What I did on my summer vacation

Friday – with Louise’s (Jacque’s GPS) wonderful instructions, we drove 3 ½ hours to Kings Mt, NC to pick up ex-SIL Elaine. I got to meet her parents for the first time and they got to meet a total stranger, Jacque, lol. We indulged their need to be hospitable and had lunch with them at their favorite Chinese restaurant. We then drove another 3 hours to Oxford NC. We were directed to one of maybe a small handful of restaurants in the area. Talk about a small town, lol. We then made WAL MART TRIP #1 and headed to the hotel. Everything was ok until I started to get under the covers – um, yuck, hair that does not belong on a freshly made bed. If I were the one to handle it, I would have insisted on a totally new room but I was encouraged to just get them to come up and change the sheets. I know that hair won’t hurt me but the idea that the sheets weren’t changed ooks me out something fierce. I had a rough night sleeping. Between ab*se memories and them snoring like freight trains (lol, I’m not the only one who snores) it was a long night.


Saturday – knowing that we would be too early for the 4pm check in, we stopped for lunch and at the Virginia Welcome Center. I guess that welcome centers no longer give out discounts for attractions and restaurants like they did some years ago. I’m aging myself, lol. The attendant did recommend The Chickahominy House as a good place to eat in Williamsburg so we made a mental note. The whole drive was about 4 ½ hours (including the stop for lunch), which made arrival even better since I wasn’t totally spent the minute we got there. Our accommodations were awesome! Pics posted at MS and FB. Since we planned on eating at “home” more than eating out, we headed out to the grocery store. Wow! I am SO spoiled with my large, offers almost anything, grocery stores. I had forgotten how food obsessed Elaine is. She wanted to buy everything that wasn’t nailed down and several of each. I’m not sure what that is about but she’s got it bad. I tried to remind her that we were only going to be there a week and did we really need two kinds of frozen yogurt?? Apparently the answer was yes, lol. Jacque and I were more about being practical so we just let her do her thing and we did ours. We also met the fattest squirrel that I’ve ever seen, he had “thunder thighs” and a fat belly. Based on his size and his behavior (practically coming in with us), he is used to being fed by people who’ve stayed before us. I nicknamed him Fat Albert (pic posted). Elaine is a smoker so she reluctantly spent more time with him than we did. We resisted the urge to feed him and just admired him when he was around.
Sunday – we decided that we would have Italian for lunch (the only real meal we were having on any given day) and went to WAL MART TRIP #2. Using flyers that we had collected, we planned out our week. We wanted to build in lots of resting but still try to make sure that everybody got to do what she wanted to do. We all have health challenges so it was important not to go balls to the wall every day and to just enjoy being there. When we were out for lunch we spotted a Haagen Dazs ice cream shop. We decided what the heck and headed out. I did decide to put my bra back on as I didn’t want to scare anybody with my boobs hanging out the bottom of my shirt. The ice cream shop was in with an Old Time General Store so we got to shop, again, something else that Elaine is VERY fond of doing.


Monday – big day to Colonial Williamsburg. We had already agreed that we weren’t interested in paying $35 ea to see all of the buildings, once you’ve seen one you’ve seen ‘em all kind of thinking. And, with Elaine not so steady on her feet (both hips replaced and legally blind), we just looked at the area from the bus that took us to the Merchant’s area (yep shopping) of town. Elaine did get a lot of nice souvenirs. I took a few pictures, including FBB. While we were looking for a restaurant a local spotted us looking clueless and tried to help. She was able to suggest a restaurant called Berrets. I had one of the worst blood sugar issues I’ve ever had before we were able to get there. It got kind of scary for a bit. The truck was too far away for me to lie down and we were unsure where we were going to eat. I thought I was going to fall flat on my face, or my face on the table before the food came. This is where I had the most expensive burger that I’ve ever paid for -- $15. You’d think that it would be something special but, eh, not so much. It was food and we were no longer hungry – that’s the point right? Lol On the way back home, we decided to look to see what stores were at the outlet mall that was right around the corner. Interesting to note but we all resisted the urge to shop, at least this day.


Tuesday – We had already noted that pancake houses are popular in the area, not sure why but they are. I love pancakes so we decided on the Astronomical Pancake House for real buttermilk pancakes. They are called astronomical because they are larger than the plate, actually hang over the edge. Sooooo good, you could even taste the buttermilk, but messy. As soon as you put any syrup on it’s all over the table. Usually I care but I’m sure they are used to it there. Elaine was also able to have some of her favorite southern comfort foods at this place. Scrapple, something I would never knowingly touch, and a few others that I don’t remember right now. Thinking that there would be more to see about candle making, we went to the Yankee Candle Shop. Um, there was not much to see about candle making. There was a small area for little kids to dip colors onto premade candles – kind of cool but I was hoping for more. No special deals there! One jar candle $25. I about fell out. Elaine did manage to get some more souvenirs. We did buy some fudge, each of us. Some of the best fudge I’ve ever had. I managed to bring some home to David, purposely bought some flavors (like peanut butter) that I knew I wouldn’t like, lol. Elaine was pooped and didn’t want to shop at the outlet mall but Jacque and I decided to get out for a bit. Deciding that I needed one more souvenir, we made WAL MART TRIP #3 and did a little shopping at the outlet mall. Outlet my butt! That stuff was still outrageously priced. It was interesting to look around though.


