Sorry it took so long to write about part 2 of our fantastic "Airport Rendezvous Weekend" celebration. Life after the weekend away was a bit tiring and it hasn't really stopped. I'm feeling a little over scheduled some days. I can hardly believe March will be over in a little more than a week. It doesn't seem quite right that it is almost over, but time flies when you are having fun, right? Ok...on with part two.
We left the house and were on our way to Chattanooga. I actually stayed awake the whole ride there. I typically fall asleep in the car if it takes too long to get somewhere. It only took a little over 2 hours to get to Chattanooga. We checked in to our room at the Hilton Garden Inn and dropped off our bags. (Almost as nice as the one in DC...they are kinda tied in my mind for the best hotel I've stayed in thus far award...although the Chattanooga one had a wonderfully wonderful bed that allowed me an amazing night of sleep.) Then we walked across the street to find some dinner. Bivins tried to walk me out in front of a car too. You would think by now I would stop trusting that he wasn't going to get me run over and just look both ways for myself, but I haven't seemed to learn that yet. We ended up eating at Applebee's and walking back across the street to the hotel. Our room had a lovely whirlpool tub and it was quite relaxing. I almost fell asleep in the tub it was so relaxing. I somehow managed to crawl out of the tub and into the aforementioned wonderfully wonderful bed for a long night's sleep. I now know that should we ever "settle" somewhere that I would like a whirlpool tub and a wonderfully wonderful bed in my home. It isn't up for negotiation. I don't think Bivins and I would really have to negotiate about it anyhow, he liked them both too. He slept til noon! He very rarely does that.
Saturday we woke up late. Like noon late. We finally managed to get ready and headed out to the mall to wander around a bit. We discussed doing some touristy type things like going to the aquarium and visiting Ruby Falls, but we opted to spend the weekend relaxing and enjoying the time together instead of being tourists. We ate lunch (at like 2pm) at Big River Grille & Brewing Works. We sampled their homemade brews and selected our favorites to sip on during lunch. In addition to great beer they have great food too. My favorite was the baked potato soup. YUMMY! Oh it was sooooo good. I thought about getting some to go, but didn't. Man it was good. I am sure that we will visit there again should we make it back to Chattanooga. We shopped around at the mall a bit and didn't really find anything. (Essentially we were wasting time until dinner, lol.) We did manage to find a set of towels and a shower curtain that inspired the remodeling of our spare bathroom a.k.a the eyesore. After a few hours we decided to figure out where to eat dinner. We selected O'Charley's because we have not eaten there since living in J-ville and we really love their food. Plus, it was right across the street from our hotel and we could walk there. Which means we could both drink and not have to worry about driving. Prior to heading back to the hotel we decided to stop at a wine & liquor store. We thought we would just stop and see if maybe they happened to carry Duplin County Wine. (I'm pretty sure this is the ambrosia of the greek gods. I may be a little partial, but I think it is what they were drinking.) We wandered the whole store, which was pretty big-it almost rivaled the ABC store on Camp Lejeune. Yeah it was big. Anyhow, we wandered and had just decided to leave when we turned around and BOOM! There it was, the drink of the gods. I clapped and giggled like a little girl. I'm pretty certain that the owners thought I was a touch crazy. We bought 9 bottles. We probably would have purchased more, but they only had 3 bottles of the Hatteras Red which is my absolute favorite. (I'm telling you I would have made Bivins buy every single bottle of HR they had. Lucky for him they only had 3.) We did get their business card and they said that if we give them advance notice they can purchase a case of it for us next time. You can bet I'm keeping track of that card. I love that stuff! (I think it was the only thing that saved my sanity at times while the boys were deployed. No I wasn't an alcoholic, but Friday nights with Anna would not have been complete without our bottle of Duplin, especially after a week of teaching.) We carefully stowed the wine in our hotel room and then walked across the street for dinner.
There was quite a wait for a table at O'Charley's so we ended up sitting at the bar, which was first come first serve. It was fine with us. I believe we each started the night with a margarita. The food was yummy and so were the drinks. We had Sangria and Bivins also had a vodka tonic or two and even some beer. Sometime after we finished our food the guy next to Dave said something about "you just drank enough to take down a water buffalo! I would have been sick by now." Dave said "yeah." Then they struck up a conversation about Haiti and somehow learned that the guy was also a Marine and had been with 3/8 (Dave's old unit) when they had been deployed to Haiti. They bough each other beers and continued chatting for awhile. The Marine kept apologizing for his language during some of his stories and I would laugh and say "it's no big thing I'm the wife of a Marine and I love hanging out with the boys." It was so much fun to meet another Marine on our trip away. It made me laugh and smile (Bivins too). We finally wandered back across the street to our hotel room and relaxed in the whirlpool tub til I felt like jello. We set our alarms for the morning and slipped off to sleep.
Sunday we woke up and knew we had to leave. Yucky. We showered and gathered our belongings. Dave did the final check to make sure we didn't leave anything behind and we were off in search of breakfast. We ended up eating at Moe's (similar to Chipotle) and then we drove by a Fresh Market. We decided we would shop there since we haven't been to one since we left J-ville. We bought all kinds of yummy things, including steaks and potatoes. Then we finally made the trek home. It was nice and sunny so I slept 80% of the way home. I just couldn't keep my eyes open. We finally made it home. Crissy was reading on her front porch so we wandered up to show her the stuff we found for the bathroom. She loved it. We unpacked the car and began cleaning the house. It looked terrible. Then Dave cooked our yummy dinner. Steaks on the grill and baked potatoes. Before I knew it I had to go to sleep and it was back to the daily grind of work and school...
Nothing can compare to that first weekend spent together, at least not in my mind, but it was a really wonderful, relaxing weekend spent away with my husband. I enjoyed every minute of it.
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