Hey all! After writing about 20 pages of school papers this week, I was feeling the need to write about something fun! I’ve always wanted to take pictures and write about a trip or something cool John and I have done together, so I thought I’d take this chance to do just that!
This past weekend was fall break (one day off- woot woot) and we decided I would drive up to Fort Payne so we could have a little more time together. While John was at work on Friday, I set up camp and wrote a huge part of my long paper which was due the following Tuesday. But man, was I excited for John to get home so we could start our fun weekend together! On Friday night we had an amazing dinner at the Stanley’sĀ house and relaxed. Saturday was our big adventure day, so we got a good night’s sleep and woke up excited!
We left in the morning for our day of fun and drove from Fort Payne to Athens, Tennessee, which was about a 1 hour and 45 minute drive. We arrived at Mayfield Farms right before the next tour started, and we were sad to hear the factory wouldn’t be running that day. It was still really interesting, though! We walked through the factory and were able to see what the machinery looked like, and they showed videos of the actual process. John has been there previously and liked it so much that he wanted to bring me back. I’m so glad he did! After the tour, we got ice cream for free (and we may have sized them up for $1 each). We love ice cream. We went outside to eat because it was BEAUTIFUL out. I took a few pictures on my phone (we couldn’t bring a big camera in), but I wish I could have captured the beauty and happiness that came with sitting on the porch in rocking chairs, eating ice cream, looking at some beautiful trees and playing children. It was pretty great!
We did remember to take nice pictures with the big cow and the murals though š
While sitting on the porch, I researched a little to find a place to eat lunch (I probably could have done this sooner, but we were kind of deciding things on a whim). A friend had reminded me to check out Yelp (thanks, Hanna!) so I used that to find Smalls Cajun-Man Drive In. Let me tell you… it did NOT disappoint. Smalls Drive In was just what we were looking for: a small, local joint with really good food. My mom’s love for hole-in-the-wall restaurants must have rubbed off on meĀ because I was pretty excited about my find. John ordered a chili cheeseburger, and I had the best grilled chicken sandwich of my life. Once again, I didn’t bring in the nice camera, but just trust me on the quality of this food. We also shared some excellent steak fries. Our meals cost $13 total and the servers were so nice.
After our awesome meal, we decided to walk around historic downtown Athens. The City Hall caught my eye- maybe my future Public Administration degree made it so appealing- but either way, it was beautiful. We stopped at CVS for Coke and some ibuprofen (sometimes the headaches still come even on a fun day)Ā and walked around the town a little. We admired the cute shops, found an interesting game store (game night?!), and looked in an antique store that was going out of business. It was so nice out and there happened to be a bunch of antique cars set up along the streets.
After walking around downtown, we got back in the car and headed to Chattanooga! While John drove, I put on music and we listened to potential first dance songs. This quickly got off track and we ended up finding ridiculous songs and we talked about the possibility of doing an interpretive first dance to something like Smooth Criminal or Rockin’ Robbin. Our time in Chattanooga was short… we spent a while walking around in Best Buy though and that made John very happy.
After Chattanooga we drove to Mentone, AL to walk around Colorfest, but many of the vendors had already closed for the day. We took a few pictures with the sunset in the background. We then headed down to Fort Payne for their Third Saturday event. On the third Saturday of the month for most of the year, people bring their antique cars and they close off downtown Fort Payne to make it walkable. Vendors sell thingsĀ and shops stay open late. We met up with the Stanleys and scouted out our future reception and rehearsal dinner locations downtown. Allie wanted to be in every photo, and I obliged. We then ate at John’s favorite, The Strand. It was such a fun night of walking around and enjoying the small town environment in Fort Payne.
Sunday afternoon, John and I went for a drive to one of my favorite places in North East Alabama, Desoto State Park. I love the photos we took on our little getaway in the woods. Unfortunately, Desoto Falls was dry, but the pictures still came out pretty great.
Thanks so much for reading. I loved getting to see John for a little bit longer than usual over fall break, and we had so much fun doing some traveling and exploring. If you travel to any of the places we visited, I’d love to hear about your experiences and see your photos!
Happy hump day š
