Eating Out

Old Govemor’s Mansion

This is the first Executive Mansion of the state of Georgia and it filled that capacity from 1838 to 1868 until the state capital was moved from Milledgeville to Atlanta. It is still open for public tours.

If you ever find your self in Milledgeville, a great place to eat is Buffington’s. I can personally vouch for the Cry Baby Burger (ground Angus beef, roasted jalapenos, caramelized onions with white American cheese) and the fried pickle slices as a side were almost Razzoo matching in their succulency. The few spoonfuls of Donna’s Bob Marley soup (creamy base, Caribbean chicken & rice with a “kick”) that I had was delicious and reminded me of a sort of thick gumbo. I didn’t get any of her quesadilla, but it must have been good because she made the whole thing go away and she usually gets a assist from me on that front when we are at Moe’s.

We grabbed a couple caches in Milledgeville before we hit the hotel. And I didn’t realize it until just now when I checked our statistics, but today was the three year anniversary of Geocaching. On 2/15/2009 we found Up Sand Creek in Hitchcock Woods. Our total finds stand at 993 or 0.9052 caches/day.

Just Four?

We went geocaching today and managed a measly four finds, of course that is all we really looked for…it started with a rare non-Florence visit with Cousin Laurie and ended with a disappointing meal at a place we used to love.

We picked up Laurie in her hometown and drove the 15 miles to Cheraw State Park to search for our first cache. It was a quick and easy find at the end of the boardwalk at one corner of a huge lake. Once over it we opted to continue walking on that side of the lake. There were some horse trails that we unsuccessfully attempted to find using the typically cryptic state park map, so we ended up walking along a long dirt road to a place called Camp Forest. If I was scouting movie locations for the next teen slasher/horror film, I had found it.

After lunch in Cheraw we drop Laurie off and headed home the long way which included a couple more stops in state parks that are part of our latest obsession, the Sandhills Challenge. First up was the H. Cooper Black Jr. Memorial Field Trial and Recreation Area which is a very large equestrian area with zero human trails. The cache was a small container hidden on a set of metal viewing stands in front of a show ring. The second state park was Goodale near Camden where there was no big trail, but we took a short walk along a small steam trying to wait out a ranger parked in a truck near GZ. He never did move, but we went over and made the find anyway, because we figured he knew what we were after, so we wouldn’t technically be muggled. A picturesque feature of the park, one that is becoming quite familiar to us, is the mill pond with cypress trees:

We sandwiched in the other cache while driving between the last two state parks. It was at a Scotch Cemetery that had caught our eye on the drive up in the morning, not even realizing then that there was a cache at it. We didn’t spend long exploring the grounds once we did get there, because by this time the temperature was dropping fast and the wind was picking up.

Dinner was at a Maurice’s BBQ place in Lexington. Maybe it was just a bad day at this restaurant or maybe our tastes budshave changed, but neither one of us enjoyed the mustard based pulled pork sandwich as much as we thought we we usedto.

Off The Hook

While sitting on the couch last night using the laptop to plan today’s geocaching adventure to Columbia, Donna was watching Diners, Drive-In and Dives. We were thinking of eating lunch at California Dreaming, but our plans were changed by the 10:30 episode of Triple D, which featured a place called Pawley’s Front Porch.

First stop though was Sesqui-Centennial State Park in northeast Columbia that has 10 geocaches. Looking at the map at home it seemed like most of them were on the shorter loop that closely circles the lake. Turns out I was wrong, they were scattered all over the place, on and off, some of the dozen or so miles of trails. We ended up spending 3 hours and walking 6.4 miles finding 8 of 8 of the caches attempted.

After driving to 5 Points in downtown Columbia, we circled the block, asked directions and still got turned around. We ended up walking the last block before finding the restaurant around 1:30. After a 30 minute wait we were seated and ordered our burgers. I had the Wadmalaw (chipotle BBQ sauce, fried pickle chips, applewood smoked bacon and cheddar cheese), Donna had a Rockville (sauteed Vidalia onions, wild mushrooms and gruyere cheese) and Joan opted for the Front Porch (cheddar cheese.) The fries and onion ring sides were alright, but the burgers were awesome and worth the wait. Three hours later I was still full.

Colorful Walk

We went for a 4-1/2 mile walk in Hitchcock Woods this morning. And like last weekend at the Gap, the trees are past peak color, but there are plenty of spots that still look pretty darn good.

We drove the Sonata to DD for breakfast, the Miata to Firehouse Subs for lunch and if we had thought about before now, we could have ridden the tandem somewhere for dinner, instead we will dine at home.

