Ottawa bound

June 13, later - Ottawa bound 

I hung out at the local mall today, to kill time. There were many stores we don't have in Canada and they had some novel kiosks selling what I normally would've thought to be pretty cool stuff. 

Roanoke Valley View Mall

What surprised me was my total lack of interest in any of it. A remote controlled helicopter would've been pretty cool two months ago.

I walked both floors of the mall and wondered how anyone could be interested in the stuff they were selling. A place called Lids only sold ball caps. There were at least three others places selling "lids" along with the accompanying tee or sweat shirts and jackets. And except for Lids, they were all selling running type shoes. It seems neon orange, green and yellow are the in-thing for shoes now. There were no customers in the stores. Hopefully, it was just because it was too early in the day.

The coolest kiosk, though was selling throwing knives, mini cross bows, stun guns and Klingon battle swords. And the prices were reasonable. :)

Mall sculpture setting a poor example.

The two gals at the airport who were such a help getting me rebooked suggested I do lunch at Shakers. It was about a 15 minute walk from my hotel. And I'm so glad I did. 

I had a couple of  Fat Tire draught beers and ordered their bacon cheese burger (my default selection when everything looks good). It was one of the best burgers I've ever had (probably thanks to the double bacon I asked for!). But then I had two thoughts - when was breakfast at the hotel and when did the shuttle run?  I have to be at the airport for 5:45am. 

I called and was told breakfast was at 6am and if a shuttle driver was not available, they'd pay for a taxi to take me to the airport. 

So I ordered a second bacon cheese burger with fries for breakfast. I have a fridge in the room. I had also told the waiter that the first one had been a really great burger and I needed a second one to go.  Well the chef himself came out and had a chat with me.

He had plastic cutlery so we switched steamed apples for the fries and he packed the wet ingredients separate from the dry so I ended up with a deconstructed burger I could put together after nuking parts with my microwave oven. The apples were the icing on the cake. And I have coffee in the room. I love how American businesses bend over backwards to make the customer happy!