Nearer our Destination...

Another morning of being lazy and relaxing before getting out and on the road for the final leg of the trip. We decided just to let the kids know we weren’t going to be there in time for lunch, but would just take our time and get there somewhere around 2:00 or 2:30 instead of 11:00, as previously planned.

Of course, I had picked up a couple of coupons from Michaels for 50% off and decided since I hadn’t been there lately (except for yesterday when I picked up the coupons)I needed to stop for my Michaels fix. We located another Michaels along the way and plugged the address into the GPS and she took us straight there. We were sure we would have to pay some tolls along the way but she routed us around them.

As we were leaving that Michaels I spotted a Costco. Think low gas prices. In just a couple of days time prices have sky-rocketed to prices we never thought we would ever see in our lifetime. We have been seeing some ridiculous prices along the way, but these were really setting records. We lucked up and got the best price for our gas there. Lucky thing we stopped there and saved at Michaels and Costco.

When we crossed the New Jersey State line we were excited at the thoughts of stopping to get a road map at a rest area or welcome station just as we have in every state so far. Imagine our surprise when we realized the only welcome station/rest area INTO New Jersey had no facilities. It was just a pull off. I don’t know what you were supposed to do when you pulled off. I guess just stretch your legs, but no facilities.

Even AAA doesn’t have a separate map for New Jersey. It is included as a small section of the upper states. Not even the AAA office closer to New Jersey. They only have the smaller version.

My advice to the State of New Jersey: Fix your roads…they’re just awful. Every state up there has cold, snowy weather and their roads were much better. Get decent welcome stations/rest areas throughout your state. Provide a map, for goodness sakes. I would like to know where I’m going or where I’ve been. Your taxes are unbelievable, and I won’t forget all those tolls we paid to travel in your state, your food prices are outrageous, your schools definitely need up-dating, the housing in your state is through the roof, just for added emphasis, your roads are worse than lousy, your drivers are absolutely, without a doubt very, very aggressive and obnoxious, you don’t even trust people to pump their own gas, you have no Cracker Barrels in your state and you don’t even have the good taste to serve grits or even sell them in your grocery stores. What’s up with you people? The only good things you have there are my kids! And I want them back! You don’t deserve them!

Now that I have that off my chest, let me finish my story…we pulled into the kid’s driveway around 2:40 PM, not much off schedule after we had stopped for a leisurely breakfast/lunch at Cracker Barrel along the way. Cracker Barrel seems to stop in Pennsylvania. At least our first trip up in October taught us to look for those Cracker Barrels before we left Pennsylvania!

The kids were waiting for us so we could join them on their outing of the week. A trip to Costco to buy groceries. It was interesting, I must say. Not just because we had three little boys in tow, but it was a fabulous Costco. Maybe twice as big as any we have here, and ten times as busy. Every check-out line was opened and there were lines of people snaking around the store in each line. But to their credit they did move fast.

There are some things we can’t find here they have there. One of my favorite is the Joey’s Black and White Cookies. They are a New York thing not really New Jersey, but they are the best cookies.

A neighbor, who had lived in New York State and had catered to banks, etc., introduced them to me a number of years ago when she and her husband moved down the street. She even invited me to watched her make them. I wrote down the complete instructions even down to the brand ingredients she used and I just knew I was on the road to eating scrumptious cookies for the rest of my life…only to find when I tried them, I would fail miserably. I blamed it on the fact that I had used an electric oven and she had used a gas one. After getting a gas oven I immediately tried my luck. It wasn’t a good thing at all. There is just something in the way I hold my mouth that changes the taste of those cookies. Not everyone can follow the recipe and get the same result, much to my chagrin.

Let me mention now, before we left New Jersey we ate one box and carried away two more of them, I think. But some of them were used for a picnic we went on, so I/we didn’t eat them all by ourselves. Just most of them. And I enjoyed every.single.one of them that I ate!

These goodies remind me so much of my Mama’s Old Fashioned Tea Cakes and they are cake-like, not crunchy. I never perfected those either. I wish I could because I would love to share them with my grandkids.

Someday when I have less to write about I may post the recipe I have for those Black and Whites. Maybe you will have better luck with them.

Upon our return home from Costco, our daughter-in-law had a crock pot filled with an absolutely to-die-for delicious lasagna-spinach-chicken casserole prepared and waiting for all of us when we returned from the shopping. (We took her with us shopping, of course. She had done all the prep work earlier in the day.) She added a few yummy vegetables and some fruit and we had an amazingly easy (for me, since I didn’t have to prepare it) and scrumptious meal.

Tomorrow also promises to be an eventful day.