Vacay Day 4

Well, I suppose you're wondering what I do all day while Randy is at work.  Allow me to enlighten you.  A typical day when I go with Randy on a trip looks like this:

Breakfast with my husband
Workout at the gym
Read a book - romance novel - in the lobby by the fireplace
Chill in a rocking chair by the pool
Take a nap
Catch up my blog
Work on computer course for school
Go shopping
Sleep in
Wash clothes
Absolutely nothing or anything I feel like!

Love vacations!  Vacay Day 5 begins vacation time for Randy.  Stay tuned to see what adventures we get into.

Vacay Day 3

The Hampton Inn is a near self-sufficient place for me while Randy works.  We get to have breakfast together.  I take an apple and peanut butter from breakfast back to the room to have for lunch.  The gym gets a daily visit from me, a time I greatly enjoy.  Ron at PT will be proud of me.  The staff is all awesome, helpful, and friendly.

There are available water bottles everywhere in this hotel.  And I mean everywhere.  They put them in our room when they clean.    

They are by the pool.

They are in the gym.

They are available at breakfast on the counter.  When breakfast is done, they put them in the lobby refrigerator so cold bottled water is available any time of the day.  The desk clerk even gave me a bottle of water while she went to get laundry detergent for me!

Breakfast area and preparing for customer appreciation

Water bottles in the cooler in the lobby

The Hampton also has customer appreciation weeknights from 6-8.  They serve free drinks and snacks.  Soda, beer, wine, and fresh baked cookies are available.  Their white chocolate-macadamia nut cookies are the best.  Tuesday evening they had lasagna and salad.  Wednesday evening they served Pizza Hut pizza.  Thursday was donuts in the morning.  Fresh apples, bananas, and coffee are available around the clock.  I like that there are healthier choices like fresh fruit and water and not just junk food.

Our room is actually a suite.        

The living area has a couch, chair, TV, and desk.

Notice the water bottle on the desk.

The window looks out over the pool.

Continuing through the space there is a mini kitchen on the left featuring a microwave, sink, refrigerator, and of course a coffee pot.  Pretty handy for keeping cold water or a snack easily within reach all day long.  

The king size bed is very comfortable, and it has five pillows.  Oh, yeah!!

I would definitely stay here again and hope I get to.

Vacay Day 2

Randy and I choose rental cars in different manners.  Being the logical person that he is, Randy looks for roomy, large cars that are usually white.  I, on the other hand, choose a car by its color.  This trip, Randy surprised me and chose a blue Mazda!  It’s cute and brand new.  Thank you, Sweetheart.

Being with Randy on his trips is one of my favorite things to do.  This morning we had breakfast together before Randy left for work.  I spent some time in the awesome gym here at the hotel.  I want a stationary bike like this one.  The treadmills, bike, and elliptical all have attached tv’s.  It’s cool in the room, and water is provided.

During the afternoon, I worked on my online class work.  I took an online photo editing class.  It was fun and I learned some new things I can teach my students.

After work we had dinner at the biggest Golden Corral I’ve ever seen.  The food, especially, veggies, was delicious.

Vacay Day 1

Three in the morning is really early to wake up, but we did it.  The plane was on time...yay!  My Dramamine kicked in, and we both slept the whole flight.  Well, almost the whole flight.  I woke up long enough to get a ginger ale.  Randy woke up when I spilled ice cold ginger ale on his leg.  LOL!  It's funny now, but Randy didn't think so quite so much at the time.

We arrived in Raleigh, drove to the hotel, and checked in.  We had lunch at a little place by the hotel called "Our House."  It reminded us a lot of Waffle House, only better.  We had a good breakfast for lunch.  We decided to go exploring around Raleigh and found Mordecai Plantation House.  We toured the main house.  Randy enjoyed the history.  I took pictures and enjoyed the beautiful antique furniture.

We finished off the day with dinner at Sweet Tomatoes.  It's nice and relaxing to go to a restaurant that caters to vegetarians.  I was craving fresh veggies, so it was perfect.  Their split pea-barley soup was scrumptious.  All you carnivores reading this, please keep your comments to a very bare minimum, please.  Thanks, Management.

Pronounced... mor-de-key

Mordecai Plantation main house

Outside kitchen and garden

Very low doorways

For Cheryl... cane/umbrella stand by the front door

Beautiful chandeliers throughout the house.

Mordecai family was very rich and partied a lot.

The music parlor... our favorite room

Gorgeous antique piano

I want green velvet, gold brocade trimmed drapes with lace sheers in my house.

The bath tub. People sat on the side and bathed.

No internet in the 1800's.  They read real books.

Chapel steeple

Birthplace of Andrew Johnson, 17th President

Plaque about Andrew Johnson's birthplace

Chapel on Mordecai Park grounds

NC state capitol in Raleigh

Tile pattern on roof of NC Executive Mansion

Garden Update - Looking Good

Wow!

Things are growing!

Climbing beans

I foresee stuffed peppers in the near future at our house.

Bean flowers... won't be long now...

Good News for Harvey

Harvey made it through the storm and is laden with juicy peaches.  I picked 17 today and the tree is still full.

Harvey and the Storm

The worst damage of the storms last night were to Harvey Peach Tree.  The wind blew him over flat to the ground.  Daniel J and Daniel S worked on him and finally got him standing.  The ground is so wet hopefully he still stay standing.  If that doesn't work, he may have to relocate to the bak yard.

Harvey :(

Standing in mud

Peaches fell off of Harvey

Finally standing again.

The rain is good for the yard.

Beautiful.

Thanks, Daniel S, for fixing Harvey.