The Recap

Wow…it was a wild week last week, jumping back in to the Way of the Road Warrior.

I’ll just recap the highlights:

Monday: Flight up was uneventful, except for the Colts fan who was snoring his head off about 2 rows back from me. On a 40-seat jet, this was a little too personal. Thank heavens for the iCrack (iPod as it is known in my household). Dinner involved a fried pork sandwich with fried onion straws, which were very good, but I think my arteries just gave up all hope of surviving this trip

Tuesday: Surprise! Snow! Just for me! This necessitated a trip to K-Mart for fashionable snow boots and a big furry hat. With my big black wool coat (thanks, Linna!), black sunglasses, and this hat, I look I could either be in the old Soviet bread lines, or Agent P in Men in Black III. What can I say? Our only options for shopping were K-Mart, Wal-Mart, and JC Penney’s. That was it. No mall, no Target, heck, not even a Dollar General. Lunch was takeout from a local “Italian” place. The Italian sausage sandwich was not bad, but the salad left a lot to be desired.

Wednesday: The highlight of our culinary adventures in sub-tropical Southern Illinois. We had lunch at the hospital cafeteria. (Yeah, you read that right.) Chicken pot pie gravy over biscuits, but at least I got a a real salad to go with it. Up to this point, any salad we got was tired old iceberg with a couple of cucumber slices. That was it. No baby spinach or spring mix, much less red or green leaf lettuces.

Although, we did reach the penultimate culinary high for dinner at a place called Bob’s. We walked in the door of this shack, saw that they had steaks and fish and were instantly feeling much better. Got a big-ass rib eye and a baked potato and all was right with the world until we had to head out into the 7F evening.
Most mornings, it was 0F, if not lower, when we got up. And, when you start saying temperature in “negative degrees,” it’s just plain cold. Anything with a negative in front, whether it be –1 or –50, is just damn cold. To hell with the degrees.

Thursday: Takeout Chinese for lunch…and again a place that doesn’t take credit cards. When we hit Bob’s last night, we were almost as relieved to find they took credit cards as we were to find steaks. This place is like the town plastic forgot. People just looked at you weird when you asked if they took credit cards. And, we never saw a bank. We had to keep going to Wal-Mart to get cash. Then, we discovered that the one bank in town had been robbed the week before. People, it doesn’t get much better than this.

Dinner was at the lone Mexican restaurant, which had a much-needed and much revered ½ price margarita special. Huge fishbowl margaritas! The locals turned out in large numbers for this event. That’s when we noticed that there were more liquor stores and bars in town than a town that small really should have…if there’s a limit or census number for things like that. There was a bar next door to Motel Hell, but we decided against frequenting it after we saw one of the patrons walk in carrying a shotgun.

Friday: Got done early and headed back to the airport. Inevitable flight delays, and our flight leaves about 1.5 hours late. And, guess who’s back? Yep, the snoring Colts fan. We recognized him by his jersey and his snore. I can never sleep on planes, because I’m afraid I’ll end up snoring like that and having everyone snicker at me.

I whined at the project lead (who we were observing) about the hotel, the smoke, etc., and she said she’d check on other options. The good news it that we’re going to be in a Hampton Inn for our next visit in a couple of weeks. It’s 5 miles away from a mall!!! Heaven, sheer heaven!!