A "Quick" Trip to Boone

Last week my husband told me that he wanted to do something special for me before I leave for Denver. He decided to take me to one of my favorite places Boone, North Carolina. It was to be a quiet romantic day of feasting at the Daniel Boone Inn, shopping (my idea of course), and just generally enjoying Boone and Blowing Rock. That was the plan, but it seems these days that few things go according to plan for me.

The day started with an early morning trip to the dentist for my daughter to have her teeth cleaned. She has her first orthodontist appointment later this month to get an evaluation for braces. They informed us yesterday that it had been barely over six months since she had her teeth cleaned so she would need to have that done again prior to the appointment. Thankfully, our regular dentist had a cancellation and worked her in bright and early this morning.

From there we took the kids to our church office so they could leave for church camp. One is a junior counselor and the other is on task force which means she gets to help with meals, set up, games, crafts etc... Leaving them was harder than I thought it would be, probably because I knew I'd be half a country away from them for a few days while they were working (having a blast) out in some wilderness place. I told my husband today that I already miss my family and I haven't even left yet.

Finally, we headed to Boone. Ordinarily, it takes about an hour and a half to get there, but I forgot that when I was there in April they were widening roads which translates to blasting which tranlates to taking detours on certain days at certain times. Today was that certain day and we arrived at that certain time. My husband said, "No problem. A little five minute detour doesn't hurt anyone." Almost two hours later we finally arrived in Boone. Did I mention that we hadn't eaten much because we were anticipating out giant lunch at the Daniel Boone Inn and we hadn't bothered to potty either so we drove for miles and endless miles of winding mountain roads with nothing but farm houses, trees, rocks, grass, and streams? It was pretty, but still. Thankfully, the one thing we did right was to get gas early in the trip prior to the detour. Yes siree, we just love paying $4.00 a gallon for gas so we can use it all up on a never ending detour.

We definitely missed the lunch crowd and when we arrived at the inn they had very few customers and evidently weren't expecting any because we waited and waited for them to see that we were there. It's hard to explain, but the entry isn't visible to everyone so they couldn't see us. After much clearing of throats, loud talking, dropping of coins on the floor, loud shuffling of feet and finally tap dancing, we managed to attract someone and were seated. It was about 3:00!

Immediately, a terrible thunderstorm descended on us. However, we were cozy inside with tons of food and a very attentive waiter. We made gluttonous pigs of ourselves which translates to, "It was real good, ya'll!" We found out from our waiter that they were only making people take detours from 12-2 that day and somehow we managed to hit right in that narrow time frame. I still don't know why it happened. I keep looking for some spiritual significance or some elusive timing of God thing, but I think it really boils down to we were stupid not to check out the blasting times since I'd just been there two months ago and knew about it. Oh well!

After dining we went to my favorite Christian bookstore of all time. I'd go there just to look at the architecture, but they have great books and stuff too. I'm trying to get more stringent on my spending these days so I bought one mini book for a whopping dollar.

From there we started our descent home, but goodness knows I couldn't pass up the Tanger Outlets! I was quick about it, really quick about it as my husband was not into shopping by this point so he just sat in the van. I found a pair of pants to complete one of my traveling outlets at the Liz Claiborne outlet. They were on sale and one of the nice sales ladies gave me a little golf tee that said I got an additional 15% off. See why I love shopping at the Tanger Outlets!

Finally, we are back home. I learned an important lesson, though. Ever since my husband told me last week that he was taking me to Boone I built it up in my mind. I envisioned us sitting in the car having meaningful conversation, praying with one another, catching up on husband/wife communication time without the children. I thought we'd leave early in the morning, leisurely stroll around enjoying our day and maybe even stop at a few furniture outlets on the way there or the way back. One called Bonita Furniture Galleries was having a going out of business sale that I'd been hearing about and I felt it might be a sign from God that the name of the store was the same as my name. Surely, God had some remarkably cheap furniture (that is totally not in our present budget) there for me.

Obviously, the day met very few of my expectations. We were so hungry on the way up that it wasn't meaningful conversation we had, but rather a competition to see who could irritate the other one the most. Anyway, the moral of the story is that sometimes we (meaning "I") have a tendency to build things up so much in our minds that the real thing can never live up to our expectations. Plus, I learned a few things about flexibility, patience, and having a good attitude. I'm grateful for the day, detours and all, but also glad to be home. But I sure miss the young'uns!