Electric City Waffles

 

I walked out this morning not expecting to be back home tonight.

Sean and I are great at wanting to do things. We're great at talking about them. From there, he leaves it to me to do the work. Now, look, I'm not criticizing him. He knows I enjoy planning stuff.

So we've talked about a Waffle House trip for months. For all of the grief I take (some of it tongue-in-cheek) we haven't been there since last July.

But we've promised for months to treat ourselves. He (and I) is off from baseball for two weeks so I kept saying we needed to do something. 

Today was that day.

I wanted to grab a room and stay over. I know he doesn't have a bathing suit with him here but I was willing to see if we could find one at an Old Navy-type of place so we could both jump in some hotel pool. 

I don't know anyone with a pool so I couldn't tell you the last time I've been in one. Probably just as well. Nobody needs that visual.

Insane deliciousness

But I looked at hotel prices near the most logical (and closest) Waffle House locations.

Scranton, PA

Allentown/Easton/Bethlehem, PA

Lancaster, PA

Elkton, MD

Nope. No. Negative. Uh-uh.

All too expensive...until last night. I saw something reasonable. I was willing to give it a go but, shame on me, I didn't commit.

Still, I sort of liked the spontaneous nature of seeing what kind of deal might come to light today.

Sean was non-committal.

We were on the road before 7 a.m. It felt good to be on (fairly) quiet roads. I didn't insist on a crack-of-dawn departure though I could have since I slept like garbage.

We made a quick stop in Mahopac to grab the mail. Nothing else to report otherwise.

From there it was north on the Taconic and west on 84 to Scranton.

We decided the Electric City was the best choice because we knew we could walk around the Steamtown National Historic Site.

"You're a roads guy," Sean said. "I'm a rails guy." 

For sure, his statement is true though each has a healthy appreciation for the other.

Interstate 84, overall, bores me. I appreciate the rolling fields and farms of Orange County, NY before the eventual climb near Port Jervis into the Delaware Valley. I also appreciate the scenery of the trees of Pennsylvania.

But my point remains. From Sturbridge, MA to Scranton, PA I-84 is a sort of dry drive.

I bring this up because, for the last 20 minutes of the drive, I was growing really tired. I didn't have coffee before I left Greenwich and I didn't sleep great as I said.

And our beloved Waffle House, well, didn't have their best day. No refill on my coffee and onions in my hashbrowns?! No, I did not order onions. Still, these are "First World" problems and I made the best of it. I figured I didn't need the second cup of java and I could work around the onions.

Done and done. Onto the trains.

Somewhere along the line, Steamtown National Historic Site stopped charging admission so that was a bonus. Yet we cruised through the exhibits and buildings and were out pretty quickly.

A walk into the nearby mall got us a picture of the welcome sign from "The Office" but didn't exactly give us much to see.

Sean admitted that while he loves him some Scranton, he just didn't think there was a lot to do and wasn't so high on staying over.

Though bummed, I took it as a positive to save the money and cruise back to Greenwich.

We didn't leave immediately, driving around and visiting some other things before we stopped for lunch.

I create my own fun, I guess. I can waste time strolling around a lot of places before heading to the hotel. But neither one of us was feeling that great either (before you joke about Waffle House, we both felt that way when the day started) so the signs pointed to this being for the best.

We also had a good, long talk at lunch about some stuff. 

There was one stop on the way home -- a train turntable in Port Jervis that has become a bit of a traditional visit whenever we're in the area. They've changed things a bit there and have added a small museum that caught out eye for the future.

We rolled home from there. He laughed at things on his phone and I grumbled as I listened to the Yankees get no-hit by three Houston Astros pitchers.

I mean, it happens. The Yankees have been no-hit twice in my life -- both by several pitchers on the Astros. A single pitcher hasn't no-hit them since 1958. So while the no-hitter is annoying, losing is the thing. They lost. 

Pick it up tomorrow because the vultures are already circling.

And thus we're back in Greenwich. Three states (and a view into a fourth as we were less than a quarter of a mile from New Jersey), good food, good talk, good laughs, and good times.

Now we have to do it again.

And, if Sean won't stay over, then I need to allow myself to.

Just not on I-84.