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Dave and the Drag Queens

Dave and the Drag Queens
Bread - The Staff of Life

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Virginia Diner


 
 
 
 
 
 
So I just spoke about how we took a ride to Virginia Beach, Hampton Roads, Norfolk, I am not that familiar so they get kind of all mixed up for me. It was Southern Virginia near the shore, where a lot of rivers meet the ocean. We went so my honey could fly in the air. Which she accomplished, she left the earth, flew in the sky more than once and then landed back on the earth.  There is only 1 sky. Just so you know….

 We stayed at the Hilton on the river in Suffolk Va. The hotel is on the banks of the Namemethecockofcoxfoxintheboxwithmysoxonyourhotboxhotknocks  river. (maybe better to look it up!) A beautiful property on the water, adjacent to a great  marina. The restaurant was run of the mill for a Hilton Garden Inn. Two dudes cooking on a line visible to the dining room. Dinner the night of arrival  was late and fair ….  and only fair. The boys behind the line spent more time  shooting the bull than concentrating on putting out good food. Sea Salt French Fries on the menu…. the only thing missing was the Sea Salt. I told the waitress I could have went to Wendy's. The crab cake was Ok.  

Breakfast the following day….  sad omelets, frozen potatoes, and no commitment from the wait staff for refills, creamer, butter, or anything else you may anticipate from a full service establishment. As a youngster, I would do back flips to make an extra dollar tip. These kids here …. not so much.    

Saturday morning after breakfast at the airport. SBCP ( Sweet Banana Cream Pie)  kissed the heavens and got her first official flying lesson and we were considering what  to do next. What the heck could top that ??? I tell you what. Ham Biscuits at a diner doing the right thing for the right reasons for more than 80 years. The night before we watched a special on TV about Virginia Diner …. Fried Chicken, Collard Greens, Macaroni & Cheese, oh and Biscuits….  Southern Style, the same way for more than 8 decades. It was about 45 minutes away and worth the drive. We considered flying but the parking lot was full and there was no room to land. The joint was packed. It was 2:30 on a Saturday afternoon.  It was Virginia Diner.  

We registered with the hostess. This place was kind of Cracker Barrel -esque. They jam you into the gift shop  when you sign in … so you can browse and buy. Boiled peanuts and Virginian Tech shirts. They tell you it's going to be 20 to 25 minutes… so go forward and spend ! The dining room sat about 90 or so. It was about 10 minutes until we were seated. On this Saturday afternoon after 11:00 the buffet was $11.95. The buffet displayed all of the Southern Specialties plus some really pretty desserts. The Mac & Cheese on the buffet turned out to be much better that the ala-carte  portion. We were seated and watched the folks coming back from the buffet with dangling trails of strings of cheese from the Mac & Cheese. This place was legit !

This joint had it all !! Little kids… fat ladies …. grumpy bastards… tourists…. local mutants….. 400 pound people….. and 80 pound people …. dudes with sandals and black socks… Chicks with cutoff shorts so short that the pockets stuck out of the bottom … Three dudes who while waiting for a table just kept saying … " Is there a Burger King around here ? " Chicks and dudes with bad teeth… brown teeth…. missing teeth …. and summer teeth…. ( Some were there  …. some were not) There were  fast and furious waitresses and sweaty  bus boys…. They had it all !  The cheese string trails  continued to made small inroads all over the linoleum floor. It was fantastic! They cleaned and turned over the tables like it was nobody's business…. but you know what ? It was their business !

I loved it   

SBCP ordered the house specialty - Ham Biscuits- Collard Greens-Waldorf  Salad- and a wrap up of Peanut Pie. I ordered a Club Sandwich. We ordered two sides of Mac &  Cheese.  I was jonesing for the Fried Chicken but I knew it would have been too much. However I could taste the Fried Chicken as I visually licked the grease from the faces of the previously mentioned mutantos dejour.  

 

 

I just wanted a club sandwich… the club had the Famous Ham as one of the components so I was good !

Overall the meal was excellent. The atmosphere and hum of the restaurant was outstanding. Just good honest, wholesome food.   I fell into a small carbohydrate coma on the way back to the river. HSBCP got us back and forth…. on the earth of course . Another visit to a famous food destination !!!!  

Virginia Diner >>>>>>>>>>>> As far as I am concerned you folks are good for another 80 plus years.  

The Peace You Build in Your Soul is the Peace That Becomes Your Rock !!!

Luvya- The FoodNomad>>>> Stay Tuned for the big announcement.

   

  

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Up-Up and Away !


I Will Fly Away !

