Trip For Xmas

 Merry Xmas! I'm a little backed-up with posting pictures, here's a bunch from our recent family visit trip from Christmas. It's not too late to remember some of that, is it?

It was random luck that we were running low on gas and thinking we'll stop at the next place on this side of the street, and... whoa! The one gas station with the giant chicken statue. So we felt more compelled to get a picture of it.

Guess where I'm at? If you've ever been to a Cracker Barrel, you'll recognize this right away. I don't go there enough to do it, but everytime I go I think; I could totally research the "pattern", or strategy, or whatever, to beat this game every time. But I never follow through with that idea.

This bunch of pictures is mostly food pics. So... I can be one of those bloggers, occasionally. When I saw Cracker Barrel had fried pickles on the menu, I couldn't remember if I "knew that" from before, so we ordered some anyway. For the record, they are good! So I'll remember for next time.

Lunch was KFC, which is a LOT closer to me than it is in New Jersey. Pro tip: dip the chicken strips in the mash potatoes. Yummm.

Unable to drag some family out to dinner somewhere, we were instead offered a home-made sandwich. It was super tasty and probably better for us than wherever we would have wound up, so a better idea all around.

We don't have a Hardee's around us in New Jersey. So let's get a pic of that. Does the star mascot thing have a name and story behind it? I mean, what other mascot could you have for a random name like "Hardee's?"

Power out! How much charge is left on the phone? It was only out for an hour or so. No big deal.

We had already eaten, but had to try our friend's home-made chili that had been simmering all day. Super good. 

Surrender me. On the buzzer. Funny-wording, and also... Jollibee has buzzer money? Isn't that something much fancier restaurants do? Good for you, Jollibee!

Hmm... What should I have for dessert? Giant cookie, or ice cream? How about a giant cookie WITH ice cream?! Sorry for all of the food pictures, if you're hungry or whatever.

I couldn't decide if I wanted caramel or chocolate sauce, so I had one of each. To make it worse, I don't think I could say which one was better. Maybe I should have a couple more...

Xmas dinner was roast beef. More power to gravy! I'm giving it all we got, Captain!

Home-made cake! Too bad for them, it was amazing. Now they'll have to keep doing it.

Some collectibles we got for Xmas gifts. Everything can be a Transformer! H.I.S.S. Tank?! T-Rex? How does that change your show or movie? Imagine everything is a robot-in-disguise.

More home-made Xmas snacks. Cookies. Of course I gotta get a picture of 'em. It also gives me an opportunity to say how good they were!

We ordered Chinese for dinner. From "the good place" that was a little farther away. We were part of the away team sent to get it. Anybody know Chinese? Is it funny that the "n" is off on the sign? Shu-Xing instead of Shun-Xing?

I gotta say, they weren't kidding about it being the good place. Normally General Tso's chicken is nowhere close to being "hot", but this place had a noticeable kick to it! 

We tried the Wagyu Burger at Arby's. It's supposed to be made with "Wagyu Beef" that's some extra-level of tasty, but all we could taste was the sauce. If the beef had anything special about it, we would never know. I mean, it was okay for a burger, but they could have used regular beef and it would have been the same. So as a "Wagyu" burger, it was a total fail.

Oh wow. Anybody else think this is super-GROSS? Somebody is licking their fingers, mmmm yum, lick-lick... oh I got an extra sauce, let me grab that and let them give it to... someone else?! AAAAHHHHH! NOOOOOO! Can I ever get any sauce at Chick Fil-A ever again?! Are you telling me they will sanitize these things before they give them out again? Of course they won't! But I can guarantee licked-fingers have touched a bunch of them! Terrible idea, Chick Fil-A!

I'm not sure I want that sauce now. I did carefully open it with a napkin, but argh it was uncomfortable thinking about someone else's licked-fingers all over it. I feel like I want to yell at a manager, but also... I don't want to yell at a manager. Do I have to stop going to this Chick Fil-A location? Are they all going to do this? Is there a pleasant way to request "not-returned sauce only?"

Okay, calm down. Here's a good story. We were discussing with our friend about the hottest thing we can regularly eat, and it's this Mrs. Renfro's Ghost Pepper Nacho Cheese Dip. Rather than get them a picture and let them hunt for it, we said we'd just pick them up a jar instead. Well... we went to at least seven grocery stores before we found some! But we did find it, so... quest complete! If you also want some mega-hot dip, good luck on your own quest for some. And... you've been warned, it's pretty hot.

We don't often go to Starbuck's, so let's get a picture of it. When we were discussing that we don't normally drink coffee, the barista said we could get the peppermint mocha as all-peppermint, no mocha. So that's what we did! Ever drink a candy cane?

Our friends were wanting to get some champagne for New Year's Eve, and they asked the wine store clerk what's a good champagne for mimosas. The clerk had a fun reaction when she said... none, if you are mixing with orange juice for mimosas, you are throwing away your money on champagne, just use whatever cheapest sparkling wine for that. Real Champagne is not mixed with anything! And then she pointed us to this stuff for the un-mixed cheers toasts. She obviously knows her stuff!

I forgot to take a pic of my Texas Roadhouse diner last night, but I took home an extra baked potato, that I was having as a lunch snack when my friends called. I bailed on the rest of this potato in order to rush out to a diner with them instead.

The traffic pattern to get to this diner included this bizarre street direction sign.

And this unique U-Turn um... turn signal. I know it's green, I was not driving. Anybody else seen something like this?

metro diner. No capital letters used. Did you ever notice spellcheck corrects things to "Facebook" even thought it visually looks like "facebook" on the logo-text? Use capital letters, people! Minty is a name and minty is a... flavor.

I don't make pancakes at home, so when I can get them out, it's a treat. We added some bacon because... BACON! Hahaha like you need a reason to add bacon.

In the nearby shopping center, we saw a Fazoli's! Thought to have no stores left in the area, we texted a pic to our friend who's a huge Fazoli's fan.

Washington "Commanders" is the local football team. Like a bad genie wish, whoever said "anything" would be better than the previous name of "Redskins" should have used more careful wording. I mean, I'm glad it's not Redskins anymore, but nobody I know or spoken to likes "Commanders". I do like the cool "W" for the logo, but that "W" could have gone with anything, there's no W in Commanders at all.

My friend used to get squishies all the time, but not so much anymore. Blue raspberry is the favorite flavor, so this was a huge treat and a blast of good nostalgia.

We had been searching for Grandma Utz's Kettle-Style Potato Chips in New Jersey, and could not find any. When we saw them in the Wawa's, I had to get a picture to document they were still available.

Pizza! Is pizza the most-easy thing for people to agree on? With all the toppings choices, it could be complicated, but somehow ordering pizza is quick and easy.

On the trip back to New Jersey, we stopped at a light right next to this hot dog place called The Dog House which had a funny tag line "Our dogs go out with the nicest people!" So funny! I'm glad we were quick enough to snap a picture of it.

We stopped at a McDonald's for lunch and said "no sauce" for the McNuggets. On the receipt is shows 2? How do they put "2" no-sauces exactly? We got extra no sauce! Haha! Also, notice there's no tax on a fast-food meal in Delaware. So... yay? We saved a few cents.