Text 17007, 63 rader
Skriven 2011-10-25 01:20:00 av Dale Shipp (1:261/1466.0)
Ärende: WV Trains, Day 1
========================
World Wide Country Tours,http://www.countrytours.com/, West Virginia's
Mountain Railroads, 10 October 2011 -> 16 October 2011.

Day 1:
We left home in Columbia in the wee hours of the morning (i.e. 8:30 am).
Our first stop was at a familiar restaurant called the Park-N-Dine in
Hancock, MD about 1 1/2 hours away.  We've been going to this restaurant
for years whenever we are in the area.  It has been there for many
years, and serves decent inexpensive food.  Our breakfast of two eggs,
home browns, toast and bacon was $5.95 each.  Adding coffee and tip
brought the bill to $20 -- which is not bad these days for breakfast
out.  Their dinner menu is also quite reasonable, and decent food.  Many
items are less than $10, e.g. Turkey dinner, white and dark meat, with
two sides for $9.95, plus drinks.

URLs for them:  
http://www.hancockmd.com/newparkndine.htm
http://www.parkndine.com/  (for some reason, when I attempt to access this site
via a google search, my norton's blocks it -- but I am able to go to it via
their facebook page with no problem).

Continuing on from Hancock, we went west on Interstate 68 through
Cumberland, MD and Frostburg, MD before picking up Interstate 79 to
travel southwest to Charleston.  Along the way, some of the views were
extremely good -- especially at the higher elevations near Frostburg and
Cumberland.  The sun was bright and there were multiple yellows, oranges
and reds to be seen -- close up and in the distance on adjacent
mountains.

We arrived in Charleston, WV in mid afternoon and checked into our
hotel, the Charleston Marriott Town Center.  We then went to dinner.  We
had an old gift card for Cracker Barrel, and so we went there.  Gail had
their special of the night which was meatloaf, with sides of mac&cheese
and applesauce plus a corn muffin.  I ordered two grilled pork chops
with sides of corn, greens and dumplings.  A long time ago, I had their
chicken and dumplings in Florida and really liked it.  It was a nice
thick and flavorful gravy, with dumplings that were sort of like thick
noodles that were cooked nicely.  Some years later, I tried the Chicken
and dumplings at another Cracker Barrel and it was very bad.  That time
the gravy was thin and tasteless, the dumplings were the same type but
tasted like warm flour.  I was tempted to give them another try this
time, but opted for trying just the dumplings as a side dish instead.
GOOD decision.  These dumplings were only slightly better than the
horrid ones and the gravy also only a little bit better.  My pork chops
were quite good.  We gave grades of B for both meals.

The tour group met in the evening of 10 October at the hotel.  There was
the usual brief introduction by the tour guide, and a short "who-am-I"
from each of the 44 tour participants, representing 14 states.  The
reception had coffee, tea and sodas plus some cookies.  Then off to bed
for a very early wake up call.  As some of you know, our normal bedtime
is several hours after midnight and normal wake up is mid morning or
later unless we have something special to do.  For this entire trip, we
had wake up calls anywhere from 6 am to 7 am, and had to have our bags
packed and out in the hall an hour later for the baggage handlers to
cart them down to the coach.


... Shipwrecked on Hesperus in Columbia, Maryland. 00:35:18, 25 Oct 2011
___ Blue Wave/DOS v2.30

--- Maximus/NT 3.01
 * Origin: Owl's Anchor (1:261/1466)