45 Years and More to Come

Here we are once again celebrating our anniversary on the road and it’s kinda a special one – 45 years of bliss. We’re in Chanute, KS where there’s not a lot to see or do that we haven’t already seen and done. We take a walk around the campground, watch a kickball tournament and walk around the ponds and enjoy the good ole outdoors. We met some other  Canadians that also stopped in for the night. We received well wishes from friends and family throughout the day.

When it comes to dinner time, we asked the folks at NuWa and the Mexican place behind WalMart was first on his list! We have not such good memories of having Mexican during another anniversary celebration when in Hondo, Tx one year so that didn’t make our short list. I referred to the NuWa owners forum since many NuWa owners come back here for their service too and the restaurant at the Country Club was given a high recommendation. So, that’s where we’ll go and we haven’t been there so it will be new to us too.

I tried calling ahead for reservations – you probably all know by now my thoughts about any reservations – anyway I call ahead for reservations and dress code. What, dress code in Chanute! It’s about 4PM and the call goes to a recording stating that their hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 5-9PM so I’ll call back. At 5 after, I get the same recording so maybe they are busy setting up etc so I’ll call back in a few minutes. At 5:30PM, I get the same message; it’s not far away lets wing it and just go.

After a few turn arounds and oppsss, back up, we find the road and drive into the country club. The course looks decent and there are a few cars in the parking lot so confidence is brewing. There were a few people at the windows but it looked like a golf tournament. I go in to check things out and it was true, there is a tournament and no room for us. I wander down the front of the building and find the restaurant tucked back at the end. The paper sign on the door didn’t match the recording I heard so I’ll check it out anyway. A waitress/receptionist greeted me and informed me that the restaurant is only open Wednesday (I think she said Wednesdays as at this point my eyes glazed over and I didn’t really hear what she said about the hours) and Friday and only for buffet fried chicken! Wow! When I came to, I asked her recommendations for somewhere other than McDonalds. Apparently, Chanutons do not eat out in Chanute. She gave me a road house type, Italian (in the basement of the Merchantile) or the steak place in the Tioga Hotel but caution, it does not serve alcohol. I asked “are there only 3?” Well, we are also in need of a place to stay while the rig is in the shop so we’ll forgo the beer and wine and try the steak place in the hotel and we can check out the accommodations while we’re at it.

As we approach the downtown and the hotel, Barbie says we’re not staying here. The outside didn’t look to be in good shape so the Super 8 moves to the top of our list. We walk into the restaurant and find no table for 2 available and were guided to a table for 8! Soon our waiter was hovering around to take our orders but I can’t make up my mind. Finally I decide, it’s Saturday and they have prime rib special every Saturday so why not. The waiter says it is a 14oz piece so we decide to split it and Barb ordered an extra potato. The waiter returns to tell us that they are all out of the prime rib – at this point if there had been another choice of restaurants, we would have left. I ordered a steak – btw, out here they are called KC strips, not NY strips. The waiter returns with our salads and informs us that our brushetta will be out shortly; but we didn’t order brushetta and he said it is complimentary and comes with all meals. That’s funny, I didn’t see anyone else get this brushetta. So, what do we get? Yes, your correct, 1 piece of brushetta each! If your gonna apologize for running out of food, then make it worthwhile. Well the steak arrives and it’s ‘ok’; not to the standard of a ‘steak house’ should be but hell, when we left, we paid about the same as if we would have had we chosen to eat at Sonics!

We still had a happy anniversary because we were together.