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Shelby got in last night and it was surreal to see her. Here we were in Des Moines, having a spontaneous girlie (plus guy) weekend. Her arrival meant I could forget about my problems for awhile and just saok up a few laughs.
Since she got in late, (a long drive after working all day!), we got into our jammies and just chatted and laughed, "accidently" chirped off a few, umm, bodily noises, then tried to go to sleep. We stayed up until about 1:30 AM just being silly. It was like we were back to being roomates again.
The following morning, we waited for the tow truck to arrive to pick up my car. Shelb drove us over to the dealer, where I picked up my new rental—a 2009 CTS-V Cadillac! It's definitely not what I'm used to driving, but heck, it has a cushy ride and lots of buttons and bells that confuse and delight. I figure I don't have to learn all the controls since the car will be gone on Monday, right? Hmmmm...
After getting the car thing worked out and finding out "well, we probably won't even get to your car today," we headed out for breakfast at The Machine Shed, a local chain themed with farmer decor and farm-fresh foods. We both got saucer-eyed when looking at the menu. It had pork chops, bacon, sausage and egss, steak and eggs, hash browns with cheese and onions, bacon stuffed waffles. How could we go wrong?
I guess EATING everything we ordered would be where we went wrong. Ugh...talk about gut-bomb of delight. We were certainly rolling out of our booth after our meal.
I checked in with Paul and he was due to arrive fairly soon, so we went back to the hotel to expand while we waited. Shelby saw Paul's car pull into the parking lot. We watched him go back and forth from the trunk to the backseat 4 or more times. He ended up not bringing any of his bags into the hotel, after all that monkeying around. We were giggling madly when he walked into the lobby, since he had no idea we were watching.
We fell together easily. No one cared what we did, so we focused on heading to a few antique malls. Around here they seem to start at 10,000 sq feet and go up from there. Our first stop was Collectimania, which turned out to be more of a flea market than an antique shop. It ended up working out well. We ALL bought something! Prices were really decent/low and it was tough to resist. I bought a jacket. No, I didn't need it, but I couldn't NOT buy it. Paul got a goofy pottery chip and dip set that looked like a swimming pool with swimmers in inner tubes. He says he's going to cut a hole into his dining room table and insert the set, then fill the pool with salsa. What a nut!
(Shelby and Paul)
Shelby got some really nice geodes and old comic books for her son, Dalton. I hope he likes them!
We went to two other malls and saw lots of crap and some over-the-top-expensive furniture. One set was priced at $165,000.00! I wonder if they would take, $125,000.00? Cough. By the time we finished our antique tour, we were hungry and ready to eat something again. I was surprised that breakfast finally wore off!
Our dinner destination was set for The Cheescake Factory. It's at a mall about a mile from the hotel. I was too tired to try to find some local haunt, so this would do just fine. The place was packed and loud. The wait for the table was 20 to 30 minutes, which ended up really being over an hour. By the time we got seated we were ready to eat the table cloth.
(Robin and Paul)
Once again, we ordered too much food that we could not finish. Did that stop us from ordering cake? No way! We got it to go! Feeling awful, we dragged ourselves back to the hotel where we hung out and made up a new word for Urban Dictionary. We just laughed and goofed around, watched SNL with Sarah Palin and picked at our cake. Paul went back to his room and Shelb and I rolled uncomfortably in our beds. Of course we decided to eat the rest of our deserts. Not a great idea. It was a looooong painful night!
We finally were too tired to keep talking and before too long we were both passed out cold.