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Published: April 3rd 2016
On the road again. Our family is all safely home so we gather up Sam & Sandy and hit the highway. Jump aboard....no pushing: you all have your reserved seats. And we're off! Lulu is so excited. She hadn't had a lot of opportunity to do everything she wanted to these past couple weeks. Tim & Conner don't find her as fascinating as some of us so to keep the peace in the family, she sadly stayed back when normally she would be driving the team. She is one considerate soul...but you all know that already.
It's time to eat again! Seems like that is all we've done here all winter. If you think one of me is enough; I have doubled in size to make two of me. Now what do you think about that? Heh. I can see my diet plan at home. Just drinking from the garden hose and living on left over bird seed.
Oh, I must digress for a minute. Speaking of bird seed. Our daughter, Lory, watches over our house while we are down here. Our son-in-law, Jay, was driving past the house just a day ago and noticed something not right. He pulled
Black Hat Boys
Sam having fun in mallin the driveway and began looking around. Our very heavy duty metal pole that holds some of our bird feeders was bent to the ground like a flexible straw. Other feeders were crushed into the earth like stepping stones. Our plastic owl that hangs in front of our shed to scare birds, etc. away was dragged out into our field. Thankfully, it is plastic cause it was dead for sure. Whooo. The big bag of birdseed that Cory left out (why you ask, would he do that? You have to ask him cause he gave me an unpleasant remark when I inquired) on a bench in our open front shed was spilled and dragged far out into our yard. What the dickens has been visiting our homestead? Certainly, the Easter Bunny was not the culprit. This was the activity something BIG! The ferocious creature left its calling card: big scat balls! Out of hibernation, some big hungry bear had found its first meal at our house. He had a jolly old time for himself making a mess of things and wrecking our feathered friends feeding stations. Rats! We have two security video cameras hooked up so we can see our
IKEA store
Only one side of it pictured house and pole barn while we are away. We don't have it on continuous video; just live viewing when we check in. Rats. That would have been an interesting tidbit for a blog. All I can show you are the photos Lory took of the damage and the poop. Enjoy.
Back to the road trip now. Feeding our faces was the topic, 'member? We sail along in our 4 wheeled buggy and finally brought it to a halt at the seafood place: Bar Harbor. You remember being here before, right? One of their specials today was twin lobster tails, roasted potatoes, grilled asparagus. $12.95. You can have my asparagus...yuck. This place is awesome. Very casual as you eat out under their umbrella picnic tables. Don't wear your packed away prom dress here. The food is so good and the price is so right. Before we left, Sandy & I both bought 3 lobster tails @ $5.00 each to take home. I just ate mine: yuuumm, ooooo, soooo good! Cory got his shrimp dinner and Sam got his fish & shrimp dinner...both $7.95. I think this has been a secret place to just locals but now I keep spreading the
Come on in!
Massive inventory word so the cat is out of the bag....or the lobster is out of its trap. We are going to miss this place once back home. Hope it's saves some lobsters for us when we return in 2017.
Because we were close to the Millennium Mall, we sped directly to it. Why not? They have an Apple Store here. Cory had a question about his IPhone and I had a couple about my iPad. The staff are wonderful. All questions answered and fixed. So easy. Please build an Apple Store in Wellsville, please. Yeah, right......we can't even get a Walmart built in town....some folks keep fighting it.....rats! Can't they see it would be a Godsend for are deteriorating, little town? I want a Walmart!! NOW! No one listens to me.
This mall is absolutely beautiful....it is enormous. We only strolled a tiny section of it getting to the Apple Store and Urban Outfitters. It must cover acres and acres. Your legs would be stubs if you walked the whole thing. Maybe that is what Lulu did at one point in her life.
