Food

Hunan Halfway

Lunch of Chinese food at the Evergreen Buffet with water to drink for two.

Meal Cost: $11.98
Tip: $2.02
Spent Today: $14.00
Year to Date: $960.17

Came home from work today and our street was half resurfaced. It is about three years from when we were told it would happen, but it has finally happened. Kind of guessed it was coming the other week when we noticed some spray painted numbers on the street when we went for our evening walk. I hope it isn’t raining tomorrow after work so I can rollerblade on the smooth as glass surface.

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 152

Mmmm Mmmuffins

Miataless Post OfficeWe bought this morning’s breakfast from the New Moon Cafe after yesterday’s hike, a low fat Blueberry muffin for her and a Raspberry Coconut muffin for him (which we ended up splitting 50-50.)

Meal Cost: $2.65
Tip: 35¢
Spent This Meal: $3.00

After breakfast we tried to make up for the last 3 weeks on non-activity in the Post Office quest by heading to the capital city of the Great State of South Carolina and getting a photo of all 13 POs. Mission accomplished. The only Post Office not accounted for that lists Columbia as the city is the one on the Army base, Fort Jackson. (They have an Open House on the 18 & 19 of May for Armed Forces Day so we might try and sneak in then.)

A few years back a favored Sunday lunch spot was an Italian fast food chain called Fazoli’s, but they closed up shop here in Aiken and we have missed eating their food quite often since then. Well, Columbia has two Fazoli’s and both are close to some of our destination Post Offices, so we thought it might be a treat to eat there for lunch. I guess our memories have been colored by time (or maybe it was this particular restaurant) because it didn’t seem worth the trip. The Twice Baked Ziti with Hearty Meat Sauce was good and the bread sticks were practically dripping in butter, but the salad and the dressing left a lot to be desired. I had a fountain Coke and Donna had water.

Meal Cost: $10.76
Tip: None
Spent This Meal: $10.76
Spent Today: $13.38
Year to Date: $923.03

Five out of six isn’t half bad. As a matter of fact it is 83% good. After looking lackluster on Fox yesterday the FRS came out swinging against the dreaded Yankees today and came out on top of a 7 to 4 score. Big Papi contributed a homer, as did the coming out of his funk Manny Rameriz, but those guys are expected to smack the long ball. A nice bonus was a homer from our utility infielder Alex Cora. Now we have 19 warm up games until we come back to the “House That Ruth Built” on the 21st of May.

Started down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 133

Wired-for-Business

Why is it that you can stay at the $75 a night Quality Inn off the interstate and you get free wireless high speed internet, but spend the night in the $250 a night Newark Airport Marriott and it costs you $9.95 (plus applicable taxes) a day?

The previous two nights were spent in a New Britain, CT extended stay hotel that caters to business folks and it cost me $4.95 a day for high speed web access. Yet the local Motel 8 was giving it away.

Not only is is fast and free at the national chain places, I have never had an issue hooking up. Tonight at the Marriott I successfully managed to log in, agree to the conditions, check yes to the fee and get to view one page of the Weather Channel web site for losing connectivity. I rebooted, I swapped out for my cat5 cable and rebooted again with no luck. I ended up having to call the 1-800 number to get a help desk person. A five minute wait and we did a couple of things, including disabling the wireless (remind me to turn that back on later huh) and disabling the wired NIC and re-enabling it so I could get back on line.

That time I managed to stay connected for about 2 minutes before being dumped off. Back to the 1-800 number. This time we ran over a few other things and the CSR tried a couple of resets on her end. I am automatically getting an IP address, but I’m not getting a DNS address. The CSR said she would report this up the food chain and see if they could figure out what the problem is, but for now we left it alone as I’m back online. I just don’t have a high confidence that I’ll stay connected.

Egg Wiggle

Table Full of CousinsIt is great when families get together to talk and compare notes from the past. We gathered around the kitchen table at Donna’s cousin Mary’s (3rd from the left.) Her other cousin Susie, is 2nd from the left. Susan’s husband Alex is, well, the only guy in the photo. Mary’s daughter is next to her, stage right and the other three girls belong to Susie and Alex. Mary’s husband Jim is off stage left and their son was on the couch in the background just a second ago. Donna is under the camera and I’m behind it to complete the cast.

One thing that surfaced was a strange food concoction called Egg Wiggle from the cousins’ past. An internet search was of no help, but the best I could gather from them was that it was sliced hard boiled eggs and canned peas in a cream sauce served over toast. I wonder if Rachel Ray would have a recipe?

Donna and I are staying at the Newark Airport Marriott courtesy of her brother’s reward points. Thanks Jimmy! Jim is coming in for the service as well, and Donna bartered the room stay for the Deluxe Bogardus Limo Service. He is coming in from California on the red-eye and will catch a few hours of snoozing before we chauffeur him to the memorial service for Aunt Mary in Rutherford. After the service we will then hightail it south to the grave site in New Brunswick. After that ceremony there it is a dinner planned about half way back up in the town of Summit. After dinner we will return to the Marriott where we spend a second night. Sunday Jim flies back to California and Donna & I drive to DC to fly back to SC.

Brrrrrrr!

