Some Random Fun

A week ago today...we came home from Gatlinburg. We were pretty happy about it.

 We started out right after breakfast, hoping to make it home faster than we'd made it to Tennessee.

But alas, the construction got the best of us.

That was frustrating, but a little later, we passed {on the other side of the road} a horrific accident that we later learned killed 2 people. It was a pileup of six semis and one car. So scary to see such an awful thing up close. :(

On the way home, we stopped for one more meal...at Skyline Chili!!

We arrived home nine hours after leaving - thankful to be back in our own digs!

And I leave you with a few random photos from throughout our trip!!

Donuts I didn't eat but wished I would have. LOOK AT THAT ICING!!!

We got to go through some {really short} tunnels. I love them!! {Unless they're long and then I'm just claustrophobic.}

When the timer goes off unexpectedly.

May there always be glass between a shark and me. {If we must be inhabiting the same space at all.}

What? Is this not the view outside YOUR front door???

Why yes. He is asleep at a table in a courtyard in the middle of Gatlinburg. Let the record also show that while he took this nap, a deaf woman came up and tried to carry on a sign language conversation with me, and I was actually fearful we would awaken him. ??????????

It's POSSIBLE Ryan wanted to go into an "As Seen on TV" store, which should be a blog post in and of itself, but I'll spare you. This, however, concerned me:

Not Noah's Ark, but Noah Arck. And is the blanket made from the mink on Noah Arck??

Things I ponder.

Thanks SO much for taking a virtual trip with us! Hope you had fun! We leave you with this....

Gatlinburg Bound!!

SURPRISE!! We took a little trip!!

You may or may not remember that last year, for our birthday trip, we went to the Tulip Time festival in Holland, Michigan. We froze the entire weekend. We wore hats and gloves at the beach. We were bundled up in lawn chairs to watch fireworks. And none of the tulips had bloomed because it was too cold. So this year, we decided to head SOUTH for our trip.

So Ryan took a half day off work last Friday, and when he got home, we jumped in the car and headed south. The trip was supposed to take seven hours. Yeah. Try TEN. Ten hours to make a seven hour trip - and we don't even have kids!! Isn't that kind of thing only supposed to happen to potty-training parents??

We blame construction and the misfortune of hitting Cincinnati at rush hour. But I'm excited to tell you about our week, and I thought I'd start with the trip, because it had its humorous moments!!!

We were kind of excited for a vacation.

Our first slowdown was in Oxford, Ohio, where our GPS routed us right through the center of town. It's a college town, and it seemed to be graduation weekend. The place was PACKED with tourists in for graduation, parents there to load up their kids' stuff to take it home, and unending construction. But that gave us plenty of time to enjoy this very cool bell tower:

{We also thought it was really cool that downtown, there was a Starbucks next door to a Chipotle, and both were in buildings with apartments above. We decided that would be pretty perfect: to live in an apartment above a Starbucks and a Chipotle. We would never cook. Or have money.}

We found the longest stretch in the midwest with NO McDonald's. Know how we know this? I had to go to the bathroom. You become acutely aware of the lack of fast food on your trail when you need a bathroom. About an hour later...we found one. And of course, there's the obligatory "thanks for the potty" purchase. 

Good thing we found it because the next thing we found was a lonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnng stretch of construction and rush hour traffic.

No worries! It ended eventually, and we got to back to having fun - including car karaoke!

And...this was so cool. Random rainbow. No rain, that we encountered, anyway, but a gorgeous rainbow.

We picked a place we never get to eat {because we don't have one} for our dinner: Chick-Fil-A!!

We didn't linger long at dinner, so a little while after getting back on the road, we decided we wanted coffee. I did a search for the nearest one and found it...as we passed the exit. And apparently, at that point, we were in a Starbucks drought. So we stopped at a McDonald's instead. As we pulled up, so did two tour buses, and out poured DOZENS of military guys. Getting coffee just got comical at that point!

I will say, they did a fast bit of service there, and we got our coffee in no time!!

