Let's Wrap Up a Vacation, Shall We?

My type A nature demands I wrap up our Florida vacation.  You know...since we embarked on the thing almost a month ago. :)

When we left off talking about it, Ryan and I had just left the Biltmore after a beautiful candlelight Christmas tour of the place. We were getting kind of hungry, so we found a Zaxby's near our hotel and pulled into the parking lot. That's when we realized we were there alone. They had closed early because of the snowstorm, as had every other restaurant and grocery store in the city. Even some gas stations had closed. We found one open gas station with one employee and loaded up on Lunchables and Combos for dinner.

We went back to our hotel (which by then was entirely full) and settled in to eat and play online. Guess what? No internet. (The hotel had it, of course, but it was down for the night.) Ever try to finish a blog without internet? It was super fun.

We slept well and got up Saturday morning for breakfast. The hotel had breakfast, but this was not a hotel that had interior halls, so we had to get dressed, put on hats, coats, and boots, and walk over to the lobby for our breakfast.

We were up in plenty of time to head on home, but we had promised one of Ryan's co-workers we would go to this chocolate shop in Asheville to get her some chocolates for Christmas gifts. They didn't open until 11:00, and you can bet your bottom dollar that I emailed them to make sure they were opening before we hung around and wasted half a day! They assured me they were, so we decided we would get ready, pack up the car, and go to the Billy Graham Cove to check it out. We had just enough time to go, and it was literally across the interstate from our hotel.

Ryan packed the car, scraped off all the snow with a towel (no snow scraper, you know) and we drove to see Billy.

Closed. Snowstorm.

So we decided to go into downtown Asheville to find a coffee shop to hang out while we waited for this chocolate shop to open.

Let me save you some time here: closed, closed, closed, closed, and closed.

So we watched this truck try to turn around in the middle of a city so he could back down a road. This was literally what our entertainment choices had come to:

So Ryan Googled attractions in the area and the internet said there was a Rocky Balboa statue on a nearby college campus. I still don't know who Rocky Balboa is, but he was all excited, so we set out in search of Rocky.

We even stopped a student to ask him about it. He had no idea.

We finally found it. Turns out Rocky was a bulldog who was their mascot once upon a time. He died. Rocky Balboa's statue is in Pennsylvania. Stinkin' internet.

We resumed our coffee search.

Closed and closed.

And then....

I think it was the only shop open in the whole city. The barista (who nearly received a hug from me) told me the shop serves breakfast to an adjoining hotel so they aren't allowed to close. Bless them.

And then the chocolate shop opened. It's called the Chocolate Fetish, and it has some pretty creative items for sale. Check this out. (All chocolate.)

We made our purchases and got on the road. The roads were actually clear, but the snow still hung on the mountains and trees, and oh my GOODNESS. A stunning drive home. Check out a few of the pictures I took.

We eventually drove out of it, and were moving along swimmingly! Stopped for a little BBQ in the afternoon...

And just around dusk, we stopped a bit south of Cincinnati for gas, a snack, and potty breaks. GOOD THING we did, because we were not back on the road five minutes before we hit a true-Shaffer-fashion standstill.

As we drove on (eventually) we came upon accident after accident after accident.

The roads were wet from melting snow and had begun to freeze. People just weren't driving cautiously and were sliding off left and right. About that same time, two friends from home texted me to urge us to be EXTREMELY cautious if we were coming in that night, because the roads at home were basically a skating rink.

We were just sick about the whole thing, because we only had 172 miles to go, but we knew we needed to stop for the night. So disappointing!!!

At least it had internet.

Sunday morning, we cashed in on our hotel breakfast, put all our stuff back in the car again, and tried to get home.

Sweetest sign ever:

Energy for the final stretch:

H.O.M.E.

Twelve days and a million memories!! We are grateful.