A Night Of Big Boys (Frisch's)

6:42

7:16

It's 7:00 and I am sitting in the Maumee, Ohio, Hampton Inn on a foggy, wet morning.  We have a four-hour drive this morning to Oak Park, IL, a suburb of Chicago for the weekend.  We cut the 8-hour drive in half staying here in Maumee, hoping to avoid the rush hour traffic in Chicago, late afternoon.

Yesterday morning was typical for me although I was up really early.  It gave me time to get organized for our trip, get packed, make sure I had all my devices and their cords.  Since we were not leaving until 1:00, I went to breakfast with the guys at 8:00 and for once, all of us were there as the snowbirds returned from their wintering in Florida.  I also was able to get in a yoga class at 10:00, much needed since I was feeling logy from having gotten up so early.  I passed on lunch because we wanted to get the house in order, get the car packed and leave by 1:00.  We made it with ten minutes to spare.

Our first stop was just as we enter Ohio, as the gas is cheap and I can get lunch at Mc Donald's.  It was a one hour drive to Ohio, which meant we have three more hours to go on a surprisingly sunny afternoon.  Evie drove until we hit the Ohio Turnpike, just beyond Westlake and I drove the rest of the way as it started to cloud up as we neared Toledo.  It's easy to see why our Chautauqua friends call Ohio and Indiana the flatlands...mile after mile of farmlands stretching to the horizon.  Because of GPS, our Hampton Inn was easy to find, on a very busy and long strip mall on RT 20.  We checked in and relaxed, wondering if it made sense to go out for dinner or enjoy a drink and appetizers in our hotel.  We voted on the latter so I walked over to Kroger's next door to our Hampton and bought some good cheese and crackers.

A Bit Of Nostalgia

After our appetizers, we were still hungry so Evie sent me next door to Frisch's, where I picked up Big Boy hamburgers for both of us, with onion rings.  Back in the days, the 1950s and 1960s, before Mac Donald's, a Manner's Big Boy (not Frisch's) was everyone's favorite burger in Northeast Ohio.  So it was a bit of deja vu last night and I have to admit, they still tasted great.

We watched Jeopardy and some other junk TV until 10:00.  It was frustrating as there was no channel guide and often what was supposedly on a channel was something else.  This is definitely not our favorite Hampton Inn.