I ate breakfast for all three meals of the day. Two at home and one out. One of the at home meals was bought on the way home from work on New Year’s Eve.
7:30 AM – 1 Cranberry Pecan Muffin & 1/2 Banana.
11:30 AM – Fried egg on top of a hash made from sweet potatoes, Gala apples and maple flavored breakfast sausage.
5:30 PM – Pecan pancakes & a side of bacon at Cracker Barrel.
We did a little geocaching this morning.
We have pretty much cleaned out everything in our local area where we can go to a park, state or local, and get in a nice walk while having the opportunity to find several caches while we are at it. Last night I expanded the search area just a bit, we didn’t want to drive more than an hour one way and I found a place west of Columbia and near Lake Murray called Saluda Shoals Park that fit the bill.
We found 9 of the 10 we searched for. The only one we didn’t was a micro in the woods, but it was one of those decoy caches. The owner hides a cache and then hides 6 to 10 decoys that look like actual caches, but when you open them up instead of a log to sign there is some that says “This is not the cache.” We don’t really like this kind of hide, one reason is because this is third one we’ve attempted and are 0 for 3. The other, is more philosophical, if you’ve got this big ol’ place where no one will stumble on your cache why do you have to hide that sucker so well?
Walking 5.6 miles around in the woods can make a person hungry. For lunch Donna mentioned that she’d like a hamburger and the first place I thought of was Pawley’s Front Porch in the Five Points area of Columbia it’s only 12 miles away. Trouble is, it probably would be a suicide mission because the University of South Carolina was playing football today only a couple miles away from there. I thought it would be smart to avoid going to Five Points, but Donna talked me into it saying, that if it got crowded as we got close we could turn around and find another place to eat.
Well, as it turns out, arriving at Pawley’s was a piece of cake at 1:30 and had I come in the right way I could have parked right next to the side door. Probably because 80,000 Gamecock fans had been in their seats at Williams-Brice Stadium for at least a half an hour as kickoff time was at 1:00PM.
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPJbun3kJYY
Oh, and that giant inflatable turkey we saw on the drive home turned out to be Cocky. Honest mistake for the non fan considering the season and all.
There is a new pizza place in town and we were excited to eat there, but our excitement was tempered some after our first visit.
We were pulling back into Aiken after our trip the Florida a couple weeks ago when I noticed that the long rumored wood fired pizza place was actually open. We took a sharp left turn into the parking lot. The place was sparsely, but tastefully, filled in with 5 booths along the window and 6 tables between the booths and the open kitchen. We stood in front of the entry area where the cash register was and waited to be seated. The girl behind the counter motioned us forward and explained we ordered there, paid, and then the food was brought to you. You want a drink? “Chose from these fine beverages,” as she sweeps her hand, Price Is Right style, across an array of Coca-cola products. I select a Coke Zero and Donna declines any, and asks for water. We are handed styrofoam cups and instructed where to get ice. It was right over along the side where you also get your silverware.
The pizza was great and worth the hassle. Sort of.
Turns out they had just opened their doors for a soft opening a mere 4 days before. Hopefully some of the rough edges of their service would get smoothed out as they get more experienced.
Well, we wanted pizza tonight, but weren’t real confident that they had worked out all the kinks, so I was sent over to pick up a pie to go. They did have a working soda fountain machine, so you get a wider selection of soft drinks and you don’t have to scoop ice out of a metal pitcher with a red solo cup. There are now four young girls working there instead of one, but the whole enter, stand around near the door while looking at the menu before ordering and shuffling off to a table thing still exists.
Unfortunately the greatness of a wood-fired oven baked pizza when placed in a cardboard box and driven 1.7 miles is severely diminished. Fortunately, it is still better than the frozen take home or chain delivered version. Barely.
My morning snack was always a rotating series of cookies until a month or so ago when I rediscovered a childhood favorite – Pop Tarts. All thanks to a random coupon in the Sunday paper.
My favorite then was always the Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon, but now I like the Blueberry or Strawberry best. I can still dig the Brown Sugar Cinnamon ones, but they taste the best when hot and I have to walk all the way back up to the front of the Valve Store(C) to get to a toaster or one of those new fangled microwave machines and I’m all about lazy.