A few weeks ago my wife says to me >>>> “I believe I can fly! I believe I can touch the sky.”



She was not singing Karaoke. So I figured she must be delusional, or high. I said OK and I sent her for a Reasonable Cause Drug Test. Unfortunately or fortunately she passed …. Or not really.

Vicky began to talk about learning to fly, and obtaining her pilots license. She said “I would love to fly a plane.” Vicky had been up in a bi-plane a few months previous with Lumpy’s buddy Chuck (that may be the first time those three words were ever written in that order). We were at the Bealeton Flying Circus for the launch of some hot air balloons and the timing was right. She loved that and wanted to go again.

I then found an article in the paper about an organization called Women Can Fly. This organization sponsors free flights in small planes for women to raise the awareness regarding women pilots. Only 6% of all pilots are women. Vicky registered and Friday night we drove south to Hampton Roads Virginia. We stayed in a beautiful Hilton on the banks of the Nansemond River in Suffolk Va. The airport was the Hampton Roads Executive Airport. The terminal was in a beautiful modern steel building constructed with enough glass to take in the sites on the runways. We were among the first few there and Vicky was registered for her flight. As the morning progressed dozens of women and girls arrived. There were many mothers and daughters. One woman was 71 and it was her birthday. Present also were members of the Armed Forces, the Civil Air Patrol, volunteer pilots and representatives for Women Can Fly. There were publications about how to go about getting a sport pilots license, they had a few raffles going and a drawing for some door prizes. At about 0930 the organizers took the first group into a room for a presentation and about a half hour later Vicky was climbing into Piper Archer and took off into the wild blue yonder. The terminal was filling up with more people and the pipeline of women and girls being briefed and getting on line to fly seemed to be flowing pretty well.

Vicky’s flight was short and uneventful. She was back on the ground in about 15 minutes. She did however love it, and we started to look around at some displays and vendors that were set up outside near the terminal exit. There were a few planes on display and they had a trailer from the Virginia Department of Aviation. I figured we were done here and maybe we would drive to Virginia Beach. I asked one of the organizers when they would be holding the drawings for the raffles and the door prizes. She had the container with the blue tickets in her hand and was making her way out onto the tarmac where the guys with the PA system were and she said “ Right Now ! “. She calls the number 7294329. It was Vicky’s ticket and it had won. The first drawing of the day!

The lady was very nice and we asked what did she win? The lady said come on in I will let you choose. Among the prizes was a free lunch from the onsite café, some IPod accessories, a helicopter ride for three people and other assorted stuff. There was a gift certificate from Chesapeake Aviation for an introductory flight lesson. That was the deal!
We went over to the hangar where Chesapeake Aviation was housed and met Bob and Dot the owners, and Tom a flight instructor. They were all very nice people. Bob said “Let Tom finish his Smack and he would take Vicky up.” I said was it wise to let Tom shoot up heroin and then go into a plane? “Snack” said Bob “Snack!” Oh snack!.... Ok that’s fine then.





Tom was a gentleman and quite thorough with his pre-trip and safety lesson for the plane. The plane was a Cessna. A C-152 to be exact. Vicky was back up in the air in about 20 minutes. The flight lasted about 40 minutes. Vicky took the stick and took off and landed twice. We purchased a flight log from Chesapeake and Bob logged her hours. She logged .6 hours and is now officially on the way to getting her pilots license. She was on cloud 9 (sorry I had to).
Tom explains the safety check


It’s all over Facebook and people cannot believe Vicky did it! I can however …. This is the same woman who brought home dozens of duck and chicken eggs in an incubator to hatch, raised Monarch butterflies in my dining room and cooled them off in an envelope in the refrigerator to slow them down so she could put one on Clare’s nose and take a picture. She stood in the swamp in Maryland to take part in “Bridging the Watershed” (Ask her and she will tell you about it). She brings her kids into DC to meet with park rangers and test the water in the reflection pool on the national mall. She had the “bat lady” come to her school to talk to the kids about the different flavors of guano. Vicky was recently the recipient of a Prince William County Award for excellence in Science. It all some pretty cool stuff!

Today we woke up at the Hilton and I said “Hey I don’t know if you remember or not … but yesterday you flew a plane in the sky!”

Vicky says “Yeah I did…. I told you I could fly…. I told you I could touch the sky!”

I should have went for the Drug Test !


Vicky and Tom


There is a whole other story about our trip revolving around food of course. That’s for another session.

I am back and have some great news to share… stay posted and keep following.

Respectfully yours in flight TFN



"The air is the only place free from prejudices."

— Bessie Coleman, the first African-American woman to become an airplane pilot, 1921.