Courtesy photo Fort Gordon service members participate in a singles excursion to Atlanta where they enjoyed classes and luxurious accommodations in a trip led recently by Chaplain David Schlichter. When I first read about the Singles Adventure in the unit e-mail newsletter, many different thoughts crossed my mind.

First was that this was going to be a trip full of 18 or 19 year olds and I at 29 would appear ancient. The second thought was that since this was being run by the Chaplain that it was going to be evangelist in nature. I myself am Christian but I really didn't want to have verses quoted to me all weekend long.

I wanted to have fun.

My third fear was that it was going to be some sort of speed dating weekend for desperate single people.

In the end I finally decided it couldn't hurt to sign up because it was free and they said there was going to be fun stuff.

We would be staying at a 5-star resort hotel.

I couldn't pass it up.

Now I'm really glad I didn't let my presumptions dictate my course because I ended up having a great time, meeting interesting people, and even learning a thing or two.

We met at 6:15 on a Friday morning. As we gathered I realized we had quite a diverse group of people. There were members of all services, all age groups and a decent mix of men and women. We were on the road by 7 a.m. on our way toward Atlanta.

Since many of us were too excited to sleep we talked and got to know one another. By the time we made it to Stone Mountain, we were already becoming fast friends.

At about 10 a.m. we arrived at the hotel.What a hotel it was! Truly a 5-star resort, the Evergreen Marriott Conference Resort was everything you would think a 5-star resort would be. As we were given the grand tour we found they had a gym, indoor and outdoor pool, Starbucks, a spa, and a gift shop.

From there we were shown to our conference room which included all you could eat snacks and drinks (including but not limited to biscuits with cheese and ham, fruits, bagels, muffins, tea, coffee juice, and soda for breakfast and later including ice cream and different candy bins). After we had all loaded up on snacks we started our training.

The program was entitled "How to Avoid Marrying a Jerk or Jerkette" and I won't give too much away but I was pleasantly surprised at the course material. It was ideas and concepts that could really be applied to everyday life. The chaplain was an engaging speaker and gave us a lot of personal examples as well as drew the class into discussions. There were many topics including communication, self evaluation, relationship evaluation, intimacy, and money. We also talked about many issues singles face on a daily basis.

Overall it was a great class that I would highly recommend to all my friends, single or not.

After the training we all went to dinner at the hotel restaurant. I cannot even begin to praise the food and service we received there. Every meal was a banquet. Each was buffet style but loaded with many foods that you could love.

The offering including soups, salad, fresh fruit, fabulous entrees and sides, an entire dessert area, and a carving area.

During the evening we went to check out our rooms. We each had our own individual room. Each was huge with a balcony overlooking the lake.

After settling into our rooms some people decided to go hang out down by the pool and jacuzzi playing water volleyball, while others decided to have a quiet evening in their rooms.

We got to sleep in Saturday morning as breakfast wasn't until 8:30 a.m. Again the food was excellent.

After breakfast we lounged around the pool.

It was a beautiful day, perfect for being outdoors. Around 10 a.m. we headed over to the park. I was surprised to find that it was almost like a mini-amusement park.

There were stores, a small theater, rope climbing, re-enactments, and many other things happening. We first took a lift up to the very top of Stone Mountain, over 800 feet in the air.

The whole stone goes over 9 miles below the earth so only a fraction is actually seen. As we went up there we had a perfect view of the Confederate Memorial Carving in the side of the mountain. It was hard to imagine that the carving was over 40 ft deep into the rock and Robert E. Lee was as high as a 9 story building. When we got to the top, the view simply takes your breath away.

You could see Atlanta far off in the distance. We ran around taking crazy pictures and wondering at the perseverance of the small trees clinging to the rock face in just a handfull of dirt. After a time we took the lift back down and as we were leaving the gift store we saw a group of civil war Soldiers all dressed to go to battle along with some ladies dressed in period costumes. They were most certainly sweltering in their giant hoop skirts.

We headed back to the hotel for lunch and for some of us who had spa appointments that afternoon but after lunch we were right back out at the park again. This time we went and saw a 3D movie "Journey to the Center of the Earth". It was a lot of fun; there were air gusts, water spurts and chair shaking that made everyone in the theater jump, scream and laugh. By about 3:30 p.m. we got all of our people together and started the journey home. Most of us were pretty tired by this point and napped on the way home and the next thing we knew it was 5:30 p.m. and we were pulling into the parking lot at home.

So in September when the chaplain sends out an announcement saying that there is another Singles Trip coming up take my advice and sign up right away. It is definitely worth your time. It's a lot of fun and who knows you might actually learn something.