I could tell you I find so alluring. In the headwaters, cornfields in the valleys nudge against sycamores and mountain laurel as the river, here little more than a creek, twists through banks clad in vine and wildflowers. Farther downstream, it gathers flow from limestone springs, and its rock-ribbed pools are cooled in the shade of soaring hemlock groves. The Soque River (pronounced so- quee) flows for about thirty miles contained in a single county—Habersham, merely four counties northeast of metro Atlanta—an intimacy that lends it a homey, winsome, tucked-just-out-of-sight appeal. But I’d be lying if I said I’m here for the river—or the repasts spread on split-log farm tables or the end-of-day cocktails lit by a sun setting over wild, timbered ridgelines.