The First Couple Days of our Winter Escape

Way last fall we had the opportunity to rent a 3 bedroom condo on Hilton Head Island, South Carolina.  We arranged to travel there and meet my sister and her husband for a warm fun filled week.  It seemed so far in the future but time flies and before we knew it the time was at hand.  We were going to leave on February 22 and drive there.  1200 miles is a lot further in reality than it is in a persons mind.  As luck would have it and it always does when we travel, a giant sized snowstorm was approaching the midwest.  We decided to leave a day early to stay ahead of the storm.  I kept weatherbug on my phone and off I went with my husband and my dad.  The first day we kept two hours ahead of the snowstorm.  Bloomington Illinois was supposed to get hit with a lot of snow and Kansas City was going to get 16 inches and we wanted to stay ahead of that.  When we got to Louisville, Kentucky we ran into sleet and it was getting dark.  We didn't make a motel reservation because we didn't know where we would end up.  We stopped at a Days Inn.  The outside looked good, the lobby was very nice with nice furniture and we were tired.  We went in and got a room with two beds.  I'm sure you can guess what is coming next.  Yucky dirty carpet, peeling wallpaper and it didn't smell very fresh.  After a fitful sleep, we got up and hit the road again.  We didn't even shower because we felt cleaner than we would in that motel shower.  The next day was very nice.  We traveled through the Smokey Mountains and ended up in Asheville, North Carolina on the second night.  We had a beautiful room with a very nice shower.  We ate at a lovely local restaurant and the weather was pretty nice, although it was cold.

This is the skyline in Lexington, Kentucky.

Soon we got into the Smokey Mountains.  My husband probably didn't enjoy it as much as I did because he had to drive on the curving road.

 The view was great and there were tunnels to go through.

The tunnels were scary to drive in, but fun for me.

To be continued.