Food

You spend 7 days on the road and you eat a lot of food in that time. We eat breakfast and lunch on the road or sometimes breakfast at a hotel.  I have noticed that a hotel having a "continental breakfast" is not as much of a selling point for me as it once was.  Maneuvering our 6 mouths to feed through the crowd at the waffle maker, listening to at least one kid complain that the orange juice is definitely not "Florida Orange Juice", crowding around a micro sized table...  I digress...  We plan on eating out for supper.  In the past this has meant Cracker Barrel - due to their convenience and predictability, but this trip we made a point to visit the #1 rated restaurant on TripAdvisor and were not disappointed...much.

Some highlights:

Our first night we made an excellent choice in a little placed called The BBQ Grill in Ridgeland, South Carolina.  It was close to the interstate, had a buffet, the food was good, and -best of all- the only tables large enough to accommodate us were in a side room we had to ourselves.

The next day we spent in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and Rob had envisioned us catching trout to eat for supper.  He found an out of the way place on the Tennessee side of the park.  It was homey and quiet and the kids thought catching the fish was fun (eating it, not so much).

You got the full experience!

They prepared the fish 3 different ways - blackened, fried, and lemon pepper.  All were really great, their onion rings were extremely good and we were very disappointed that we had no way to keep our leftovers - especially because this culinary experience cost an arm and a leg.  So after chanting to myself "The kids had fun, they'll remember this fondly..."about 18 times I moved on.

A few days later - on the way to Arkansas, we stopped in rural Kentucky at a place called Adam's Breezy Hill Farm.  It was far off the path (far enough to start thinking we'd made a mistake) and when we walked in, I tried to convince Rob to walk back out - it was country posh and there were NO kids.  Rob talked me into staying and I left very happy with our choice.   The kids shared a brick oven pizza made right next to our table.

The guy in white coat behind Natalie is cooking in the brick oven.

and....they had homemade ice cream!

The cost was less than I expected too. :)  It was in beautiful rolling farm land.  I want to go back.

On the way home, Rob got boiled peanuts at his favorite place in Alabama.  Not my favorite, but not the worst thing I've ever eaten.

The last night out, we ate at Jimmy's Sub's in Quincy, Florida.  As far as local...eh, not really its selling point, nor was it's interior, this was a humble looking place on a rough looking street.  But the subs were AMAZING.  Definitely worth risking your safety driving out of the way for.

Caleb with the man himself - Jimmy (on the left, well my left, Caleb's right)

By then, you'd think we'd be full, but when we finally got home, everyone was hungry again.