Wednesday – remembering the recommendation, we had lunch at The Chickahominy House (pic posted). It’s an old farm house made in to a restaurant and that sells really nice antiques. It was very popular. While we were waiting our turn, we looked around at the antiques, there were several that reminded me of items that are still belong to people in my family. One wall had about 6 or 7 clocks on it, all telling the right time. In my……. air headedness I guess, I look at Jacque and Elaine and ask them “what time is it?” Duh, lol. The food was down home southern cooking. I had homemade Brunswick stew with flatbread biscuits. I’ve never even heard of flatbread biscuits, which were wonderful. We then went to the plantation that was recommended to us as the best one to see in the area, the Berkeley Plantation. We knew rain was forcasted but hoped it would move through at least long enough for us to enjoy the tour and the grounds. We did see a small portion of the house but much was closed off as a relative of the original owner still lived there, he also still works some of the plantation even though he is retired and probably does not need to work another day in his life. There is lots of history at this particular plantation. It is the site of the first official Thanksgiving. Lots of historical people stayed there. I can’t remember who it was that burned some of the furniture but he was “kind” enough not to burn the house down. There’s also a two smaller houses next to the main house, I forgot to ask who lived in those – servants maybe? One has a cannon ball still lodged in the side of it. Elaine had decided not to bring her umbrella so I spent time trying to cover both of us as best I could but the rain did not let up. We did manage to see the largest weeping willow tree I’ve ever seen. I didn’t realize that those could get so big. It was beautiful. With the rain and all, I forgot to get a picture of it. Actually I didn’t even get a picture of the main plantation house. All of the grounds were beautiful. We decided to walk the ¼ mile to the rivers edge. It was awesome. I couldn’t figure out what made it seem so pretty and Elaine said that it was because it was so clean. Even with the rain, I was able to get a couple of pictures of the James River. It was then basically a dash back to the main house where the parking lot was. Elaine probably shouldn’t have walked that far as it was hard on her, especially with only one place to sit. We took our drowned selves back home to rest a bit before we were due to see the Ghosts of Williamsburg tour that evening. What a fiasco that was! Long story short – rain, thunder, lightening, no refund unless they cancel, we waited over an hour for it to be cancelled. Mostly we were upset because it was handled so poorly by the guide. We figured that she would not get paid unless we went on the tour so she didn’t want cancel. I was also a bit frustrated because I had to drive 20 min or so each way, in an area that I am not familiar with, in storms, and at night, no fun at all. It worked out for the best for everybody, especially Elaine. I tried to get her not to go as I knew 1 ½ hours of walking would be a lot on her but she wanted to try. For the life of me I can’t remember why but we stopped for WAL MART TRIP #4 on the way home.


Thursday – we were looking forward to going to the beach to have wonderful lobster tail and to put our toes in the ocean. Virginia Beach was about an hour from where we were but we thought it would be worth the trip, despite the storms that were coming through. We again stopped at the Visitor’s Center for some restaurant suggestions and hoped for some coupons. They were able to provide some menus for the places they recommended. Only one even had lobster on the menu, the WHOLE lobster. None of us wanted to deal with that but we went to one of the suggested restaurants anyway. Fortunately it was in a hotel so we were able to valet park as the storms were really bad at that point. The restaurant had all kinds of fish and seafood but lobster tail was not an option. There was NO way I was paying $45 for the whole lobster – even if I had that kind of money! Before we even ordered we decided that we’d do Red Lobster the next day, 5 minutes from where we were staying. Across the country for fresh lobster tail and we end up at Red Lobster. Anyway, the rain let up long enough for us to take a short walk on the boardwalk. It was too cold to even think about putting feet in the water so we just admired from afar (pics posted). I think we saw three crazy people in there but nobody else. Then we spotted the taffy place. Yep, we managed to get some taffy and more souvenirs. I had also seen a flyer for a chocolate shop, with homemade chocolate covered strawberries. We decided that might be a fun stop, a splurge. Well, hell, $5.00 for ONE chocolate covered strawberry. They were big but $5! I wanted to bring some home but that was not happening. Elaine got some more souvenir stuff and we all got a small sampling of a few other chocolate covered items. Not a total bust, lol. Another no big deal kind of day but it still wore us out. We decided not to wait for Friday to do our laundry and coming home with clean clothes is always a plus to me.


Friday – lobster tail lunch at Red Lobster (pic posted just for the lol), yum, and the service was great. There was still a lot of rain but it was worth it to us. We made our 5th WAL MART TRIP, to get a cooler to take home the food that had not been eaten, big surprise, NOT. Elaine also had a few more souvenirs she wanted to get. After we got “home”, Elaine pointed out the there was a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream shop around the corner. She had mentioned it several times so it was obvious that she wanted to go. Off we went as who wanted to bother with packing anyway, lol. We did end up being good when we got home by packing everything we could and getting to bed at a decent time.

Saturday – fortunately a wonderfully sunny travel day, Louise doing her thing, and off to return Elaine to her home. Unlike the trip there, we decided that I was feeling good enough to drive the rest of the 3 ½ hours to my home. We did stop for meals and to visit a few minutes with Elaine’s parents. We had also gotten on the road early enough that it was barely dark when we got to my house. A long trip but I was glad to be home.