Lizzie Update

So I'm headed south - sans phone and camera chargers, and dogfood and . . .  I trust I didn't forget anything else. Zoiks! Remembered to close the chimney flu, got up on the ladder to latch and cover the windows, took my lawn ornaments in, arranged for the dock and Miss Barbie Dreamboat to come out, mulched my hydrangeas and loaded up the girls and off we went. 

Stopped in Meriden, Connecticut the first night and then in Philly the next day for lunch to see my sweet niece, Annie, and the gorgeousness that are Micah and Lucia. Annie took us to Material Culture where we had a fabulous FABULOUS meal at the famous Chef Aliza's Baba Olga's Cafe. I had a wonderful arugula salad with proscuitto and figs and fennel. Yum. The shop - more like a warehouse really - attached to the cafe, is an indescrible delight of ancient and merely old and some new: gigantic wooden gates to little wooden alters to kilim rugs. Just fabby. Funny, because when I was in Frederick, Maryland yesterday at an antique store, a customer was telling a clerk about this cool place in Philly called Material Culture . . . I said oh yes, I was just there yesterday don'tcha know.  sniff

So, I was in Frederick, Maryland because the girls and I stopped off to visit with my bestie, Stacy, for a couple of nights and our bi-annual shopping trip in Frederick. I started to tell you the name of this place we stayed but then I wouldn't feel comfortable telling about how I was greeted by some creepy white supremacist types in a 50-year-old campground with some rather frightening permanent trailers on premises. We rented a cabin there and I'm pretty sure we won't be going back. Beautiful staying in the forest though (well, in daylight) and happy we weren't running through the dark wood while scary music played and heavy footsteps behind us in the leaves were heard and then looking back fearfully and tripping and falling so that the horridness came down upon . . . WHOA. Let's put an end to that visual. Did I mention we probably won't go back? 

And tonight the girls and I find ourselves in North Carolina, happy to have landed in the ONLY decent hotel - and paying the price - on my route thru the south. Balloon festival here this weekend so the hotel is full up and I am lucky enough to be across from the ice machine. NOT! We'll be up early and on our way, planning to arrive in Florida tomorrow night.
Sorry there are no pictures. Going to have to find a Radio Shack at some point so I can charge the phone and the camera. It's always somethin'.