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| Dinner at the Penguin in Charlotte, NC |
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| The place was almost empty when we arrived but quickly got crowded |
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| Fried pickles are one of their specialties. We also tried cheerwine for the first time and liked it. |
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| The food was fantastic - very fresh and flavorful. The black bean and corn salsa was surprisingly good. |
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| Helen makes "worm dirt" chocolate pudding for the kids so we had to get some along with some banana pudding. Both desserts were simple in appearance but surprisngly good - like everything we ate at the Penguin. |
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| It was so good we got another hot dog and cheeseburger to chase the dessert down |
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| Finally home sweet home |
Sunday June 20, 2011
We spent the night in Summersville, West Virginia and had a full day's drive in front of us to make it home. We didn't plan on going to the New River Gorge, but drove right past it so we decided to stop.
Nobody else was really ready or that motivated to get out, so I jumped out alone to investigate. It was a nice visitor center and a movie was starting so I went in to see the movie. When I got back to the van, everyone wondered why it took me so long. I told them that I saw a movie and they were upset that I didn't come back to get them. I told them you snooze you lose and that they needed to stay prepared or else they run the risk of missing out.
They all decided they did want to get out and check things out. We spent some time in the visitor center and then took a walk to the viewing area for the New River Gorge Bridge. The bridge was completed in 1977 and was the largest steel arch bridge in the world for a long time. It is now the 3rd largest.
We ran into a huge traffic jam near the West Virginia and North Carolina border. We later found out the interstate was closed for hours because of a big wreck. We waited in the traffic for about half an hour before working with the GPS to figure out a new route. We were glad we took the new route. It was really pretty and saved us a lot of time in the end.
We stopped in Charlotte, NC for dinner. We were originally looking for a barbecue restaurant that had good reviews and were having trouble locating it. There was a lot of construction in the area. After the interstate standstill and now the trouble finding the barbecue restaurant, Helen wanted to give up and get back on the highway. I said no way. We were going to find that dang restaurant. When we finally found it - it was closed. Helen wanted to cry.
I told her there was another restaurant in the area and started towards it. The surroundings started looking a little shady, but we stuck with it and eventually found the restaurant. And that's how we ended up at the Penguin. The restaurant was pretty empty when we got there but quickly filled up. There seemed to be a good mix of locals and people like us who had heard of its reputation for good food.
The food was typical grill food, but it was all surprisingly good. The path getting there was a little bumpy, but it worked out in the end.
The rest of the ride to Atlanta went smoothly. The kids started to get excited as they recognized more and more of their surroundings. They really missed our dog, Lulu, and missed our gerbil, George, and "kind of" missed our cat, Grayson. They had good natured arguments about who was going to cuddle "Jabubu" (Lulu) first and who was going to get to count all of Lulu's boobies to make sure that she still had 8 and that none had mysteriously disappeared during our absence.
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