Coon on a Cold Tin Roof

My husband and I are home early from our weekend away at a bed and breakfast in the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia...for a somewhat unusual reason. No, the kid didn't get sick and no, I didn't go crazy without the internet and demand to return early. To explain what happened, let's start at the beginning:

Driving most of the way to the B&B was fairly easy. It took about 4 hours and it was a really pretty drive.

I love how my husband hates when I drive so I don't have to take a turn

The directions said the inn was at the end of a windy road. We drove up a mountain on a windy road, but then we realized that wasn't the road that they meant. The actual road to the inn was very rustic:

Is it normal to sweat this much just sitting in a car?

Pick up truck + hair pin turns = lots of cursing

We finally arrived at the B&B:

Please note the tin roof, that's important for later

For full disclosure, my husband and I aren't really "B&B people" and prefer the sterile anonymity of a hotel. I have stayed at many B&Bs in my time because my parents liked them for family vacations, so I have a fair amount of comparison to work with here. It seems fitting that the innkeepers at this B&B didn't seem to enjoy their job either.

When we arrived at 5pm, we had asked for a "snack basket" to be available for our room since it was 2 hours until dinner and we figured we could munch on it the next day too. When we checked in, they told us that we couldn't have the basket because we'd ruin our appetites for dinner. Seriously. Only at a B&B would they refuse to sell us a $25 snack basket because we can't be trusted to be reasonable adults who won't ruin our dinner.

Once the dinner happened (also at the inn), the food was mediocre at best. It wasn't cheap and my beef short ribs were fairly chewy and bland and it came with a couscous salad that just didn't go (don't I sound like I've been watching a lot of Chopped lately? Because I have). I didn't finish all of my food and then the chef/innkeeper came out after and told me that it was a good thing that they didn't let me have the snack basket because then I would have eaten almost nothing. Oh good, I was worried that dinner wouldn't come with a side of judgment.

Once the awkward dinner was over, we went back to our nice room.

Fire! Burn! Fire!

We tried to make a fire but failed miserably, mostly because we only had four lame logs and no kindling. As we were trying to fall asleep, we heard something outside. We didn't think anything of it and I slept really well until something jerked me awake at 1am. At first I thought it was the baseboard heater, but then as I lay in bed, I heard the "scurry scurry" sound of a mouse right near my head. It startled me, but I realized that it was outside. Then I heard the sound of something much larger scampering on the roof and it sounded like it was trying to get inside the room.

At this point I woke up my husband and once he heard it too, he didn't even think I was crazy. Off and on for the next 5 hours, we were trying to go back to sleep only to be startled awake by scampering feet and animal noises on the roof. It sounded like it was more than one animal up there and they were chasing each other around. Finally when the sun came up, the animal noises stopped, but then we realized that having the roof above the kitchen was a horrible idea.

We felt like zombies at breakfast and told the innkeepers that we had barely slept and couldn't stay in that room for another night. At first the woman tried to insist that it was just squirrels, but squirrels are diurnal and don't stomp on roofs at 3am. I really appreciated that her first reaction was to argue with me and try to use her homeschool education to outsmart me. Then both of the innkeepers were just like "Well, we can't do anything about the critters" and offered that we could move to a tiny room in one of the out-cabins, but my husband is a tall guy and he wouldn't fit in the bed in that room. At this point we were both ready to just get out of there, so that's what we did.

When we had checked in, our room had this shiny silver notebook (like the kind a 7th grader uses as a diary) that people used to write about their experience. Everyone said "This was SO RELAXING and we had the best time ever!!" and as a tribute to the book, we commented several times in the middle of the night as we listened to the "critters" playing on the tin roof: "This sure is relaxing!"

My husband wouldn't let me write in this book

On the plus side, we had a nice time driving home and stopped at a great kabob place in Fredericksburg, VA and lamb makes everything better. My husband and I definitely got a lot of bonding time this weekend and a nice shared sleep debt.

Let's bond over sleeping 12 hours for the next vacation, ok?

I was a little mad that my husband wouldn't let me write in the room guest book because I even had a great idea for it:

2/17


5pm: We just arrived and it's so quiet and rustic here! We're really going to relax here!


9:30pm: We are hearing strange sounds outside. I'm scared.


2am: Oh god, I think the coons are finding a way in. 


3am: Please tell my daughter I love her. I can see their eyes now.




Now, wouldn't you laugh to read that in a room guest book at a B&B?


This picture sums up this whole post:

Nobody knows the trouble I've known....