Ridgecrest Coffee Bar

Is This The Straw?

Last year when we went to visit family in Washington state Donna came back from the trip determined that we should move out there. She even had a town all picked out, Sequim (pronounced skwim), it is out on the Olympic Peninsula which is close enough, but far enough from little Scott and family. It is small town, only 6,600 people, so we wouldn’t have the selection of restaurants or shops to choose from we do here. The temperature ranges are similar to Aiken and they actually get less total rain than here, but it is cloudy for twice as many days as Aiken with only 130 predominantly sunny days a year.

This year when we went to visit family out west Donna came back from the trip determined that we should move out there. She even had a town all picked out, Carson City, NV. The temperature is generally cooler year round as it is high desert at 4,100′ above sea level. It is a lot colder in the winter though with an average of 17″ of snow a year. It is a bigger town than Aiken with a population of about 50k, so there is that, but real estate is a bit more expensive, we’d end up with less house.

After a few weeks the fever to move wanes because it would be a monumental hassle, with trying to sell a house, move everything we own, including two cars 3,000 miles away, buy another house, pick out a new set of banks, doctors, insurance agents, etc. Besides we do generally like it here.

The photo above is of the closed Ridgecrest Coffee Bar. We drove by there the other day and were devastated to find that while we were gone this time the place closed. According to the sign on the door the owner was having legal issues from a previous location and landlord troubles at this location, so she pulled the plug. We have taken an early morning bike ride and ended up here for breakfast for nearly every Sunday for the last 4 years.

We have a backup plan for Sunday mornings, Dunkin Donuts1, but anything available there pales in comparison to the the breakfast panini we know and love, plus the bike riding out that way is not as nice. This loss may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and gets us to move out west somewhere.

Hot Meat

Regular readers know that our go to Sunday morning breakfast is about a 10 mile bike ride to Ridgecrest Coffee Bar in east Aiken with a 3-5 mile ride home. Well, our go to meal is to split one of their signature Breakfast Paninis: large pieces of thick crusty sourdough bread surrounding a layer of white American cheese, a 1/4″ thick layer of baked scrambled egg patty and 3 or 4 slices of deli ham and toasted/melted in a industrial panini press.

The pressing does a great job of toasting the bread in a perfect “ruffles have ridges” way and melts the cheese, but the ham can be an issue. Depending on who was cooking on Sunday mornings the meat, which comes out of the fridge, was anywhere from lukewarm to actually cold, which totally ruins the combination. In the beginning we made a “suggestion” to the owner one morning when she was there that they should heat up the ham first. She said, “They are supposed to, but I’ll reiterate that to them.” Since then we have had slightly better luck with the results. So recently Donna has specifically reminded me, because I’m the one who traditionally does the ordering, to remind them to really make sure the meat is hot before making our sandwich. And most of the time I actually do tell them to, “Make sure the ham is hot.”

Today when I ordered from the young girl at the register I started with, “Please make sure the ham gets heated up real well because my wife likes her…errr-likes it that way.” I almost said, “…my wife likes her meat hot.” I self corrected mid-sentance because I just wasn’t sure if she would have understood that I wanted to make sure the ham was hot in the sandwich for my wife, groaned at my double entendre, thought I was flirting with her or maybe even bragging about my imagined sexual prowess.

Miatas, Muffins, McBee, Mcleod, Museum & Big Meats

Hard to believe that at one time I had two blogs and wrote in each every night. Plus for a while there I was posting a picture a night in a photo blog as well. Now if I write something twice a week I’m lucky, so for the second time in 2 weeks here is more or less a repeat of my rally wrap from the past Saturday’s MMC event:

Cars, front row from left to right, Dennis & Carol Mason, Mike & Shirley Dyer, Don & Kaye Boltz, Daryl & Sherri Shipman, Karl Splan, Hal & Trudy Scott, Tom Varallo and Brian & Donna Bogardus. Second row from left to right, Joe Varallo, Random Customer #1, Random Customer #2, Barrista and Trash Dumpster.


Donna and I were first to park at our breakfast spot and when Tom backed in next to us the first thing he said was, “You’ll have to put Joe behind you otherwise he’ll get lost.” “He doesn’t follow close enough and if we lose him he won’t know where he is.”

A little back story. Joe is Tom’s younger brother and every year he comes down to help with the Steeplechase (he is an Aiken Sertoma Club member) and when he came over to the tent last week we got to explaining what we were doing this weekend, he thought it sounded like fun, so Donna invited him to come along. Trouble is that Joe is about 6 inches taller than his older brother and would be uncomfortable in a Miata for that length of a drive. We told him we would be happy to have him along even if he was driving a white Chevy Blazer.

Joe didn’t want to interrupt our conga line of Miata and insisted, in spite of of what big brother said, to bring up the rear. The first and third thirds of the drive were on little trafficked 2-lane roads so he should have no issue keeping track of the 8 Miatas ahead of him, but the middle part was on busy I-20 and a stoplight filled US-1 around Columbia where it might get difficult.

We were all together at the exit getting on US-1, but sure enough, somewhere around the 5th traffic light we started to get broken apart. Because we would be on US-1 for for around 25 miles there would be a good chance that the group would come back together. About 10 miles after exiting the Interstate a lot of the cars pulled into a quick stop for the second rest room break. A couple of stragglers pulled in a minute or so later, but that left one car missing. Texts and phone calls were met with radio silence.

After about an uncomfortable 7 or 8 minutes of wondering what might have happened, our wayward driver checked in. Somewhere in a mass of traffic he got off course and before he realized it, his GPS had led him towards the Interstate.

Tom told us he’d just get on I-20 and meet us at the destination.