Victorious Adventure!!!!

I'm at my mom and dad's house! Yay!!!!

We had such an adventure on the road yesterday and today. Driving through New Jersey was not too terribly bad; it was mostly raining until we got into northern New Jersey, and then the slush on the roads started. It wasn't until the very top of New Jersey that things started to get really bad. Once we entered New York, things got marginally better, but I still couldn't drive faster than 40 or 45  miles per hour, so we basically had to double whatever the GPS said for our estimated time left for the journey. When we got to about 2 and a quarter hours left, Dylan took the road conditions and my nervousness, and suggested that we call it a night and pull off the highway and stay somewhere. He said today that it took some convincing, but all I remember from last night was being over the moon happy that he suggested it because I could finally relax and not feel so tense and scared about driving any more for the night.

We only had about 8 or 9 miles left to go on the highway and then we pulled off the first exit we saw and found a hotel. Originally, we were following Siri to a Travel Inn a few miles from the highway, but we seemed to be driving into seedier and seedier territory, so we took a bit of a U-turn, and went back towards the highway to a  Howard Johnson's we had seen from the road. The snow was so bad on the main road that you basically couldn't see anything that resembled lanes and just had to kind of stay on your side of the road. We made it to Howard Johnson's alright, and to my surprise the cost of the room was only $67 with tax.

We parked quickly next to the lot and brought our stuff upstairs. The hotel wasn't great, but it was safe and warm and had a TV and a shower and a bed and being there meant we didn't have to drive in the snow anymore. We dropped our stuff off in the room and went off in search of food. We found Neptune's Diner that we had passed on the way in and after we parked and trudged in, we were disappointed to hear that they were closing up shop in just 10 minutes. We asked for a recommendation for another restaurant in town, and they let us know that they had been the only place open. Sure enough, every place we passed was closed: Panera, TGI Friday's, Chili's, IHOP. So we went to the place that I knew best would have SOMETHING we could eat: Stewart's!

I'm still trying to eat gluten free, so I had to get a little creative (and be ok with not eating THAT healthy for a night!) I got a bowl of chili that I ate with a big bag of Tostito's scoopers chips and a can of not-so-good-for-you, but gluten free, jalepeno cheese. I also snagged an apple, an orange, a piece of cheddar cheese and a Cadbury caramel egg and Dylan picked up a pint of Death by Chocolate ice cream. Yum! We basically went back to the hotel (after chatting with the nice Stewart's employees who had to stay at work in the horrible snow storm) and feasted on all this tasty food while on the bed since our hotel room only had one chair.

We watched some bad TV, and then snuggled into bed while watching The Office on hulu plus (we were four episodes behind! Huzzah!) Megan Shedden also saw on facebook that we had landed in Newburgh for the night, so she caught up with me via text and we arranged to meet at IHOP the next morning for brunch!

Dylan woke up this morning around 7:45 and went to the bathroom, checking on his phone for road conditions. It had stopped snowing and was sunny! It wasn't for another hour and a half that we got up, but at around 9:30, I finally showered and then went out to clear off the car while Dylan got ready. There must have been a foot of snow at least! We got our stuff together and met Megan for a wonderful brunch and caught up for about an hour, and then we were on our way again!

It only took us a couple of hours to get to Queensbury from Newburgh, which was not a bad drive for a Saturday afternoon. We dropped off presents for the Fallons and then picked up some bacon and chocolate which I am about to make into a wonderful snack for Feb Sux! So, adventure for the win! And here's to a fun night out with wonderful people tonight! Hope everyone stayed safe and warm in the blizzard!!!