Second Honeymoon
Yesterday my wife and I celebated our 6th wedding anniversary. For the past few years, we've taken turns trying to surprise one another with neat ways to celebrate our anniversary and this year it was Ash's turn. Oddly, instead of trying to surprise me, she just up and told me what we were doing several weeks ago.
For the past few years, we've often talked about one day returning to our honeymoon cabin in Gatlinburg, TN, where we spent the week following our wedding. However, Gatlinburg is kind of a long drive for us, particularly when one of us has the kind of hospital schedule that she does. So Ash started looking around locally and found
a fantastic alternative. Near Summersville, WV, is a place called the Good Evening Ranch, home of the Feedbox Restaurant. I'd heard of the Feedbox only because I'd passed the sign for it on my way through there, back when visiting Ash during her rotations in Kentsburg. What I didn't know was that the ranch offers a series of rental cabins and these are what struck Ash's fancy. She picked out one called Honey on the Rocks, which was a cozy cabin situated, as one might expect, atop some pretty massive outcroppings of rock.
What I didn't know was that the Good Evening Ranch is an Exotic Animal Ranch. (Which, let me tell you, is SO much better than Erotic Animal Ranch we visited a couple years back. Had something of an incident involving a garlic press and a Suggestive-Dancing-Bear.) So there were lots of cool animals to see, like emus and ostriches, buffalo, antelope, sheep, turkeys, goats, caribou, a Phyllis Diller Chicken, etc.
We rolled in Friday evening and found that the cabin was exactly what we'd hoped for. It was a little one-room cabin paneled in pine, with a small kitchen, rustic-looking pine bed, country decor and a back deck that featured a very large hot-tub. Granted, some of the country decor was a little inexplicable to us while other bits
of it were downright deadly, but it was a nice place all the same. I set about taking photos, because the day was sunny and warmish and I had a feeling the weather wouldn't hold out. The forecast was calling for snow, which was just what Ashley wanted. She was hoping it would snow a foot. After a trip into town for some supplies, we wound up eating dinner at the Feedbox. It was a very good restaurant. I'm always partial to restaurants with a buffet, just for the sake of the mass quantity of available food, but this one was particularly good. It wasn't a never-ending brown-food buffet, but had a few select items (roast beef with au jus, chicken, fish, cheesy spaghetti) under covered catering bins, all of which were very good. We returned to our cabin afterward to have deep and meaningful discussions in the hot tub.
The weather did turn nasty, and much sooner than expected. In the middle of the night, the wind began to blow across the top of the cliff, making me wonder if we were about to be swept away. It blew so hard that it pushed the thick 50 plus pound hot tub cover off center on the tub itself. That wind turned to rain on Saturday and stayed that way for most of the day. We still found breaks in the weather to go and see the exotic animals and take more pictures, but mostly the weather was crappy, so we stayed indoors.
Saturday night, it began to snow. I found it enormous fun to sit in a nice warm hot tub with ice falling all around us. It was even better the following morning, when the snow was really coming down. Granted, it's not quite so fun when you're the guy who has to get out of the nice warm tub, tromp through the snow and lift the now icy hot tub cover back on afterward, particularly when your wife has, in a fit of evil glee, locked the back door on you when you weren't looking, just to 
see you dance and beg in the snow in your now freezing wet underwear.
All in all, though, it was a great weekend and a happy anniversary.
For the past few years, we've often talked about one day returning to our honeymoon cabin in Gatlinburg, TN, where we spent the week following our wedding. However, Gatlinburg is kind of a long drive for us, particularly when one of us has the kind of hospital schedule that she does. So Ash started looking around locally and found
a fantastic alternative. Near Summersville, WV, is a place called the Good Evening Ranch, home of the Feedbox Restaurant. I'd heard of the Feedbox only because I'd passed the sign for it on my way through there, back when visiting Ash during her rotations in Kentsburg. What I didn't know was that the ranch offers a series of rental cabins and these are what struck Ash's fancy. She picked out one called Honey on the Rocks, which was a cozy cabin situated, as one might expect, atop some pretty massive outcroppings of rock.
What I didn't know was that the Good Evening Ranch is an Exotic Animal Ranch. (Which, let me tell you, is SO much better than Erotic Animal Ranch we visited a couple years back. Had something of an incident involving a garlic press and a Suggestive-Dancing-Bear.) So there were lots of cool animals to see, like emus and ostriches, buffalo, antelope, sheep, turkeys, goats, caribou, a Phyllis Diller Chicken, etc.We rolled in Friday evening and found that the cabin was exactly what we'd hoped for. It was a little one-room cabin paneled in pine, with a small kitchen, rustic-looking pine bed, country decor and a back deck that featured a very large hot-tub. Granted, some of the country decor was a little inexplicable to us while other bits
of it were downright deadly, but it was a nice place all the same. I set about taking photos, because the day was sunny and warmish and I had a feeling the weather wouldn't hold out. The forecast was calling for snow, which was just what Ashley wanted. She was hoping it would snow a foot. After a trip into town for some supplies, we wound up eating dinner at the Feedbox. It was a very good restaurant. I'm always partial to restaurants with a buffet, just for the sake of the mass quantity of available food, but this one was particularly good. It wasn't a never-ending brown-food buffet, but had a few select items (roast beef with au jus, chicken, fish, cheesy spaghetti) under covered catering bins, all of which were very good. We returned to our cabin afterward to have deep and meaningful discussions in the hot tub.
The weather did turn nasty, and much sooner than expected. In the middle of the night, the wind began to blow across the top of the cliff, making me wonder if we were about to be swept away. It blew so hard that it pushed the thick 50 plus pound hot tub cover off center on the tub itself. That wind turned to rain on Saturday and stayed that way for most of the day. We still found breaks in the weather to go and see the exotic animals and take more pictures, but mostly the weather was crappy, so we stayed indoors.
Saturday night, it began to snow. I found it enormous fun to sit in a nice warm hot tub with ice falling all around us. It was even better the following morning, when the snow was really coming down. Granted, it's not quite so fun when you're the guy who has to get out of the nice warm tub, tromp through the snow and lift the now icy hot tub cover back on afterward, particularly when your wife has, in a fit of evil glee, locked the back door on you when you weren't looking, just to 
see you dance and beg in the snow in your now freezing wet underwear.All in all, though, it was a great weekend and a happy anniversary.
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