The Purple Whales started the day predicted to get 125 points and were a 35 point favorite. During the first 3-1/2 hours of NFL football this afternoon the 125 fell 45 points to just 80. Fortunately for me, my opponent’s 90 fell to his now predicted 60.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1092

Pickles

The MMC met for our monthly dinner, with a shouted over the din meeting, at Pickles Grill & Cafe in Martinez, GA. We had like 20 people there (18 more than showed up for the last event) and they put us at one long table (which is a strange predilection for this group), so conversation was possible with only the nearest 5 people. The others got nothing more than a wave.

With a name like Pickles you knew they had fried pickles as an appetizer, so I tried some.

My first experience with fried pickles occurred at Razzoo’s and it went a little like this: pickle chip number one made me wonder who thought up this vile food item, number two didn’t taste half bad and numbers 3 through 30 were great. Those guys were crinkle cut dill chips not much bigger around than a nickle and were a perfect one bite sized, easily popped into your mouth.

The offerings from Pickles were large dill pickles french cut style so that they came out about the size of a flattened Pringle. When you bit into it there was no way for your bite to cut and separate the pickle so you ended up with half the coating and the whole pickle slice in your mouth and half the coating still in your hand. Cutting them into smaller pieces fared only marginally better because the coating would fall off in the dipping sauce…

The hazards of eating with a group of 20 are many and we caught nearly everyone. If they were trying to serve all of us at one time, it failed. We got about 3 or 4 dishes served and then it would take about five more minutes for the next wave. Diner #1 was about done eating when diner #20 got their meal. If they were just trying to get the orders out as they were ready, that failed as well, as our pork chops were luke cold and the couple across from us got a rare steak in place of the medium well they requested. Those that requested loaded baked potatoes (smallest baked spuds I’ve seen served at a restaurant) only got them semi-loaded. We got the cheese, bacon bits and scallions, but no butter and sour cream while someone else got just the opposite.

They at least split the checks for us without adding an automatic 18% tip, but at least three couples bills were off in one way or another. The menu was varied and interesting and the food did taste good, so I’m betting that if you went as a couple or maybe two couples the dining experience would have been a whole lot better. I know this, if we were to ever go back to Pickles I won’t be ordering the fried pickles.

Started down, went up, went down, still down.
Miata Top Tran?si?tions since 10/24/08: 1082

Couch Shopping, Desserts Bigger’n Your Head & You Sure That’s Right?

Last time we bought living room furniture we got a 3 piece matching set, couch, love seat and arm chair. Because it is just the two of us, the only piece that has seen appreciable use is the couch, so now we need a new one. The other two items are basically brand new, so we would like to keep them and just buy a couch. Because it has been quite a while, a matching piece is entirely out of the question. The object we seek will be something that will compliment what is staying. Not easy, the current furniture is a burgundy cloth with rolled arms accented with nail heads sitting on ball feet. Not too much out there in that style and to make it nearly impossible we have decided to get a couch with built in recliners. The second store we tried tonight had a possibility, but we still want to look at least a couple more places.

We had dinner out with the Masters Miata Club tonight at the Boll Weevil in downtown Augusta. The food is always good and tonight was no exception. They are known for their desserts and usually Donna and I decline, but for some reason tonight we didn’t. Boy are we sorry. Here is a photo of some of their desserts, our Perfect Chocolate cake (which we “spoiled” with two scoops of vanilla ice cream) was larger than those shown, it was actually hanging off both sides of the plate!

On the way back from Augusta we filled up the Emperor’s gas tank. Regular was under 3 bucks, and because HRH takes Premium it was going to cost us $3.17 a gallon, but with our shopper\’s discount it too was under three at $2.97. I had reset the trip odometer in Clayton when we filled up last Saturday morning, I didn’t reset it when we topped off on Sunday, and so the mileage since that first fill up read 454.3. I took the last two gas receipts, totaled up the two tankfuls and got 15.065 gallons. That means the MPG for the past five days, which consisted of 60% windy mountain roads, 25% 2-lane back roads and 15% 4-lane divided highways was a respectful 30.16.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1072

Car Free Sunday

We slept in a little this morning and then got on the tandem for a bike ride before the weather got stinking hot. We rode a long looping 15 miles before ending up at the west side DD for our usual. By the time we were done we had gone 22 miles and change. After parking the bike and closing the garage door, neither of us ventured outside again.

We watched the last 2 episodes of Season Eight of Law & Order: The Mother Ship on a DVD from Netflix with lunch. This disc was the end in two different ways, first, it marks our return to one DVD out at a time from Netflix and secondly, Season 8 is the last of L&O seasons of the 20 that is available for rental (except for inexplicably, season fourteen.) The afternoon was spent watching the FRS beat the CWS on TBS. And tonight, well, when do you think I’m writing this.