One thing interesting about being in the "sunrise club" is that, although I know I will always
Today the other two families with older children went white water rafting, so our family and the grandparents decided to take the scenic train ride from one little Appalachian town to another one, population 800. We enjoy a good train ride and thought the scenery, as well as noodling around the historic town for a two-hour lunch break, would be very pleasant. And it was--but it was also a comedy of sorts!
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| Boarding the train |
The train ride was fine, but the scenery from the deck of our cabin was majestic compared to driving through woods in a train for an hour. The view really wasn't different than that we see when we drive to and from the cabin on the gravel road.
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| She's Pop-Pop's girl, that's for sure. |
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| Snuggling with Pop-Pops |
Then we got to our tiny destination and sought out lunch. And here is where the real adventure began.
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| Why didn't these signs on the front window cause us to pause? |
We really enjoy small town joints and find their unique character interesting, but this restaurant experience moved into the absurd, such that for the rest of the day we were laughing about it to the point of tears.
The pizza joint was three tables situated at the back of what was essentially a thrift store, the quality of the kind you'd find in a town with population 800. The cook and two waitresses saw us coming and the energy that emanated from them was like this was go-time. I felt through it all that we were perhaps their first customers ever. For example, we asked for an extra plastic knife at one point and the waitress seemed to have to go ask if it were possible to give it to us.
The staff slipped on new plastic food service gloves frequently, but I noticed the effect was only to protect their own skin, not our food, since they touched everything with those gloves.
The food came and it was bad, my friends, bad. I thought to myself, well, these are calories and we just need calories to fuel us, so that's fine. We were kind and polite throughout, I promise! The pizzas we ordered were the exact brand of frozen single-serve pizzas one buys and microwaves at a gas station--but served for more than twice the cost for which they're sold at the corner pump. The chicken wings nobody wanted to eat after trying a bite. And the presentation of the sandwiches caused all of us to have to put on our sweetest masks of politeness.
Chris' Italian sandwich consisted of two slices of salami and one slice of processed cheese in between something like Wonder Bread, which had been compressed as flat as the slices of salami. Pop-Pop's ham-and-cheese was one slice of ham, one slice of processed cheese like Velveeta, and one slice of iceberg lettuce between same said Wonder Bread. But the men paid $6.99 each because they got the "deluxe sandwich basket"--in addition to the sandwiches, they received about two tablespoons of something advertised as coleslaw, as well as a tiny bag of potato chips.
The bill for this repast was $41 but my father-in-law is so kindhearted that, instead of being offended by having to pay so much for such poorly prepared fare, he gave a 20% tip. He's that kind of guy!
While they were settling the bill, I thought it a good idea to take the children for potty checks. Without boring you with details of how I didn't discover this sooner, two of my children used the bathroom before I learned that (1) the door was not capable of closing the final six inches and (2) there was no soap. (And, if no soap, where are the kitchen staff washing their hands?! Good they have those plastic gloves!)
After that we left to find other restrooms in town as well as some ice cream.
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| Eating ice cream cones on the river at a quaint, country town ice cream shop |
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| Watching ducks on the river, muddy from recent rains |
We had giggled a bit when the train conductor had said that the train would wait for no one, so we'd better pay attention if we heard the four long whistles indicating the ten minute-warning. In fact, the conductor emphasized how far it was through mountainous terrain if we got left behind. We were finishing our ice cream when we heard those whistles and raced through town, ice cream drips flying, to get back to the train, falling into our seats with about two minutes to spare.
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| "Junior Conductor" with the Conductor |
When we arrived back in Blue Ridge, I realized I'd misplaced my glasses. These were my prescription sunglasses ($$$), not the $10 sunglasses from Wal-Mart which I typically carry around for precisely this reason. Chris suggested we go back to the lunch restaurant and ice cream shop to look for my sunglasses, to which I replied, "All that way?! We can't do that!"
He reminded me that, though the train had taken an hour each way, the town was eight miles away. So we drove down the very nicely paved and modern road for five whole minutes, found ourselves in the little town, retrieved my sunglasses from the ice cream shop, and drove back to the cabin.
And that certainly made the whole day feel pretty anticlimactic considering that we'd spent $200 in train fare to go to a town five minutes away by car.
Thankfully, it is quite possible that we've had so many laughs about this comedy of errors that it was well worth the money spent today! Can you put a price on hilarity?
In other news, the third (dead) scorpion was found. I wasn't sure I'd be able to sleep for the remaining two nights of the vacation.
Dinner: Leftover burgers and hot dogs, corn on the cob, potato salad, and ice cream sandwiches.
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