OK – so this in not New York City and Dick’s Last Resort is not Times Square. Maybe we can do that next year. But I need more than a couple of weeks notice to get that kind of money together. So this was close by, tons of fun, and right on the edge of the downtown craziness. Worked for me!
So, we were talking about New Year’s Eve and if we should stay local or maybe go somewhere to celebrate. Alexa wants to stay home and not worry about drunk drivers and the chance of getting mugged or something bad happening. She wants to make sure the New Year starts out happy and with everybody that she loves safe.
I’m fine with staying home, but it is not the same as being out in the street for a big party with free concerts and fireworks and 100,000 drunks singing “Auld Lang Syne.” Heck, if we are going to go out, why not just do it up and go to New York City? That is one big party at Times Square! Wouldn’t it be fun to be a part of that?
What’s your favorite fast casual restaurant? I’m not talking about fast food like Mcdonalds. I mean a place where you can be seated without a reservation and a meal for two people will cost about twenty bucks.
I like O’Charleys better than Chilis and Applebys, but the O’Charley’s restaurants are a regional chain and are not in all the same cities that Chilis and Appleby’s will be.
I also like Cracker Barrel a lot, and love the way they will serve you a full country breakfast any time of day or night.
Looks like I’m the only one who won’t be gathering with the family at the homeplace this year. Everyone in my family lives within an hour or two of my mom’s house except for me. It is a 14 hour drive to get to mom’s house, door to door, which is a long hard day of driving, and to be honest, I’m not up for that long of a drive in one day. I would need to stay overnight at a roadside motel to get some rest and not take the chance of an accident due to driver fatigue.
The cost of gas has risen so that just paying for gas up and back is cost prohibitive. It costs $70 to fill the tank and I estimate it would take 3 tanks to get there, one tank to visit locally and then 3 tanks back. That is a lot of money for gas that could be better spent benefiting my family instead of some Arab sheik.
So we are staying home this year and I guess we will get everyone on the video cam sometime around noon to exchange Christmas wishes among the family.
Merry Christmas to all!
Yesterday started off like a normal Sunday, woke up and made coffee, walked the dogs, turned on the computer to check emails. That’s when everything went downhill really fast. I had an email from my sister that her husband had died the previous night, they had tried to call but my cell phone went right to voicemail, so they resorted to email to get the word to me.
Of course, I dropped everything and made arrangements to go to Maryland to be with the family. Thankfully, I was able to find some coupons online to take care a lot of the details for this unexpected trip and I saved some money.