They come 2 pastries inside each foil wrapped pack, so naturally the nutritional information on the website lists the serving size as 1 pastry. Right, like you are just going to eat just one. These figures are for 2 tarts:
| Calories | Cal from Fat | Total Fat | Sat Fat | Chol | Sodium | Carbs | Fiber | Sugars | Protein | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pop Tart | 420 | 120 | 14 | 4 | 0 | 340 | 68 | 1 | 30 | 4 |
Look at those calorie and fat counts, no wonder they taste so good.
The above is a photo of a Pop Tart at 450 magnification from Caren Alpert via io9. Click on it to make it bigger!
Donna always had to have popcorn when we went to the movies, even if it was normally crappy and way over priced, and most times on weekends when we watched a DVD too. Unfortunately she can’t eat popcorn anymore because of the UC, so we don’t keep it in the house anymore. Every once in a while she would offer to buy some just for me because she felt I was being deprived. But I’m not a real popcorn lover. I don’t have to have any to enjoy a movie. I don’t dislike it and would never turn it down when offered at the movies or at home, but haven’t missed it all.
Until this morning. I was up front of the plant to go with Donna for our morning break walk and I could smell that someone in the cafeteria had just popped some. The lure of the Siren’s song was too great. After the walk, on my way back to my cube, I broke down and bought some microwave popcorn. I ate about a third of the bag before I couldn’t eat anymore, so I placed the bag on the conference room table as the 10:30 NCMR meeting was just starting.
Next time you pop up a bag of Pop Secret Movie Butter microwave popcorn take a peek at the “Nutritional Facts.” They are broken down into two separate type of servings, 1 Cup Popped and 2 Tbsp Unpopped. Raise your hand if you eat unpopped popcorn.
We went geocaching today in Crawfordville, GA and A.H. Stephens State Park. We took along a coworker and because the Miata does not seat 3 comfortably we took her car. Crawfordville is where Hollywood comes calling when it needs to film in a quintessential small southern town. There have been about a dozen films that have used this town as a bit player in them and there are 8 caches here with names that are the titles of those movies. We looked for 4 and found 2. The two we missed I don’t count as DNFs because they were in locations that made us very nervous searching which was only heightened by the fact that we were driving a car with New Jersey plates. There were 6 caches in the state park that you can get to by land and we found 5 of them.
Probably the most recognizable movie that was filmed in town was “Sweet Home Alabama” and for lunch we decided to eat at the BBQ place that was used in the bar scenes (Stella’s Roadhouse) of the movie. We were talked into getting the Plate by the almost surly woman behind the counter at Heavy’s as it included meat, brunswick stew and coleslaw. We opted for a rib plate and a chicken plate to split between the three of us. The coleslaw was too vinegary and had way too much pickle taste. The “stew” was run through a food processor for too long as it was kind of a sickly looking brown mush. The only thing remotely edible was the meat and that was overpowered by the amount of BBQ sauce it was covered in. Interesting place to visit, but you don’t want to eat there.
We have had a nice big screened porch on the back of the house for a decade now and for at least 4 of them we have had Donna’s family gather here for Thanksgiving. We have always said, wouldn’t it be great if we could have Turkey Day Dinner out on the porch. But each time they were here the weather was always too cold. Too bad we didn’t host them this year because the temperatures were in the upper 70’s today and the porch was a delightful place to be this afternoon.
No one came here and we didn’t go anywhere, so instead of making a Thanksgiving meal for two and all that entails, we opted to go to Aiken’s One Table. It started 5 years ago and is basically a free Thanksgiving meal served in the Alley to anyone who shows up. Billed as “NOT a ‘hand-out’, but more of a ‘hand-shake’.” by the organizers, we have thought of going before, but never did. This was the year. They didn’t charge for the meal, but did ask for anyone who comes to bring some canned goods. Food would be served between the hours of 11 AM and 2 PM and we arrived at a little past eleven thirty and were greeted by a very long line. That didn’t move.
We have very little patience for waiting. For anything. After a couple of minutes of not getting any closer to food we hopped out of line to check out what was going on. The first thing we noticed after passing the music stage was another identical stationary line. Then about halfway down the block we cut into the alley and noticed that there were a lot of empty seats and a lot of volunteers walking around with trays of food. As we completed the loop we arrived back at the point we had left the line and the fireman who were standing behind us were still standing in approximately the same spot.
Plan B was implemented, Fatz Cafe. Turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, cranberry sauce, a slice of pumpkin pie and a drink for $11.99. As a bonus, the servings were large enough that we actually brought home some leftovers.