Wow! We made it through the entire summer and it’s time to head back to Portland! We got to see Grandma D, Papa, Uncle S, Aunt C, Cousin R, Auntie S, Uncle A, Little B, Little M, Aunt M, Uncle G, Little H, Little B, and Little N, Grandma S, and Grandpa J. It was a blast.
After packing up the Mean Green Machine (Our Toyota Sienna Minivan), we said our goodbyes. The cousins were not ready to let us go. I am sure Aunt M was just glad that the number of dishes would decrease and the volume in the house would go back to semi-normal.
Our return trip was not planned as thoroughly as when we ventured to the east coast. While Mom and I could not “wing it” due to our extreme type A personalities, as in anal personalities, we did not plan all activities and planned none of the food. I am pretty sure Mom secretly thought in her head that we would starve to death. I knew we could always survive on the enormous quantity of snacks Mom had packed. There were so many that I could not even tell the difference between when we had left and when we were returning, and I am pretty sure we never bought anything new.
Shell Game
Our first stop was Winston-Salem. This is the 5th largest city in North Carolina, or so I had learned as we were driving. The first stop was a Shell Station. Why would we stop at a gas station besides to change drivers? Well, because it was shaped like a Shell. In fact, it was the largest gas station shaped like a shell. Probably because it was the only gas station shaped like a shell. Our plan was to stop, take some pics, change drivers, and take a bathroom break. As it turns out, the pictures were the only part that worked because it wasn’t open:
Old Salem
We missed Oregon so much that we decided to visit Salem. Salem Oregon? No! Old Salem in Winston-Salem. This was Mom and Dad exercising spontaneity. We had not planned to do anything but the Shell. However, after doing some very complicated calculations we realized we could end up in the middle of the mountains with nothing for lunch (except all the snacks in the car, and the bagels, and whatever else was in our mystery treasure box). If we waited 30 minutes the kids would get hungry and we could avoid driving off a mountain cliff while desperately trying to lookup food places (just kidding, whoever was driving would not try to read a cell phone, they’d only precariously hold it to take pictures). Mom with the Memory of an Elephant remembered having fun at Old Salem as a kid which is why this was added. Despite it being “closed” due to Covid we decided to see if we could walk around. This historic area showed how the Moravian’s lived in 1766.
While exploring Old Salem, Mom decided to do her best interpretation of a famous Moravian statue (ok, she was really only trying to show how short everyone was in 1766, but she did hold the pose for a veryyy long time):
As we explored the really large site (ok, not so large), Movie Star decided to allow some paparazzi shots. Tweenager was too grumpy or going through electronics withdrawal as she had just spent 1 week with her cousin and they used them a lot. I guess that is what happens when you have two tweenagers in close proximity.
At this point, we decided not to push our luck anymore. The tweenager was already starting to rampage and we didn’t want our movie star to also start pulling a fit. We ate at a cute cafe, the only shop that was open. They had cute pictures. This was everyone’s favorite:
At this point, we started a major theme of the return trip – see the World’s Largest things. Tweenager had requested this activity in the preplanning. We couldn’t go to the largest ball of rubber bands, but we could find other oddities along the way. The first was at Old Salem – a giant Coffee pot. There was lots of disappointment due to the fact it was not real, was not as big as imagined, and was probably not really the World’s Largest. However, since everyone had food we got some smiles:
After leaving Old Salem we headed to our next stop to see the World’s Largest Pencil. There was much debate about whether the pencil would work from the Youngins in the back seat. While testing the pencil to see if it worked it got lodged in Mom’s hair. This caused a chain reaction of thoughts, as pencils in peoples hair are known to do, and she realized we also needed to order school supplies. I am not sure if I am remembering it correctly, but I am pretty sure when we got back in the car she proceeded to immediately start ordering school supplies.
Our next stop was Hazard, KY to spend the night. Why Hazard? Because Mom the Mean would not let Dad stop at the Dukes of Hazzard museum that we passed on the way to the East Coast. Different spelling, but similar enough. She mumbled something about it not being appropriate during planning. Someone want to explain what she thought was inappropriate besides the racist themes, sexism including daisy duke shorts that no real human can wear, creation of illegal drugs at home (i.e. the alcohol), and the horrible examples of how not to drive your car? Maybe Mom the Rule Follower just didn’t like how they ignored all rules?
Either way, as we drove through the mountains to this resort like destination (ok, small town in KY) we battled through the storms and took in the views as I searched for a place for dinner:
We ended up at the only place that had pasta that we could find in town. As it turns out, it was an Italian restaurant that also happened to be in a gas station. It was rather odd, but not as bad as expected. The food ended up tasting much better than we all thought it would. In addition, there was a large selection of desserts. Key lime pie, Cannoli, peanut butter pie, chocolate cream pie, and more. It was VERY hard for Mom to decide, but she got an enormous piece of Cheesecake. I guess sometimes you can’t judge a book by it’s cover.
Did we eat at the gas station? No! Some might think it was because it was a gas station and we were in KY, and afraid of getting Covid from the other customers, 100% of who were not wearing masks. However, it was because we were afraid that despite our warnings not to talk politics that our children would rant about Donald Trump. Now, were we stereotyping a small town in KY? Yes we were. However, they did have some Trump paraphernalia at the cash register. We’ll let you be the judge:
Hotel
After fleeing the gas station because we tried to pay with some hastily scribbled Trump bills, we arrived at the Holiday Inn Express hotel. The room was enormous. We sat and ate our food before unloading the Mean Green Machine:
However, after eating we discovered that it appeared as if the tub had not been cleaned and the lotions seemed to not have been replaced. We explained the issue at the front desk and they moved us to an even larger suite! It had 1 king, 1 queen, and an entire separate room with a queen. I didn’t even know hotels had rooms this large, let alone a Holiday Inn! Movie Star and I decided to take 1 bed each while Mom once again had a child surgically attached to her. At least she got her own air conditioning control!
We had survived the first day!