Last Thursday we finally took a trip to Golden Corral in Freehold, New Jersey. Now, if you have never heard of same, Golden Corral is a chain of family oriented reasonably priced (depending on the location around $14-$15 for adults). It is not a destination restaurant. But, there are none near us and the two restaurants here from a similar chain closed over a year ago - and this is one of the two closest ones to us. This is not a cheap trip - in addition to gas it is over $20 in tolls round trip.
I am not sure if I posted about this when it happened, but we tried this trip in July and ended up spending 5 and half hours going and coming with no dinner. We had gotten stuck in traffic and the anticipated hour and forty minute trip (per the GPS with traffic considered) ran a bit more - we had been driving for 4 hours and for the last two hours had steadily been half an hour from the end of our trip sitting in traffic. What finally turned us around and sent us home was the fact that by the time we got to the restaurant it might be too late for dinner and there were warnings that the occasional showers due late night, were now dangerous thunderstorms, hitting within the hour with two tornadoes so far and we were sitting in traffic in the open. So we had worked our way off the road and turned around and spent an hour and a half driving home.
What does this have to do with organizing? Well, in addition to having to organize everything for the week around this day and have to organize for the trip (we even over pack for a day trip), it is a loss of an afternoon and evening when other things could have been done.
I normally do our banking on Fridays - and we were short on money to pay bills and had to make a withdrawal from husband’s IRA accounts (hopefully the last of the year as it is the last of the planned money from same for the year). But, in anticipation of going away - and in need of some pocket cash for the trip, we went to the banks on Wednesday. I paid the bills on Wednesday night so they could go out on Friday (this was all the bills that were due by Sunday of the following week as I pay all bills a week before they are due). I did whatever else was sitting around waiting to be done.
I plugged in my other (smaller and a tiny bit newer) laptop to charge in the kitchen before going to bed on Wednesday night. I had our “travel zipper bag” downstairs with the laptop - this has a spare wallet with spare cash and a credit card (and some affinity cards for restaurants etc when we travel - other cards are in the car and the RV) and I add our checkbook just before a trip. Our logic in having extra cash and a credit card that neither of us is carrying is that if we were robbed or other similar problem, we would have cash and a credit card to use. I packed my old Palm Centro in its case - spare info of what is in my cell phone and easy to reach in the car to keep track of tolls paid, etc. We put out rain jackets and sweatshirts - weather was iffy. This way when we woke up Thursday all we needed to take was together in the kitchen on our way out.
Last time we had left after lunch at 3 pm and thinking that was the problem as we were traveling during evening rush hour, we planned - well I planned and he agreed - to eat lunch along the way. I was pretty sure that there were a couple of Wendys in NJ and I knew about one in Staten Island. So we set off.
In New Jersey I did see a Wendys on the road - just as we passed it. We kept going. We had a couple of basically time wasting stops along the way as we would (hopefully) otherwise be at the restaurant for dinner about 2 or 3 hours too early. Before I knew it we were at the first place to stop - there was a Costco with a gas station there and a Hobby Lobby craft store (we just got got our first Hobby Lobby here so that is still a place to stop for us). Since we had not eaten we went to Costco and had lunch and took a quick walk through - looking for some items they no longer have at the ones near us and didn’t have here either. We then gassed up the car (in New Jersey no self-serve allowed) and drove to the Hobby Lobby.
Now, the Costco is on the north bound side of the road we were headed south on. It is north of an intersection and the Hobby Lobby is on the same side, but south of the same intersection. How the roads in New Jersey are designed, one can generally not make a left turn on a main road. One gets off the right on an angle or something known locally as a “dog leg” and then turns left on the cross road to do so. So, to get back to Hobby Lobby we had to go out on the southbound main road, turn right at the next corner, then attempt to turn left onto the cross road - a four lane road with no additional traffic light to help, which we were able to do only by the kindness of a stranger who let us in. Then we had to turn left from that road onto the main road. We then had to turn right off the main road at the same place we did before and turn left - but into the right lanes - of the cross road we had turned left onto, to get to Costco. We gave up on trying to turn left onto the crossroad and turned right, then went up about a block, turned left into a parking lot, drove around in the parking lot, drove back out and turned right onto the same crossroad. We drove across the main road and about a block up turned right into the shopping center that Hobby Lobby is in. This trip from Costco to what is more or less the next shopping center took us 15-20 minutes.
We walked around awhile in Hobby Lobby - I went through their large Christmas department looking. No buying done though. And then we left. Now, to get back on the road we had to head back to the exit that led back to that same cross road and turn left onto the cross road - luckily there was a traffic light to help - and then turn left from same onto the main road headed south again.
So basically we drove in 3 circles to go to these two stores.
Our next planned stop was a Walmart we knew about. (We come to this Golden Corral for dinner about twice a year when we go to the woodworking show and the quilt show we go to in late February and early March so we know what is around it and on the road to it. These two attempts were our only ones to go there just for dinner - I guess I cook that badly that he wanted to go.) The jeans that husband wears has been discontinued at our local Walmarts and we hoped that other ones might still have them, plus some other items we had not found in our local ones, as well as it is a larger one than the ones near us. It is off to the west of the road we were on. I knew how to get there by turning right just before we got to the restaurant, but found a shortcut to it by following the signs and, I admit, the GPS. Nothing there we were looking for, but husband did find a DVD to buy. By the time we were done it was getting late to go to dinner so we hurried off after buying the DVD.
Yes, we made it the Golden Corral. He was so happy. I don’t particularly like the chain, but he does. Dinner and then we drove home. Of course to head back north we had to drive south, turn right onto a cross road, then turn left on the cross road and then turn left onto the main road north.
Now all the time we are driving and going places, my mind was thinking “I could be cleaning the bathrooms.” “I could be scanning the magazine articles.” “I could be doing laundry.” and so on. But his happiness at having the meal was worth the trip. Then again, when we got home he told me - “Next time I say I want to go to dinner there, tell me I want to go to dinner at the Casino in Connecticut instead.”
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
Sometimes time wasted is worth it if it gives happiness to someone else or to you.
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