I never know where to bring guests when they visit. Sometimes I wonder if I just don't know the good spots, but turns out there aren't many local attractions. Members of my family tend to find places I never heard of so I shouldn't have been surprised when Autumn arrived with a list of places to explore. Our first stop was billed as "one of Georgia's seven natural wonders." The website said it was a courtyard with terraces, waterfalls and "exotic flora." We arrived to find the whole place shut down and orange netting around half of it. Autumn suggested climbing over the gate but I am no breaker of the law. We looked at the swamp and strange trees instead. Annabelle was not a fan.
By this point, Annabelle had had enough of sightseeing flops. She was coughing, getting a fever and saying she needed to go home. I told her we'd go to the playground since she'd been asking for weeks. Autumn put the address in the gps which proceeded to send us down a dead end dirt road. The next attempt told us to turn into a cemetery. I'll be honest. I was not my best self at this point. I had a headache and wanted to lay down but needed to give Autumn something to see, even if it was a playground. I took over the navigation and got us out of the wrong side of town. AB miraculously perked up when her feet hit the ground at the park. Funny how 45 minutes earlier she had been moaning and groaning about how she was homesick but a quick trip down the slide fixed all her problems.
That evening Autumn and I went out on the town. We poured over menus on several websites and made a list of who had the best appetizers. We made a game plan- appetizers and a drink at one restaurant than a second round of appetizers at a follow-up restaurant where we would also get dessert. In the 28 years of our friendship, it was one of our best plans and it went perfectly. We ate our weight in fried pickles and onion rings. We shared macaroni and cheese and potato skins. We talked about makeup, education and why some of our childhood friends ended up like they did. Only the most well rounded of conversations for us! We went to the next place but were too full to order more appetizers so we talked and people watched for hours. On the way home, we had to stop to put air in the tire. All the teens of the town were hanging out at the gas station. They were piled in trucks and standing around in little groups. As if the sand dune fail hadn't been proof enough that not much goes on here, those dudes sealed the deal. We were the crotchety old women wondering why the youths of small-town America weren't at home, tucked into their beds at such a late hour. We weren't crotchety old ladies when we got home at 12:30 and put line dancing tutorials on youtube and danced in the living room. We might be bad with directions but we can do the Watermelon Crawl and isn't that really more important, anyway?
2 comments:
Friends like that are the best!
Fried pickles! Those are the perfect friend food - no one eats them alone.
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