Saturday, Oct. 23rd

This Saturday was “my” Saturday, so after my morning run with Jim (6.5 miles), I bundled Mer into the car and headed southwest. Mer had a good time trying to guess where we were going, but never figured it out. We ended up at The Barn Restaurant in Smithville, a little over an hour away. My friend and colleague Phil had suggested I try it, so here we were.

The restaurant really is a converted barn. The barn had been built in the 1930s and was converted over to a restaurant in the 1980s. We got there right at noon, and yet still beat the rush. We were shown to a table very quickly, upstairs in the old loft. It was fun to look around and see the beams and construction of the place.

The food looked good and it was cheap. Mer and I both got soup and bread bar access, and Mer added in the salad bar while I added in “Barn fries,” which turned out to be good potato slivers. The soup bar had four soups (of which I was concerned solely with the excellent chili), but the bread bar turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. I was expecting rolls and such, but there were just a few loaves of sliced bread. I’ll know better next time. Still, the chili was maybe the best I had ever had. Yum.

After lunch, we wandered around the grounds. There is a man-made pond with very aggressive and hungry ducks and geese which we watched, and we circumnavigated the pond. Then we checked out the several small stores on the property. By far our favorite was a toy store – it was crammed full of cool games and unusual toys and lots of Playmobil. We both approved.

We had been pretty stuffed from lunch, but between the walk and the drive home, we had about two hours to digest. So, I decided to swing by the Gurnish home and see if they wanted to go to Strickland’s for custard. Nate and Rachel were home and were game, so they woke Jack up from his nap, and we all headed over to Strickland’s for ice cream. The special flavor of the day was peanut butter cup (which I got) and banana (which Mer got). I love hanging out with the Gurnishes – they love to laugh, and Nate is very blunt in a funny way. Add ice cream to the mix and it is a good time.

Mer and I then headed home, and we settled in for a movie. A teacher at school had lent me several of Terry Gillian’s films, so I introduced Mer to the film Brazil. She liked the dystopian nature of the film, and although she had thought it very weird at first, ended up liking it as a story. I had not seen it in about twenty years, so I had forgotten most of it. It was good to see it again, in a screwed-up-society sort of way. After the film, we headed to bed after a good and pleasant day.