It’s Spring Break, and my youngest son and I decided to go visit our oldest son down in Raleigh for a few days.
The drive down is usually about six and a half to seven hours, but in hindsight leaving on a Friday afternoon and driving through D.C. may not have been the best decision. We eventually arrived in Raleigh – over eight hours later, a full day’s work.
Yesterday we spent the morning walking around Chapel Hill and Carrboro and then went to lunch at Lucha Tigre, a unique Korean-Mexican restaurant. The General Tso’s tofu was probably the best tofu I’ve ever had.
After lunch, we went to the SouthPoint mall in Durham. It also was unique in that it had both a large indoor mall as well as a large set of outdoor shops. Perhaps it was the beautiful weather, but the crowds were bigger than I saw at the King of Prussia mall during Christmas.
After stopping back at our hotel for a bit, we then went into downtown Raleigh for dinner. Unfortunately the first two places we went to were way too crowded, and so we ended up at BurgerFi, a Shake Shack type of establishment. The veggie burger and fries were delicious. And we learned a fun fact. And fun fact – the Barq’s root beer in the Coke Freestyle machine really is caffeine free – unlike regular Barq’s root beer, which has caffeine, unlike any other root beer that I am aware of. Anyway, we didn’t get home until close to 10:00, another full day on the job.
Today started with a late morning breakfast at New York Bagel and Deli in Cary, followed by some grocery shopping. We then stopped by my son’s apartment and picked up his newest toy; a camera-equipped drone. We took it to a nearby open field and practiced trying to control the drone, much harder than I imagined. It is an amazing piece of technology though, and I may have to pick one up (something to spy on the neighbors with).
After playing with the drone, we went to a Frankie’s Fun Park, a go-kart and mini golf facility. It was an absolutely beautiful day outside, so it was pretty crowded, but the mini golf was one of the nicest, and most challenging ones I’ve played.
We had worked up a pretty good appetite by now, and so we headed to Guasaca, an amazing Venezuelan arepa restaurant. I’ve written before about Guasaca, and it was as good as I remembered.
After our early dinner, we stopped at Gander Mountain, an outdoorsy kind of store with more guns and crossbows then I’ve ever seen in my life. As we were walking around the store, we spotted some tents that had a camouflage canvas, and I remarked they looked too small for anyone to sleep in. As we stopped to inspect the tents, it turned out they were hunting blinds. I just hoped that none of the employees overheard me, as if it wasn’t obvious enough that I didn’t belong there.
By the time we got home it was 7:00, and we were able to punch our time cards for another eight hour day
This vacation stuff is hard work, but it’s the type of job I love. Now if only I could find a way to get paid for what I’ve done the past three days…
Borden's Blather 