Read on for the Twilight Zone of holidays. *eerie music plays*
)
We'd made reservations to stay out of town Saturday night so that we'd be nearby for the Florida State Fair on Sunday. However, I refused to leave for the hotel until I'd sorted out Perplex City's new puzzle. :) Thankfully, I was able to crack the code with the help of the smarties at Unfiction, and Rob and I were off to enjoy our weekend!
Before leaving, of course, we stopped by my parents' house to grab the Perplex City board game (a present they'd held off since Christmas!). Couldn't go anywhere without that.
The trip got off to a pretty strange start. In the middle of a downtown traffic jam, Rob asked, "Is it Friday or Saturday?" The traffic looked like your typical rush-hour drive, but we were late in the day on a weekend. *eerie music plays* That lasted for nearly half the trip. :P
To entertain ourselves, we sang songs all the way to the hotel. :) Eventually we arrived, and we checked in.
This was a Howard Johnson in the middle of nowhere. There was a restaurant attached -- a Mexican place with big, Corona banners everywhere as if it were a birthday party or Cinco de Mayo or something. *eerie music plays*
We went up to our room and got straight to the important stuff: checking our email. :) Of course, we needed to eat, so we decided to plug our laptops in and head down for some good ol' HoJo Mexican dishes. But where were the outlets?
After searching for several minutes, Rob realized that they were on the wall -- near the ceiling. You actually had to stand on the couch to reach the main outlets. *eerie music plays* Pretty weird!
The Mexican restaurant was very good. Our waiter had to be about 17 years old and didn't speak much English, and he was probably the nicest waiter I've ever had. He excused himself every time he approached us or walked away, and he tried his hardest to help us with our orders.
Rob got a beer he'd never heard of before, and I ordered a strawberry soda.
)
After eating, we were very tired, but we went to get snacks anyway at the local WalMart. Another strange experience! There, they had a queue of several lines put together. When you got to the front of the queue, you were next to be checked out. As soon as a cashier opened up, a recorded voice boomed out from above, "Please go to 3," (which meant that we should go to cashier number 3). *eerie music plays* It was actually very efficient, and we wondered why nothing like that existed (that we'd seen) in our city.
Why did we bother getting snacks when we were so tired, you ask?
Because it was time to play the Perplex City board game, of course! :) Rob dominated most of the time, but I officially won. Technically speaking, he gave me a bunch of the answers toward the end, so I'm not sure the win is 100% mine, but I'll take it. The game was TONS of fun. We're hoping to play it soon with my family for a game night!
Finally it was bed time. :) We went to sleep to be ready for the fair the next day!
But before we got to the fair, there were still some weird things to encounter. First, during Rob's shower, the hot water ran out. It didn't just slowly go cold, as most showers do. This shower simply stopped running water at all when the hot tap was on. *eerie music plays* A bit frustrating (and the people at the front desk didn't even apologize for our trouble!).
Then we went to explore a little more as we waited for my mom to come into town for the fair. We went to a little plaza where, we realized, was actually the end of the world. There were two Starbucks in the same plaza. *eerie music plays*
In this strip mall, we also found a family Christian store, and, since it said it opened at noon (two minutes from then), we decided to wait around and have a look.
I'm a big sucker for the Veggie Tales, and I get a lot of jokes about that from my friends, especially since I've never claimed to be anything near a hard-core Christian. What can I say? They're an entertaining show. :)
)
In this store, we found plenty of Veggie Tales, but we also found what looked like a knight costume for children. This was a "Christian Character-Building Costume" that let kids "Play and Learn About God's Protection for Spiritual Battle." *music stops abruptly*
I don't know about the rest of you, but preparing our children for religious battle sketches me out big time. Of course we had to take a picture. :)
Next came our trip to the bank before we left for the fair. This turned out to be one of the locations of the world-ending Starbucks... and the Starbucks drive through was actually part of the bank drive through! *eerie music plays* Just in case you need a Frappuccino with that deposit, I suppose.
Finally, we made it to the fair with my mom and aunt. Rob took tons of video there, so I don't have any pictures -- except one!
We actually found a game booth that gave away Fraggle Rock toys!!!!!! They had Wembley and Gobo. I couldn't believe it. Rob felt an obligation as my boyfriend to win me a Fraggle.
Damn right. ;)
That didn't prove to be very easy, though. You had to win 57 little toys, trade those in for one medium, then win about 79 medium toys, trade those in for one large toy, win 123 large toys to trade in for an extra-large toy, do a silly dance, publish an award-winning novel, and beg on your knees. Or, in more literal terms, the guy wanted us to shell out $60 for a Fraggle.
I wanted Gobo.
Rob tried to talk sense into this money-hungry lunatic, but the verdict was final: we had to take another $20 out of an ATM and play through that to earn Gobo, or I had to settle for the $40 purple monkey that Rob had already won by tossing darts at balloons.
Obviously, we went for an ATM. But it was out of order! So we went to another ATM. Also out of order! Another, and another... they were all clean out of money. *eerie music plays* Apparently other people were spending their lives' savings on toys as well.
In the end, we decided to keep the purple monkey and go back to riding rides. He's actually very cuddly and cute. Guess what we named him?
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