For 2017, our foursome (plus Lulu) have made another bucket list. Many places yet to
Cory rests
More items go and things to do so be ready. One item on the list is to go to an IKEA store. Wait....what's this? Looming in front of us outside the mall is one ginormous structure. It is about the size of Rhode Island....and two stories high! It is an IKEA store. Check: we're going now....why wait a year for this special reward. I can hearing you clapping and squealing with delight. That was us, too. At least Sandy & myself had this same response. Sam said it was a Harbor Freight for women. But ever so much more in size and contents. We followed the directory's trail and wound in and around mountains of shelves and displays filled with all sorts of goodies. My cart was filled after the first room! Things never seen before....prices so low it brought tears to my eyes. I really had to restrain myself AND it wasn't easy. We arrived at this palace of treasures @1:30 PM. We thought it was just a "put together yourself" furniture store....WRONG! It is so much more. Every item you could ever think of to have in every room of your house plus patio, etc. --- beside the furniture. STOP!
Sandy rests
Posing in another mega aisle Never pass one of these stores without going in. You'll be sorry if you do. I couldn't get all your stuff plus mine in my cart. You are on your own. We walked and walked and walked through room after room after room. We crawled to the second floor. Here the furniture and accessories are now displayed as individual rooms you might have in a home. We collapsed in a lovely living room and watched TV for a bit. A welcome respite. Very cozy. Cory rested on one of the beds at one point...just trying it out, you know.....good grief, Cory: wake up! Our eyes were getting blurred just by looking at SO much stuff. All of it so enticing. Why does our RV have to be so limiting? Why? I would need an English castle or the Biltmore Estate to have room for everything my heart desired. Mind over matter! I had to apply strict will power. Tres difficile. We discovered on the second floor that as we found an item we had to have (no and's, if's or but's), we had to retrieve it back on the first floor. Scrubbing along the floors, we accomplished that task. Oh,
but it was ever so worth it.
Now what is this? A large bistro restaurant! Some of it was set up like the old automats that I can remember as a young child in New York City. They must have impressed me a lot because we moved from Sea Cliff, Long Island when I was five years old. I still remember eating in the automats with my parents. This fine IKEA eatery is known for their various meatballs...Swedish at the top. There were many other items on the menu so everyone can be satisfied. Too bad....we had just devoured the luscious seafood so no room for meatballs at this time. Rats!
We finally completed this excursion and went through the check out. A job well done. I witnessed a family shoplifting some items on the bottom of their cart. The cashier tried stopping them but they kept going. She called for security but he just twirled his head around out in the exit doorway. I went and pointed them out to him. He just talked on his walkie talkie. I think they made off with the goods.
Once back at our car, we let out a heave
Moving through more areas
Automat style service. More food available in another section of relief. This was a mega marathon endurance trek. My Fitbit was flashing. Whaaaat? Noooo! Sandy realizes her Fitbit that she clips to her bra is missing. Noooo. Cory, Sandy and I race back in this Jonah Whale complex. Nothing at lost and found so we each scrambled backwards through this oversized mega box store. Back to the living room we had relaxed in, back through the pillows she fluffed up, back thru the ladies restroom, back through every step we originally took....both floors. Eyes darting feverishly back and forth like at a tennis match. Every floor cleaner was stopped. I shared our plight. Some only grasped the word "bra!" One man couldn't pronounce Fitbit and had me speak it into his phone. Up and down and all around we searched frantically. No luck...nothing. We dragged ourselves defeatedly back to the car. We were sad. Sandy said she has another one so life can go on but it is such a bummer when you lose something and can't find it. Rats! The time now: 6:30 PM. Yep, we were in IKEA for 5 hours. Not bad for being our first visit. Right? Now that my legs had been worn down
to nothing.....not even stubs....Lulu calls me her twin. Neither of us have legs!
Rumbling down the highway, we realized it was past supper time. Amazing. Cory swerves into a Denny's so we could get a small bite to eat. Should have eaten meatballs at IKEA but the first lunch load wasn't digested yet. Plus at the IKEA checkout, there was another food section with samples. Of course, we had to sample their cookies and chocolate candy.....over and over and over again. They were good and acceptable. The special here today were 6 mega size cinnamon rolls for $4.00---we refrained! Denny's is always a good choice....big menu and good food.
I think we eventually pulled into our driveway @ 8:30 PM. A full day of old & new experiences. Hope you enjoyed it as much a we did...minus the lost Fitbit. Time to take a breather. Plans are to go to Webster on Monday. Shine up your walking stick!
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Lory
non-member comment
I took the pictures - not Jay. :-)