For Jeff’s birthday this year, we decided to plan a quick weekend getaway. It was a milestone birthday and needed to be celebrated! So we looked at our usual go-to Chattanooga, but just wasn’t feeling it for this trip. We looked at a local B&B but they didn’t have availability for the dates. Did I mention that we were planning pretty much last minute? We searched and looked and decided that we’d go to Huntsville, AL. It’s been quite some time since we had been there. So the planning commenced.

First up was a place to stay. We decided on 106 Jefferson hotel in downtown Huntsville. It is a boutique Hilton hotel. They are in downtown Huntsville so they don’t have on-site self parking. You can use there valet service or park in a local public parking garage. We opted for valet.

We drove up after work on Friday. Traffic was not bad for I-65, on a Friday at 5:00. We get to Huntsville and our map alerted us that I-565 was closed because of a wreck. So Jeff directed us around and opposite of the way everyone else was going. At one point there was just us and 2 other cars on the road. At least we weren’t sitting in traffic. We got back on I-565 past the wreck area and our first stop was for dinner at Agave & Rye Epic Tacos at Bridgestreet Town Centre, which is an outdoor mall. We didn’t know where it was so we parked at the front and checked the maps once we came to one. The restaurant was all the way in the back left corner. It was cold so we all but ran to the restaurant. It was February after all. We had a short wait. We started with the Elote (street corn) the menu said it had cotija cheese, Serrano aioli, Tajin, cilantro, lime and corn off the cob, if it’s on the menu we usually will try it. This was the spiciest corn we’ve ever had. I had the Swipe Right chicken taco and Jeff had The Plain Jane ground beef tacos.

They even had kangaroo tacos on the menu. I texted our son and he tried to get me to get them, but I passed. I’m not as adventurous as he is. He would have tried them just so he could say that he did. LOL!

After dinner we went and checked in to the hotel and we were in for the night. Saturday morning we got up and went to Superhero Chefs for breakfast. On the way we drove across the University of Alabama at Huntsville which was a surprise in that we didn’t know where it was located or that we’d even see it while in the area. We got to the restaurant before they opened and sat in the car until they turned on the open sign. There were several other people also waiting for that sign to come on. They had the thickest pancakes I’ve ever seen. Our waitress told us they were more of a cake consistency and that you have to allow 15-20 minutes for them to cook. We opted for the waffle sandwiches. I had The Hulk and Jeff had Bruce Banner. These were HUGE. I think in the picture below you can tell which is which. LOL!

After breakfast we went to a few antique stores all over town. We went to Preservation Company, Firehouse Antiques, Lowe’s Mill and then back to Bridgestreet to do some window shopping.

We ended up not spending a lot of time at Lowe’s Mill. It is a cool concept in that it is an old mill that they have converted to several floors of vendor rental space. Some of the vendors we saw were photographers, artists, cats for adoption, a couple of restaurant stalls, a book store, make your own pottery and a game room. We just walked the first couple of floors. The way it is set up not everything is open at the same time and some places are by appointment only. So there wasn’t any places to just browse. So we didn’t walk the entire place and in the time we spent there we did not enter one vendors spot, the majority of them were not open on a Saturday.

At Firehouse Antiques, we felt like the store just kept going. It was HUGE! You’d think you were almost done and come across an area you hadn’t been to yet.

If you know Jeff, then you know his love of Italian food. So of course we had to plan to have some since this was his birthday trip. So for lunch we went to Bravo Cucina Italian which is at Bridgestreet. By now you’ve probably figured out that I have a love of homemade ice cream, so that is one of our searches when planning a trip. In our quick research beforehand we found that there was a place in the area. So after lunch we finished window shopping and we drove to Handel’s Ice Cream. They are an old walk up type dairy bar. One of their slogans is “We never skimp” you can definitely tell that from my cone. They don’t have a seating area so we had to eat in the car. Then we headed back to the hotel to rest. I think I even grabbed a quick nap.

Saturday night we went to the Von Braun center for the Huntsville Havoc hockey game. It was within walking distance of our hotel so we walked to the game. This was just the 3rd hockey game we’ve ever been to. Our seats were at the tip top of the arena. It’s not a big complex but the walk to those seats was just about straight up. Had we known that before, we would have grabbed food and a drink so we didn’t leave our seats. But we didn’t know and planned to get food after the first period. Well when we got down we decided not to make the climb back up. So we left and went next door and had dinner at Condado Tacos. We have one of those in Birmingham, we’ve written about our trip there if you want to check it out just use the search option on the main page. They were busy, it was afterall a Saturday night and it took awhile for our waiter to come to our table. We forgot that their food is also spicy. But it was food. Afterwards we walked back to the hotel.

Sunday morning we started the day with breakfast at the Revivalist which is one of the restaurants in the hotel. We then headed to the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. Tyler was in the 5th grade the last time we were there. So it’s been a few years. After that we headed towards home. We stopped for lunch in Cullman at Sweet Peppers Deli. Then we waited for Seven Daughters Scoops to open and got some ice cream to go and headed on home. There ice cream is not homemade, but was still good. I’ve been watching their Facebook page since they opened, so I was just waiting on the opportunity to visit as we aren’t normally in that area.

That was a wrap on the birthday celebration!