Surprise Chattanooga Weekend

Friday was a cold day. School was cancelled due to the "snow", which was nowhere in sight. My sweet husband volunteered to ride with me to the School Supply store in Gallatin. While we were in the car, he received a mysterious phone call. I badgered him about it until he finally gave up and spilled his surprise! He was planning a weekend getaway for Valentine's day to Chattanooga. I was so excited: fancy hotel (The Chattanoogan!!!!), nice dinners, and a roadtrip! We both had the day off, so I talked him into leaving immediately and going to Chattanooga right then.

It sounded like a great idea. The snow wasn't supposed to hit until late that night and would be over by Sunday. We ran home, threw all of our things into a suitcase and left. About 25 minutes into the trip, it began to snow. Ben is actually a really safe driver, but traffic was crazy. Our two hour road trip lasted about six hours! We were about two miles from the hotel according to our GPS, and we were at a standstill for an hour (Ben says 20 minutes, but it was an hour).

I couldn't believe how nice the hotel was. He did a great job! I've travelled all over and stayed in some really nice hotels, and this was one of the best. Here is a picture of the lobby.

We had dinner reservations at Sekisui for 7:30. We followed a snow plow through the city which was fun. It felt like we had our own personal chauffeur. When we got there, the lights were off! We saw a man in the back coming to the door. He turned out to be the owner, and he gave us a gift certificate to come back another time because none of his employees showed up that night!

We went back to the hotel and tried their seafood buffet. I'm not a huge seafood fan, but they were having Spain night!!!!!!!! I got to have Paella again, and Madrid stew, swordfish, and lots more delicious stuff!

Here are a few shots of our fabulous hotel room:

This place was so nice. I didn't want to leave!

We had an amazing view of the Chattanooga Choo-Choo at night!

The next day, we got up and started exploring. We explored Chattanooga by foot and bus. We met some very interesting locals along the way! The people of the city were all very friendly. That afternoon, we went back to try Japanese food one more time. We weren't disappointed. It's the best sushi I've ever had. If your are in Chattanooga, I highly recommend it.

We also went out to Nikko's, our "fancy night out" restaurant.

So, in summary, I have the best husband in the entire world. We had a very adventurous and romantic weekend!