After getting back on the road, we missed an accident {didn't appear to be a serious one}, and just missed hitting a deer and a FOX. At that point, I just wanted to be there.

Finally, ten hours after leaving home, we rolled into Pigeon Forge, and found our home away from home for the weekend: The Spirit of the Smokies. {Photo taken later, in the daylight hours - in case you weren't sure.}

 Let me give you a quick review, in case you're looking to travel this way. We debated about getting a cabin and doing the whole outdoorsy thing the whole time we were gone, but we booked this so far in advance, there was NO way to know about weather. I hated to book a cabin and then be stuck in rainy weather the entire time and be so far from town that all we would do is drive back and forth. So we decided to stay in town, and after doing some research, we learned that still wasn't very cheap!

Ryan found The Spirit of the Smokies, and we got a good deal, partly because we were staying multiple nights. Some of the condo rooms have bigger kitchens and multiple rooms, but we chose a smaller one. It had two beds and a fridge and microwave, which was enough to keep us going for the weekend. It wasn't the newest hotel in town, and it was a little bit outdated, but it seemed clean, and we were comfortable. We liked it jut fine. We were gone most of the time during the day, and at night, we LOVED sitting out on this balcony, which we later learned had a lovely view of the mountains!

It may have been late at night, but Pigeon Forge was alive and happenin'! Not for the Shaffers, though. We were weary and ready for some SLEEP!!! Because we're vacation party animals that way.

Trip Randomness...and a Little Video

Before I bid a blog farewell to our first anniversary trip, I thought I'd show you a bit of the random sights of the weekend...things that didn't fit neatly into any of the posts I already shared!

Friday night after we went to the tree lighting, we walked over to Bazbeaux Pizza for some carryout! It is very yummy pizza and we enjoyed eating it in our room while we watched TV!!!

 We had the whole day Saturday to do whatever we wanted before we headed to the Gaither concert, so we set out with the camera! Posing with the monuments at Monument Circle...

 Yep. It's attached.

 Those lights go wayyyyyyyyyy up.

 We weren't the only couple out there with a tripod!

 You can actually go up in the tippy top of that monument - to an observation deck. It took me about 2 hours to work up my courage, but I did it!

 Banker's Life Fieldhouse {where the Gaither Concert was held}

 Lucas Oil Stadium

 Bekah panicking while waiting for the elevator to get out....

 And we had to go back at night for a photo shoot!

 My hansome husband...

 Kissing picture!!

 Shopping in the Colts Store...

 Shopping for Braeya. We didn't get it. We just wanted her to know we were thinking of her. HA!

 Starbucks and lights. Sigh of happiness.

 We had a gift card to P.F. Chang's, so we tried that...

 I don't even like egg drop soup - but this one was really good!

 And it's not a Shaffer road trip if we don't get stuck in traffic.

So that's it! That was our trip! So much fun! And I leave you with this:

Weekender Road Trip!

Well...y'all...we hit the road this past weekend!! I think our time actually ON the road equaled the amount of time at our destination! :)

We went to visit my friends Frog and Jenna, who live on the other side of Chicago, so it was a nice little road trip.

Well.

Little might not be the right word.

We both took off work at noon on Friday, and we were out the door of our house by about 1:45 that afternoon.

 Everything is all fun and games in the Shafferland car, right?

GORGEOUS day for a drive. GORGEOUS.

Made it to the Land of Lincoln...

...RIGHT about rush hour on Friday.

Maddening.

We also figured out, after getting stuck behind the car above (stickers for running a marathon and half marathon)...that this was the weekend of the Chicago marathon. Oh. My. Word.

I did thoroughly enjoy the view of the Chicago sklyine.

Well. Until I'd stared at it from the same spot FOR AN HOUR.

Ryan's thoughts on that.

As for me...

Eventually, I had to just lay back and look at the sky to keep the editorial comments on other drivers to a minimum. :)

We finally got a bit of a different angle on the skyline.

Two hours later, we were out of Chicago and back on the road!

EXCEPT.....

We didn't realize Ryan's GPS was set to avoid freeways.

When Jenna texted to see about our progress...I said "Well...have you heard of County Road 17? We're on it."

