Dear Gramamma: Please Ship Ali to Rising Fawn. We’re Not Coming Home.

At the moment, I am sitting on the second floor porch of a beautiful antebellum-styled house a couple hours north of Birmingham, pretending that I’m in Gone With The Wind.

Or, I suppose what GWTW WOULD have been with the perk of indoor plumbing.

And wireless internet.

Oh – and no civil war.

At any rate, I think I may never come home. Our hosts told us that there were no guests coming in after us, so we could stay as long as we liked. You don’t think they’d notice if we stayed until next month, do you?

Here’s the view of the Bed and Breakfast we’re staying at – the dreamy General Woods Inn, from the driveway:
And, as beautiful as that view is, the views FROM the inn are stunning. This is what I’m currently staring at:
I can’t believe this heaven is so close by and I never knew about it. The last three guests in the guest book are from England, Ireland, and Canada, so apparently the REST of the world has already discovered it. We’re just slow.

When Chris and I started looking for a place to get away to for my birthday, we were looking for a cabin or hotel. I’ve never been too interested in the Bed and Breakfast concept because the one time we stayed in one, the rooms were tiny and you could hear everything everyone else in the house was doing. At all times.

However, we couldn’t find anything that was available AND that didn’t have a two night minimum AND that fit The Vision* of what I wanted for my birthday, so we branched out to look at B & B’s.

(* The Vision = sitting in the brand-new-crispness-of-fall, on a porch, sipping coffee, looking at any type of pretty view, and completely relaxing.)

When we found this place and realized it only had three for-rent rooms, (and it looked absolutely huge), we decided that the neighbor issues would surely not be quite as much of a concern.

Sure enough, we’ve only seen the one other couple staying here once. And haven’t heard them at all.

This B&B is THE most amazing place I’ve ever stayed. If they had a room-of-the-month club somewhat akin to a jelly-of-the-month club, I’d most certainly be joining.

And, The Vision* has most certainly has come to pass:

Our bedroom is also fabulous and oh-so-roomy:

We were greeted upon arriving in our bedroom with this beautiful bouquet of flowers picked out of the gardens:

The front entry is every Southern Girl’s dream of what a house is supposed to look like:
As is the front porch.

The house is named after the Man of the house, who is a Brigadier General in the US Army. He is often in D.C., so his wife Nadine decided to turn their home into a B&B to have people around while he was gone. The house is decorated with fascinating memorabilia from his long military career:

He happened to be here this weekend, so he sat and chatted with us about all sorts of fascinating things while we ate our breakfast.

And, just because this place is so fabulous, I have to share some more pictures.

The back gardens, photographed from the also-roomy back porch right off of our bedroom:

The wedding Arbor very nearly made me want to get married again:

And apparently it had the same effect on Chris, too.

We had planned on eating breakfast on the front porch this morning, but the mountain sun was so blinding that I couldn’t open my eyes:

So we ate our delicious breakfast in the back gardens, instead:
And finally, a couple more views from the yard.

Seeing as how it’s only 2 hours out of Birmingham, we will most definitely be returning here. Hopefully VERY soon.

Last night, we drove to Chattanooga for dinner (25 minutes away). We went to Big River Grille and shot pool while we waited for our table:

I have amazing talent at pool. Even though I completely stink, I always manage to win by either,

a) my opponent shooting in the 8-ball, or

b) my opponent shooting in enough of my balls accidentally that I’m able to pull ahead.

And, so, Chris shot the 8-ball in. Victorious!!

Then our food arrived:

Wow.

Although we’ve eaten like royalty all weekend, I had yet to have any birthday dessert. So we ordered the dessert sampler plate, expecting SMALL pieces of three desserts.

Instead, we got at least 5 pounds of sweets:
We about died, but we left the plate like this:

Okay, okay…with the help of a go-box.

(Speaking of which….)

(Okay. I’m back.)

We then walked around the gorgeous downtown area of Chattanooga while wishing that Birmingham was half as cool.

We walked across the riverwalk bridge:
And then found a super-comfy couch to rest on:

Or…maybe NOT so super-comfy.
Especially since it hit our legs mid-calf – a very awkward feeling indeed.
We also saw some great signs along the way of our journey.

Don’t tape ANYTHING to the Ice Machine.

Except a sign saying to not tape anything to the Ice Machine.

And I’m not sure what this actually IS, but it’s apparently not Gum.

I DO love the inappropriate use of quotation marks.

Oh look – Chris is back from his run. I guess that means this post is almost over.

Yes, I needed the exercise also to work off all of these super-rich birthday meals.

No, I don’t run on my birthday.

Or my birthday weekend.

Or any day, for that matter.

I guess all of those calories and my thighs will be new best friends.