What Friends Are For

Another crazy summer week is passing through our house. As far as Recovery From Vacation, Day 2, all bags are now unpacked and all the stuff in said bags are put away. The bags do need a good shake; to clean out all the sand, dirt, and dead bugs, so they sit in a pile by the door. The car STILL needs vacummed. Hmmm, this all sounds very familiar. Last year we arrived home from vacation and I meant to vacume the car, really I did, but it never happened.

Anyway, below is a post I wrote on a previous blog, and wanted to share it here. A friend, I, and our kids took an excursion down to Staunton one winter morning and wanted to share the trip with you.

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Staunton, pronounced “stanton”, is a cute little town that you want to spend the day to explore. The last time I was in downtown Staunton was 10+ years ago, when Pufferbellies used to be a fabric store. My most recent visits were to the outskirts of Staunton, a quick trip to Martin’s or the car dealership. On Thursday I was able to reintroduce myself to this charming little town. The car needed to go back to the garage, for hopefully the final fix, and so this seemed to be an excellent opportunity to explore downtown Staunton with the kids and a good friend.

After dropping off my car and loading up in hers we were off on our adventure, and believe me the two of us trying to find our way around town with only part of a map was an adventure in of itself. After taking the long way around we made it downtown and headed to the nearest coffee shop, Blue Mountain Coffees. There we enjoyed coffee, chai tea something and muffins. They have an aquarium with some very large fish that the kids loved to watch, and my apologies to the gentlemen trying to talk while we were there. They unfortunately sat next to the aquarium so our kids were standing (and climbing) right behind them. After our mid-morning snack we headed off to the house wares store located next to the coffee shop. This store requires a visit without kids so you can look at all the unique kitchen tools, accessories and toys they sell. Next stop, Pufferbellies. I do believe we spent a good hour in this toy store. The staff was helpful and friendly. The layout is open enough for strollers and they have lots of toys on display, display meaning to demonstrate, and our kids certainly tried them all. After awhile we made our purchases, sorry ladies that the purchases did not equal the amount of time we spent there, but we loved the store and will return.

Time was ticking and I had hoped my car to be fixed by this time but we had not heard from the garage so we decided to take a ride on the trolley. Staunton’s trolley system is free, takes you all over town and passes every stop once every half-hour. So we waited at the nearest trolley stop, since we hadn’t seen the last trolley go by we had no idea when the next one is due. Come to think of it we hadn’t seen a trolley at all since arriving and began to wonder if it was even running.

When we thought a good half hour had passed we headed to the car figuring we were out of luck that day. As we were opening up the van along came the trolley, quickly we shut the doors and ran after the trolley, after boarding my friend said “I hope I locked the car, I’m pretty sure I closed all the doors.” The trolley ride did take half an hour and we were able to see more of downtown Staunton and the immediate residential area. The kids had a blast riding along and my friend and I talked about finding more free activities for us to do, with kids, within a half hour radius from our homes. But that will be for another blog entry, probably this summer. Off the trolley, back into the car and we headed to the garage; after departing the trolley the garage called to say the car was ready.

Now this Thursday morning was what good friends are for, not only to chauffeur you around when your car is in the garage, but willingly explore a town (with young kids in tow), and trust you to find your way around even with half a map (my husband does not do that, and rightfully so.) We all will return to Staunton some day soon, my friend and I on a girl’s day out and again with the kids so the older ones can enjoy a trolley ride. To top off an excellent morning when I returned to the garage I was told that the very expensive part they replaced was still under warranty, yippee! And if you are interested in seeing pictures of our excellent day out visit my photo album