Our last
vacation of the year was finally here – we'd been traveling a lot
in 2013 but we scheduled our family vacation for last after much
pleading from our great friends, Wade and Charlie, to vacation with
them aboard the Celebrity Summit over Thanksgiving. After pricing
what a suite and a cabin would cost for the 4 of us (putting the
kids, Amina (16) and Rhys (14) in a separate cabin) – the penthouse
suite wasn't a whole lot more expensive and it would be a brand new
experience for us. This would be our “final” cruise as Celebrity
Select Captain's Club members – our next one will be as Elite
members – Celebrity's top tier. So, I guess in a way, we were
going to say our goodbye to Select membership in great style. LOL.
We left on
Thursday night after my Christmas pageant rehearsal at the Emmanuel
Baptist Church in Enid. We got done at around 8:30 which was earlier
than I had anticipated. I had been running around all day getting a
haircut, getting a manicure, going to the bank 3 times, getting our
stuff together for our excursions....and finally at around 3 pm,
packing clothes. So after I got home from my rehearsal, we were all
packed and ready to hit the road for the 15 hour drive to Atlanta.
I had looked
every which way to find us a reasonably priced flight round trip
to/from Atlanta. It was a LOT less expensive to fly from Atlanta to
San Juan and we could arrive at a decent time on Saturday to board
the Summit without having to fly in the night before and spend the
night. After a ton of research it boiled down to flying from OKC to
San Juan, spending the night and boardig the next day vs flying to
Atlanta, spending the night with Wade and Charlie, flying together on
Saturday to San Juan and boarding the ship directly vs just driving
to Atlanta. The problem wasn't flying into Atlanta – that was
relatively cheap (around $180 pp) – the problem was flying home
from Atlanta the weekend after Thanksgiving. The airlines had more
than doubled their prices that weekend (over $400 pp). By driving
into Atlanta and spending the night at their house and then flying to
San Juan together, we were going to save about $2500.
So off we
went at around 9 pm – we wanted to get to Atlanta and avoid rush
hour. Seth drove us more than half way there through torrential rain
in Arkansas and Tennessee. After one fuel stop, we finally stopped
for breakfast at around 6:30 am in Tupelo, Mississippi at Cracker
Barrel. We switched and I drove us from Tupelo past Birmingham,
Alabama and then Seth drove us the rest of the way to Atlanta. We
arrived at Charlie and Wade's house at around 11:30 am. It was about
a 14 hour drive but in bad weather so we made really good time.
I took the
kids and their friend (a TIP boy who lived nearby) out to lunch at a
local hangout (something with a 7) that he recommended. It was very
good – the corn chowder had a hint of spicy heat, I got to try
Brunswick stew for the first time (basically BBQ pork soup – you
could just as easily take it and put it on a bun as a sandwich),
their pork “wings” with a mustard based BBQ sauce, and tater
tots. Amina's pulled pork tacos were also really good.
We napped
that afternoon until Wade and Charlie got home and then headed out
for our 7 pm reservation at the Iberian Pig – we had been looking
forward to eating here after they had described to us what the food
was like. We were not disappointed. I think only a handful of people
on this planet truly know what types of food Seth and I really enjoy
– Charlie and Wade are amongst the select few.
The Iberian
Pig was a tapas restaurant on steroids. There were so many choices
it was mind boggling and we each ordered a couple of dishes and they
prepared them for all 6 of us. We loved it – especially that whole
family style eating which is how we mostly eat at home. I say this
every time we travel, but I thank my lucky stars that the kids love
to eat as we do and are always willing to try new things out.
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| Cheese Charcuterie |
 |
| "French" toast with foie gras |
 |
| Ham charcuterie |
We were so
tired after dinner, we went back to Charlie and Wade's house and went
immediately to bed. We had a very early flight in the morning to San
Juan.
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