I still feel that way, and still wouldn't go on any larger trip without them, but I have decided to do something out of the ordinary for us, and planned a small, weekend get-a-away for me and John.
As mentioned in the post title, it's coming up on my birthday and our anniversary. We were married on my birthday 22 years ago.
I'm not usually that much of a celebrator of such events; it was all well and fine when it just a few years, but enough already. I did try to plan a family outing, to ride the Blue Ridge Railway and Leaf-Peep. But between school and work, I couldn't match our schedules with the railway or the leaf's schedules.
So I said oh well, maybe next time, but then a couple days ago after I'd changed the calendar, I noticed J had both days of the weekend before my birthday/our anniversary off work. Ryan still had class on Saturday, so that still wasn't any good for a family outing, but then I got the idea, how about just an overnight couple's retreat thing?
That's not something we'd ever done; although J's mentioned it in the past, I wasn't interested in the idea before.
The original plan was pretty much to just go to a hotel or lodge or something like that, eat a nice dinner somewhere, spend the night, and come home the next day.
I searched for places to go, and had it narrowed down to two places, but couldn't make up my mind.
While I was still waffling between those two places, I looked around a little more and ended up coming up on information for the Great Smokey Mountain Railroad.
Did I know about the GSMR? Maybe I knew and had forgotten. I can't remember.
It's located in Bryson City, NC, which is just north of Hayesville and Murphy, so I'm pretty sure I've probably been through there before. But can't remember.
Anyway, poking around the site, I checked out their vacation packages. They had some good looking deals with an overnight stay at a local lodging and train trip included.
I wasn't planning to do a train excursion without the boys, but it's close enough that we can always go back later and ride it again with the boys with us next time.
I picked the Charleston Inn B&B. It was a bit more expensive than some of the other offerings, but I just liked the feel/look of the place, and it got alot of good reviews at Trip Advisor.And, they serve a better breakfast.
Then I checked out the local restaurant offerings for a "nice" place to eat and located a couple, then narrowed the choice down to the Fryemont Inn based on Trip Advisor reviews.
It's not really upscale, and J's good jeans and a pullover sweater will probably be fine to wear, but I think it will do nicely for us.
We'll leave on Saturday and take a nice, leisurely drive up to the mountains, then when we get there we'll explore the nice little town of Bryson City.
Later we'll check in to our room, and get ready to go to dinner around 6'ish.
The next morning we'll enjoy a delicious, hot breakfast and then go take our train excursion through the beautiful Great Smokey Mountains, to the Nantahala Gorge.
After which we'll return home, hopefully relaxed and refreshed.