Ice PossibleEven though it was supposed to be cold, rainy, and maybe sleety (if that is a word), Donna and I decided to get out and see the sights. I Googled for “Central CT Attractions” and the 6th link on the 2nd linked page was a list of covered bridges. Connecticut has a whopping 5 of them and there were three that were located no too far from each other in the northwest corner of the state. A plan was hatched. We stopped in and asked my mom if she wanted to go, fully expecting her to say no, but she was up for the ride, so the three of us piled in the rental car.

Today’s high was a low 40s, but that was this morning before the precipitation started, and it went downhill all day. Our helpful little Pontiac G6 reminded us, every time I started it up, that the road might be icy. There were several times that the thermometer read 32 degrees, but it was always rain coming down. Maybe it was sleet those couple of times that the sound of what splattered on the windshield deepened or maybe not, but we did see a thin coating of ice on some of the trees at the higher elevations.

Of the three bridges, two were built in the middle 1800s and still in operation, you could drive right over them. The third was built in the middle 1970s in Kent Falls State Park and was erected as a point of interest for the park. The falls looked interesting, but because of the weather we will save them for a different day.

We had pizza for lunch in the town of Kent at a place called Paisans, it was good, but I won’t recommend you go out of your way to eat there, unlike yesterday morning’s breakfast spot.

If you ever find yourself in Port Jervis, NY seek out Cafe Roxanna. We had breakfast, but from looking at the menu their lunch would be worth the stop as well. Eclectic food served on funky dinnerware, photographic art from locals hanging on the walls and laid back jazz on the sound system, the only thing missing was the word Moon in the restaurants name.

Tomorrow we shift the show to the Garden State…

Chesapeake & Ohio Canal

Lock #37 and Lock HouseWe were up at 4:00AM to drive to Columbia. The flight and all about it went smoothly. The only hitch was that Donna told her friend Sally to meet us at the Alamo counter at Dulles, trouble being there is no counter at the airport, Alamo is off-site. Fortunately, by the time we figured out where Sally’s Metro bus would stop, it was just arriving. We picked out our Pontiac G6 and headed west.

Brunch was at the Cindy-Dee Restaurant just over the Potomac River into Maryland in a small town called Knoxville. The food was pretty good, but I wouldn’t recommend you drive out from DC just to eat there. (As a side note, I won’t be keeping track of the money spent eating out during our trip, can’t really count it as eating out because we have no choice in the matter.) We were on our way to Sally’s sister’s house for Easter lunch, but Sally informed us that lunch meant 2 to 3 PM so topping off the stomach at 9:30AM was a good idea.

After they got home from church, and while the food was cooking, Donna, Sally, Sally’s brother-in-law and I went a half mile back down the road they live on, to an entrance to the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal for a walk. It was a very brisk walk, in more ways than one as the temperature was probably in the upper 30s with a good breeze. After getting back from our walk we had a wonderful free form Easter lunch, that if we had 60’s soul music playing in the background, could have almost passed for scene from the Big Chill. There was Donna and I, Sally, her sister Suzie, Suzie’s husband John, John’s sister Peg, a neighbor of theirs in Georgetown, Suzie and John’s daughter, one of her friends and her friend’s mother.

At around 5:30 Donna and I were running out of steam, so we took our leave and drove back to DC. Sally managed to direct us back to DC without incident, but after arrival, it took us three circles of the tricky roads near the Key Bridge to actually find the Holiday Inn parking entrance.

Tomorrow, the three of us will be doing some touristy stuff, you know, see some monuments, and if we get going early enough maybe we’ll see President George come out to get the Post in his bathrobe.

Well Holed

North, South CarolinaSeeing as we are vacationing in the northeast next week and the temperatures there probably won’t get as high as the mid-fifties, we were not going to let the cold weather here stop us from having a nice day outdoors. Note to would be burglars: Our neighbor’s 75 lb pit bull is spending the week at our house and we are only leaving him two days worth of food.

Our excursion began with lunch out at the Stoplight Deli in downtown Aiken. We both had a cup of chili to start. Then we split a Rachel sandwich (corned beef, ham, swiss cheese, cole slaw, russian dressing on wheat.) We both finished off the meal with a cookie, oatmeal raisin for her, peanut butter for him. The usual water was to drink.

Meal Cost: $11.87
Tip: None
Spent Today: $11.87
Year to Date: $851.36

After lunch we drove to Ridge Spring’s Nut House to pick up a gift sampler for our Easter dinner hosts. While we out we headed over towards Columbia to fill in a Post Office hole. Gaston and Swansea were first and then we were headed to two towns that I originally marked with red dots (meaning no PO) on the map, North and Norway. Between the two pairs of towns, I spotted a sign directing folks to a Post Office in the town of Neeses, so I followed it. We ended up getting photos of five places even though according to my map there should have only been two.

Please tell me why two people who don’t golf (unless you count a bi-annual stab at putt-putt), aren’t really interested in golf and probably can’t name 5 current golfers, will spend 4 evenings at the end of the first week in April glued to the tube watching the Masters?

While I’m asking questions, why in the world would the History Channel be showing The Planet of the Apes?

Started down, went up, back down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 01/01/07: 116