Friday, November 11, 2011

Friday Lunch out/Angels Looking after me

I wish I had photographed my lunch today. We went to a place named City Barbecue, which I believe is a chain. The lunch special was 1/4 lb of meat with two sides. I took pulled chicken with corn pudding and mac and cheese. It's self-service -- well, you order at a counter and then they hand you your plate. At the table they have a half dozen sauces. One of my colleagues had pork with gumbo for one side and hush puppies for the other. I tasted his gumbo and the spiciness of it burned my mouth. He also used the spiciest sauce. Funny how people's palates can tolerate different levels of heat like that.

Left at 3:30, got to my hotel around 7:45 by the grace of direction-angels. Either I screwed up or Google Maps screwed up. This town has three exits off the highway. As I was following the directions, getting off the exit as per Google Maps, I see my brand hotel, just by a sheer coincidence of glancing in that direction, but the directions went on for about 10 minutes so I thought "wow, there must be two of them at this exit."

Sure there are.

I follow the directions which take me in the middle of nowhere, really back country, dark, unlit residential area. So I backtracked, thinking I'd check out the hotel at the exit and that was the place. When I got to my room, I saw the address of the hotel is 810 High Street and the address Google Maps was directing me to was 810 Highview Street. Same town, of course. Lesson for me was to use the hotel name, not the street address.

I am so grateful that I happened to glance that way and saw my hotel -- and that High Street and Highview Street happened to be at the same exit, 10 minutes from each other. Of course, I had to go to the bathroom the whole time I'm driving around just to make it more interesting a drive, but I made it to my room with at least 45 seconds to spare!

Found this place on the Internet -- it's only $50, and the reviews all said the people are delightful, the place is a dump, but it's an immaculately clean dump so I thought I'd try it. When I walked in the office (this is like an old-fashioned "motel"), the woman said cheerfully, "You must be Patricia" -- really warm greeting.

And it is a dump, old furniture, beat up furniture, cigarette burn in the bedspread, but I have to go along with the reviewers: this place is clean!

I'll take some photos in the morning.

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