Through Chattanooga & Marietta

We did really great getting dressed, ready & finished packing early this morning. We had some cereal for a quick breakfast at the Airbnb, and then were pulling out of the driveway at 8:01 am CST (which was 9am Tally-time), exactly when we planned. We drove about 1.5 hours, and then made a last-minute decision to pull off the road and find a local coffee shop as we went through Chattanooga, TN.

Jeff ordered a hot latte, I ordered an iced latte, and we got a strawberry fizzy refresher with two pop-tarts for the girls to share. And a cute little magnet souvenir.

There was a random, tiny little outdoor plant “store” set up in the coffee shop parking lot, with no one manning it, just a note to call them for assistance, with a telephone number. But it was fun to just walk through it before getting back in the car. Between our time in the coffee shop, our walk through the plants, and a quick drive through to see downtown Chattanooga, that “detour” took us right at an hour.

On our drive up North last Thursday, it took us 10 hours, and we made 6 stops for gas, potty, snacks, and lunch. Today, it took us 12 hours, and we made 7 stops for gas, potty, snacks, coffee, lunch & dinner. BUT – we were able to completely avoid all the terrible weather coming through today, and only barely got into some sprinkles.

Our other very long stop of the day took place as our late lunch in downtown Marietta, GA. Jeff and his family used to live here way back in the day, and he wanted to visit the old stomping grounds, for a trip down memory lane. We let the girls play on this little train for a few minutes, and then walked by the fountain and found a cool pizza place for lunch right on the downtown square.

They have these giant thick “Sicilian-style” pizza slices that Jeff and I both ordered – he got the meat lovers, and I got the White pie, but they accidentally made 2 of his before they made mine, so they just brought us both anyways, and he really lucked out with that one. But when I finally got mine, it was so cheesy and garlicky and delicious.

Quick walk to another local coffee shop on the other side of the Square, and then we were back in the car again.

Found this cute embroidery hoop with T.S. lyrics in the coffee shop.

Then these little sweeties fell asleep after lunch, and both took themselves a nice long car nap.

We made another stop or two for gas or potty, and then finally made it all the way down to the Bainbridge Chick-fil-A for a late-ish dinner around 7:30 or so. We let the girls run wild in the play place to get some more wiggles out, and then finished out the last 45-minute-ish drive back to our home.

We finally pulled into our own driveway at 9:15pm EST, which means it took us exactly 12 hours 14 minutes today. We did have about 30 minutes between the car nap & dinner where Addie just lost her little mind and had a fit, which also caused Emerson to get stressed and upset, but Jeff and I stayed calm and tried our best to calm them down and make them laugh and eventually tricked them into playing the silliest game of “I Spy” on a back road of Georgia with literally nothing to spy except trees 🤣 But other than that, both girls did exceptionally well on this very long trip, after a very long weekend of late nights and busy days.

There were terrible tornadoes here in Tally while we were gone, but we were very fortunate our house and yard and neighborhood were spared, even though we were less than half a mile from the path of the one that went from TCC down towards FSU. We barely lost power (and I even felt guilty about that, knowing our empty house had power while we were out of town, while so many folks here were without), and came home to everything in perfect order, praise the Lord for that! But there are more terrible storms coming again tomorrow, and schools are closed. So we have one more day at home together, praying for no damage, and then finally getting back into our routine by Wednesday hopefully!