Holly Inn Potato Chips

The basket of complimentary (I love free) homemade potato chips comes from The Tavern at The Holly Inn, located in the heart of Pinehurst, NC.  We made the hour-plus trip south from Chapel Hill just to have lunch and stroll through their small downtown.  But back to the chips.  They are addictive!  Chef Elaine and I are not big chip eaters but we simply could not stop going back for one handful after another.  They're the perfect combination of hot, salty, and oily.  Add to that an outside table on a beautiful day, and Bloody Mary's of course, and it was delightful. 

https://www.pinehurst.com/dining/the-tavern

"Fresh Catch" Pretzel

The cute soft pretzel shown below comes from Frenchy's Rockaway Grill in Clearwater Beach, FL, and is shaped like their fishbone logo, with cheese sauce and honey mustard on the side.  That was a little something for the stomach while sipping on their famous Frozen Rum Runner, which combines Don Q Pasión Rum, Dark and 151 rums, banana liqueur, blackberry brandy, and tropical fruit juices.  A couple of those and it's rum-dee-dumb-dumb!

For a view of their white sandy beach, check out the live video stream at the link below.

https://frenchysonline.com/clearwater-beach-cam

Faraday Bag

Our new E-ZPass instructed us to store the transponder in the package it arrived in when not in use to help prevent electronic snooping.  Of course, I had already torn open the bag and it was pretty much useless at that point.  So I hopped over to Amazon for a solution and found a pair of Faraday Bags for $12.  Each has two pouches with the one in the back being the signal blocker.  You can also store your car's key fob, contactless credit cards, and smartphones to protect them.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07PS4D87N

Garaged

My Jeep spends its life parked outside, a victim of having a single-car garage.  It's not a big deal, and having had a remote starter added a few years ago, makes for a warm seat in the winter.  I occasionally whine about it and I would really like to have a two-car garage someday like I've had a couple times in the past.

But out of the blue, I realized I should stop my whining.  

I grew up in a small home in North Dayton and it also had a one-car garage, the one shown below.  For as far back as I can remember, our family had two cars.  My Mom drove a big yellow Chevy station wagon and my Dad had a Corvair and then an Impala.  The station wagon was always parked in the garage and the Corvair/Impala was either in the driveway or on the street.  

Not once did I ever hear my Dad whine about it.  As far as I know, he never had his car in the garage, at least until after Mom passed away.  Thirty years without a word.  A real man.

Time to put on my big boy pants and shut my mouth.

Mystery Glob

The picture below comes from a sidewalk in Clearwater Beach, Florida.  It was one of many spotted while out for a walk.  Can you guess its purpose?

I couldn't figure it out but my brother-in-law (Thanks, Al) had the answer pretty quickly.  The patch was used to cover old parking meter post stubs which had been cut down and replaced with electronic pay stations.  I suppose that's one more job, Parking Meter Collector, that's being displaced little by little with technology.  

Corn Flake Chicken

Last week's "Foodie Friday" (the monster casserole) was topped with crushed corn flakes, but what does a non-breakfast-eater do with the rest of the box?  Chef Elaine noticed a recipe on the box for baked chicken (shown below) that was a nice twist on the more usual breaded version.  Kellogg's also sells Corn Flake Crumbs, which might not make a compelling breakfast cereal, but the all-purpose crumb coating would save smashing all the flakes yourself.

https://www.kelloggs.com/en_US/brands/kellogg-s-corn-flakes-consumer-brand.html

Bloody Mary

This beauty below is a Limmy's Bloody Mary featured at Jimmy's Fish House and Iguana Bar in Clearwater Beach, Florida.  The skewer is almost a meal in itself and features shrimp, olive, tomato, hot pepper, green pepper, cucumber, red pepper, and yellow pepper.  Not that a Bloody Mary is my typical beach drink, but when I saw this I knew one must be mine.

https://www.jimmysfishhouse.net/menus/beverage-menu

 

E-ZPass

After the recent $25.50 worth of tolls on I-64 in West Virginia, waiting in line, and paying in cash, I finally broke down and bought an E-ZPass (from our AAA office).  The $12 dollars I paid for it was refunded when I set up my online E-ZPass account.  When the balance in that account falls below $10, they use my provided credit card to boost it back up.  The only downside is they charge $0.75 per month to have an active account, but it's worth it to avoid all the other hassles.

https://www.ezpassoh.com

WANFEI Bone Conduction Headphones

I needed a new pair of bone conduction headphones for the upcoming tanning season (aka going to the pool) and I decided to try an unknown brand called WANFEI, mainly because after a $20 off coupon they ended up only costing $50.  They work fine with my only complaint being that they don't produce a lot of volume, making them unusable in a noisy environment like an airplane.  

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09FPMMZVM

 

Cool Cars

The Budget rental car agency in Tampa, Florida last week was a zoo.  They were totally disorganized and twice assigned us cars that weren't in their lot.  They managed on the third try to get it right and instead of our reserved "full size" car we ended up with a class they call "cool cars", in our case a Dodge Challenger with the 5.7 liter V8 Hemi shown below, for the same price.  We made some noise with this throaty beast!