Vacation 2004: Day One…
By the time, we rolled our butts out of bed, got dressed, checked out the sparse state of the kitchen, and accumulated enough motivation to forage for food on the open roads, it was noon locally.
We still had breakfast on our collective minds, so we drove to the entrance on the resort, randomly choose a left turn, and began our search for a fine eating establishment. During our brief search, we located the all-important supermarket, drug store, and bank, and then somehow navigated unerringly to one of the closest local haunts, Country Inn Restaurant.
The restaurant, owned by Susan and Bill McDonald, is a fun and eclectic country diner, with milk-chocolate-colored decorative ceiling tiles, large black-and-white floor tiles, and walls plastered with artwork, paintings, and memorabilia — all for sale, of course. The food is typically Southern fare; we ended up with burgers, malted waffles, highly salted country ham, homefries, cinnamon and vanilla French toast, pre-sweetened iced tea, and perfectly cooked over-medium eggs.
On the way back from the coffee shop, heading back towards the nearby supermarket where we eventually spent $205 on essentials (such as steaks, hamburger meat, cereal, bread, milk, sodas, chips, frozen dinners, juice, and donuts) to stock up on our empty resort kitchen, we spied a little old man leaning over his white picket fence towards the street, waving his hand at a passing car. We first thought he was angry at the car in front of us for some unknown misdemeanor, but soon realized, as he passed on his wave to us accompanying it with a wide, nearly toothless grin, that he was enjoying the Sabbath in his own way, passing on cheer and happiness with his ecstatic greeting to all passers-by. We waved back, and his grin expanded seemingly impossibly more.
The afternoon was a leisurely one; I fiddled with my computer, writing blogs and calculating GPS coordinates of the points of interest we voted on visiting over the next couple of weeks. Everyone else went swimming. Just before a quick homemade dinner, we took a short walk, much shorter and yet longer than originally intended because ended up staying very near our humble abode for more than an hour chasing and catching fireflies — releasing them all unharmed, of course.
A satisfying start to our vacation.
