Barnsley would have a few more "ruins" after my boys made their rounds!