We turned the trip into 8 full hours and were about ready to eat our SHOES when we arrived that night.

But they were waiting with smiles, hugs, and a crock pot full of chili, fresh cornbread, berry crisp, and hot apple cider.

And that's how the Shaffers get every last drop out of a road trip!!

Headed to Florida, Baby!

No, we're not going back. Sigh.

Thought I'd throw in a honeymoon post! :)

Did y'all know we drove to our wedding? 1700 and some odd miles together in a car. If you live through that and still love each other, you can get married. :) So we did.

Here's our car, packed for a wedding palooza...two days before we got married. (Where's Ryan?)

We set out, all smiles and READY TO GET MARRIED!!!

I'll do a better post on this later, but I took a stack of activities to keep us occupied, entertained, and AWAKE while we drove. We did the first one around Indianapolis...and it was travel bingo! One guess as to who won...

He takes these things so humbly.

And the evening before the morning...was the first day of our day together in the car....

Georgia, perhaps? Maybe Tennessee. I lost track. At any rate. It was night. A blurry sort of night. This explains how we were starting to feel:

So...nothing fixes that like stopping for a stretch and for some COFFEE!!!

We played more games...at this point truly just trying to stay awake:

About quarter til 1 in the morning (having been on the road for almost 12 hours at that point) we stopped at a rest stop in who-knows-where Georgia for a little shut eye. I took a blanket and rested it against the door and leaned over to go to sleep. Ryan put a pillow against my shoulder and leaned over to sleep. He was out in approximately .000000000008 seconds. About an hour later, I FINALLY fell asleep only to awaken immediately to a school bus load of hooligans (sorry - but at 2 a.m. a busload of people waking me up at a rest stop deserve the term hooligans) awakened me as they noisily disembarked and headed to the restroom.

For those of you dying to know what I look like at 3 a.m. at a rest stop after about an hour of sleep:

Ryan had the nerve courage to laugh at me when we woke up because we took a bathroom break before hitting the road again...and well...I've seen too many episodes of Criminal Minds. That is THE FASTEST bathroom break I've ever taken. I did not want to be fodder for a new episode.

Breakfast at about 4 a.m. after an hour or so on the road.

Eventually came the morning....

And please, if you will, envision THE funniest picture here of Ryan asleep with his mouth WIDE open. He asked me not to post it, which is a real travesty because I promise you'd love it. But he so rarely bans a picture that I am compelled to say okay. :)

It was about 10 a.m. when we were LITERALLY 10 minutes from our resort...and about 3 hours ahead of the time we'd hoped to arrive. That's when we encountered this:

And here's how we felt about it:

This was before I started crying. I had been in this car for approaching 24 hours at this point, I was hungry (and you KNOW how it is when something comes between me and my fat grams) and I was SO tired. Thank you, bus hooligans. We closed the sunroof to protect our wedding cakes from the heat coming down from the sun (on the 80 degree day) and randomly ate some snacks from our bag (but no drinking, because, you know, NO BATHROOMS!)...

No end in sight. You'd have cried too

FINALLY we made it to our exit, where we learned the reason for the holdup was the Tough Mudder in town. This whole line resulted in a line of people waiting to turn left at the end of our exit ramp. (Where, incidentally, we turned right.)

Never in my life was I so happy to see a destination:

Ryan got us all checked in at the Tropical Beach Resorts and I (bearing NO makeup at this point and smelling rather...well...smelly) made the one simple request to take pictures of our room before we dumped an entire carload of wedding into it.

Before we settled in, we wandered down to see the beach:

I hate it that he looks so good after a day in the car and I look like...I spent two days in the car.

I was so so so so tired that I felt sick. So while Ryan unpacked all our stuff, I slept.

Or I tried. It didn't go very well.

When I got up, I took a shower and tried to start over, hoping it would make me feel better. We had a party that night with our family and wedding party and I wanted to look better. (It was a fail.)

So that's how we got to Florida! And it was also how both of us VOWED we'd never again sleep at a rest stop. Ever.