Veteran's Day

Yesterday almost amounted to an adventure.

It was Veteran's Day, and MIL had sent Bob an email with a long list of companies offering freebies to Vets/military, and Bob wanted to take advantage of some of it.

He had a couple of assignments due for college, so we finished those before we left the house, which made our departure about 11:30. Of course that made our first stop lunch.

We looked over the list and decided on Applebees (a chain restaurant) in Springdale. They offered free entree to vets, and we hadn't been there in a while. Bob got chicken & cheese penne, and I got unlimited soup, salad, and bread sticks. The bread wasn't great, but the tomato basil soup was very nice, and the Asian grilled chicken salad was great. The service was good, and everybody got full.

Next stop was a furniture store, where Bob and I tried on some chairs. Our 10 year old couch is going flat. We didn't find anything we wanted at that store, so we went on to Sam's in Fayetteville, where Bob got a free walking cane and we did some shopping and made two trips to the bathroom.

By then Cedwryck's feet hurt and we remembered that his shoes were too small, so we drove up to Rogers to Academy sport store. Ced tried on every shoe in his size under $25, and finally settled on some boots. He assured us that they were comfortable, not just neat. Then we looked for dress shoes for Riah; they only had one pair in his size, and he didn't like them. THEN we looked for shoes for Naysha, as hers are also too small. She tried on every pair in her size under $25, and found two that she liked, but they weren't quite the right size. So after another trip to the bathroom I got some insoles for my shoes, and we looked for bow string (they don't carry that), and then left.

Now it was nearly time for dinner. Traffic was bumper-to-bumper. I had my heart set on the free doughnut from Krispy Kreme, so we headed in that direction, thinking to stop first at KFC or Taco Bell for some protein. Well, we missed our exit so we had to go up to the next exit, turn around, and come back. Krispy Kreme was to the right, but we went left because we thought Taco Bell was that way. We drove a couple of blocks, passed a KFC, and didn't see Taco Bell. So we decided to turn around at the next light, and come back to KFC. We finally landed at KFC, where, with a name that includes the word "chicken," we expected to get some chicken.

After careful examination of the menu we discovered the "Value Menu" - with one item listed. I don't remember what they called it, but it came with 1 pc dark meat, potato wedges, and a biscuit, for $1.99. Sounded good, so we ordered 9 of them. Oh, he said, did you want thighs or legs? We tried to keep it simple by getting all thighs, Original Recipe. Um... he didn't know if they had that many thighs. He called somebody on his headset and asked. He reported to us that they only had 4 thighs. Okay, we said, trying to keep things simple, we'll take those 4 thighs, and the rest legs. So he called back, and said they only had 3 legs in Original Recipe. That's fine, we'll take the rest in Extra Crispy. So he called back to tell them to drop a large wedges. Then the manager walked up and asked what he was doing. He explained it all, and she said she already had an order in for dark meat. So we waited for that to get sorted, and finally got it all straight: 3 thighs & 3 legs in Original, and 3 thighs in Crispy. Then he looked up and said, "It'll be at least 10 minutes." Really? We told him to never mind, gathered the children, and went back to the van. Sigh. At least we have choices here.

Back to the bumper-to-bumper to look for Taco Bell, or something. We went back west across the interstate, and no Taco Bell there, but we saw Krispy Kreme coming up. I suggested we go ahead and get the doughnuts now, and then go on to eat. So Bob tried to change lanes, but a car pulled up beside him and wouldn't let him in. So when the light changed Bob tried again, a little harder this time. ;-) The other driver *should* have realized that he was being rude, but instead thought that Bob was rude. Oh, well. We made it into KK, got a mixed dozen plus our free one, and made it back onto the road. Still bumper-to-bumper, dark now, and past dinner time. We decided to leave Rogers, and were almost as glad to get out of there as we were glad to get out of Colchester 2 years ago.

Down to Lowell, and we exited there to finally stop at Taco Bell and eat. Just as I suspected, they had plenty of ground beef for as many tacos as we wanted. :-) Everything was fine there, and we started to shake off the stress of driving in Rogers on Friday night. By the time we finished dinner, Cedwryck decided he wanted insoles for his boots!

We stopped by MIL's house and shared the doughnuts with her and visited a while, before finally heading home and to bed. Phew.