you ain't going nowhere

december is the busiest month of the year for us. it starts on the 16th with em's birthday, next is christmas, followed by our anniversary on the 27th, and then we wrap it up with wil's birthday on the 29th. we tried to take a breather on the 27th and get away to celebrate our 2-year anniversary. before i continue with this post, which is an account of our anniversary trip, let me preface it by saying that is a heartfelt anecdote that is written with all the love and laughter that the trip provided. i love you pb. and i love every adventure that we have had (including jamaica) and will have in the future...

we left rome on monday morning headed for clayton, georgia for the night. a friend of pb's has a cabin there and had invited us up for a visit. we were so excited to get out of town and relax in the mountains, have a fire, and do nothing. we stopped in atlanta to do a quick shopping errand and then drove up 85 for our getaway. we called his friend as we got close to clayton to get more specific directions...the beginning of the adventure i had not pictured. (you know how you envision things in your mind when you are anticipating a trip or a party or event? you imagine the place, the people, the fun...this wasn't in my picture) while pb was on the phone, i could hear his friend talking and then there was a lot of laughing. somehow he had failed to fully describe to us the amount of ice and snow that was still on the road leading up to the top of the mountain where the cabin was. he had tried to drive up the road on sunday and his car slid off the ice and into a ditch. he left the car overnight and when he walked back to get it on monday...to meet us in town...it had been towed. so we met him at the bottom of the hill and drove 6-7 miles back in the direction we had just travelled to find his rental car. the milan. we drove over more icy roads out in the middle of nowhere to retrieve the milan. we finally found it on a chicken farm with about 100 other cars, 15 of which had been towed that day. at $95.00 a pop, pb was doing the math on what this chicken farmer/tow truck driver had made on a monday. our friend paid the guy, got in the car and we followed him carefully down the icy, dirt road back to the main highway.

we were good, laughing and joking about the chickens and the sweet rental car he was having to drive and looking forward to making some guacamole and sitting by the fire. we stopped by the grocery store to pick up our things for dinner. as we were all walking in, pb tells him that we are thinking burgers and fresh guacamole for dinner. our friend then breaks the next bit of news to us...we may not be able to drive up the mountain. we may have to park the cars and walk so we might want to plan something light for dinner...we will be carrying everything uphill for about a mile. now, i am a walker. i love a good hike. but really? it is our anniversary, it is freezing, i am wearing cute boots and starving by this point. so his news was not sitting well with me. this was not what i had envisioned. but we were all still in good spirits and i was being optimistic. i didn't want to appear ungrateful for his invitation or disappoint pb. i am hanging on to the word "may" and clinging to the hope that we will be able to make it up the road. images of cameron diaz in that movie, the holiday, are coming to mind. her frustratingly trudging through the snow to the quaint vacation house with all of her luggage and great boots on too.

so we left the grocery store with everything but the guacamole makings. hopeful. we followed our friend to the base of the mountain and then he and pb left me in the truck. they walked a little of the way to see how the ice looked. they were gone for about 15 minutes. long enough for me to decide that whatever the verdict was, i was going to make the most of this. i saw them coming back but couldn't read their faces. they had decided to give it a try...in the milan. we were leaving the truck and our friend assured us that the only reason he was towed was because his car was in a ditch. our truck would be fine. now a new set of images are running through my head. so we loaded everything into the milan and left the titan parked safely on the side of the road. we collectively held our breaths through every turn as we climbed up the mountain road. all i could think was what a nightmare it would have been to try and hike up it with all of our things. after several twists and turns, we finally made it. we parked on the road and made our way through the snow and into the cabin. ahhhhh...

our friend promised me the best fire i had ever seen and we opened a bottle of wine to celebrate the safe arrival. the view from the deck was amazing and the cabin was the coziest place. there was a whole bookshelf of games so after a while, we played one of them. hilarious. around 8:00, pb and friend started the charcoal grill on the deck. the wind was howling like i have never heard it so it took longer than usual to grill. this seemed to be the theme of our trip. the burgers were great and we continued to enjoy the fire and company until we couldn't hold our eyes open anymore.

we woke up yesterday morning and the roads were frozen again. by this point, i was done with snow and being stuck. i was even entertaining the idea of walking back down the mountain with our stuff if the milan couldn't make it. so we waited. and waited. finally around 1:00 we decided to try the roads. and i'm hoping the truck is still there. but if not, at least we knew where the chicken farm was.

we made it down, the truck was there and we had lunch with our friend before saying our goodbyes. it was a beautiful place and i wouldn't trade the trip for anything. we had some good laughs and even more laughs once we got home. we had a anniversary dinner date last night in rome and toasted to the best 2 years ever.

love you. mean it!