On the Road-Day One

Friday morning was an early morning, at least for me.  We were all up about 7 am in order to say good-bye.  Aunt D. and Beth were headed off to school, she teaches 1st grade. C (5th grade) & J (1st grade) were off to school and Uncle B. was off to work.  Ty chose to stay home and help with yard work.  It was quite difficult for me to say goodbye to them, and more than a few tears were shed.  Of course, they were mostly mine!

We, my mother-in-law & father-in-law and I, finished getting ready, packed the car and hit the road just about 9 am.  And if you want to know the truth, more tears were shed then, too!  We drove about two and one-half hours and then stopped to do some shopping at

 and a western store in Mitchell.  Then it was on to Sioux Falls for a late lunch.  

For those of you who know me, I am NOT a person who likes to try new things.  I am perfectly contend to be a boring, stuck in a rut, like my own thing kind of girl.  My in-laws have loving attempted to break me out of my rut.  They have taken us to a  couple of Japanese restaurants, and much to my surprise, I did actually enjoy them.  Well, they eat at Huhots, a Mongolian restaurant, whenever they have the chance.  I had been told ahead of time that is where we would be eating, and was even given permission to stop at good old McDonald's after if I wanted. So, with that kind of back-up plan, how could one go wrong?!

Huhots, is interesting.  I was willing to give it a shot, but I was still really unsure of the whole thing.  The waitress was quite helpful and explained how the whole thing worked.  You grabbed a bowl, decided what kind of meat you wanted (pork, chicken, beef, crab or fish) and placed it in the bowl.  Then you could choose from 3 different types of noodles, and you placed that on top of the meat.  Right about now, I was not liking this too much.  I like all my food separate, not all mixed together.  But alas, I followed on.  The next thing added to the bowl were veggies.  Any and all kinds you can think of.  Once you have selected all your choices, there is a whole different area just of sauces.  I am REALLY NOT a sauce girl.  I do not even have sauce on my pizza!  Anyway, I did cave to the pressure (just kidding, mom) and I did put about  1/2 a scoop of garlic and 1/2 a scoop of sesame oil.  I know, I go all out.  :-)

Once you have completed your "meal", you take it to the center of the restaurant and give it to the cook, where they place it on a giant cook stone (at least that is what it looked like to me) and cooked it for you.  Thankfully, we were the only ones there at the time, and we could keep an eye on our own meals.  

My first trip consisted of  a few pieces of pork, some spaghetti, shredded carrots, green beans and 2 slices of potato.  Plus the scoops of sauce. My bowl (think normal cereal bowl size) wasn't even half full.  Much to my surprise, it was really good.  Not to flavorful, but that was ok, just add some salt :-)  Yes, I did go back for seconds but this time I added some chicken and some beef, took out the carrots and potatoes and added pineapple.  And this time, I added a whole scoop of garlic and 1 1/2 scoops of sesame oil.  My in-laws were so proud of me, well I am saying they were, they really didn't say, plus, they didn't have to stop at McDonald's!

That was the bulk of our stopping for the day.  We drove all the way to Des Moine and stayed the night.  We were all quite tired, physically and emotionally.