Bye Clemson...It Was Good to See You Again....
We headed down to Clemson in the rental we had, a Nissan Versa. It was cute and red and had been fine for around town but I gotta say....12 hours was a long time for the four of us in that car. We had hoped to switch it for something else before we left but Hertz was wiped out because of spring break. They told us we could exchange it at any Hertz so after the Workshop opening remarks, and breakfast, we dropped the boys off at the hotel and headed into Anderson. We switched it for a Toyota RAV4 which was much more comfortable. We meandered back to the hotel. It felt so familiar to be in Clemson. The landscape and the housing....they were imbedded much more deeply in our memories than I realized. I had figured we'd do a lot more while there, maybe go up to Stumphouse Tunnel, maybe the botanical gardens, etc., but Leo felt pretty horrible that day with a wretched cold. We'd thought maybe we'd go get ribs at Sardi's Den for dinner....maybe connect with Nancy or others for dinner....I could tell Leo was miserable so we decided to just hole up. When he crawled into bed at 7:30 and went to sleep I knew we'd made the right decision.
Anyway, so after picking up the new rental we wandered aimlessly, driving by downtown Pendleton, by Mac's Drive-In, by Judi's house. Then I told Ernie to head into Clemson and we'd drink a toast to Judi at Nick's. We walked in and old Tom Petty was playing and it felt just right for the day and our moods. We sat and drank a toast to Judi, got a little teary and sang along to Tom Petty. It was lovely.
Eventually we headed back and got the boys and went to visit Judi's (and our) beloved Gina. I wish I'd thought to get a picture of her. We adore her and her husband and it felt wonderful to be sitting in her house. We went back to the hotel. The boys settled in happily but Ernie and I were antsy. We walked around outside. They had put us up in a beautiful suite overlooking the lake at the University's Martin Inn and Conference Center. This was the view from our room when we got there:
We stopped in the bar and nibbled on some homemade potato chips with Clemson blue cheese. Then we headed back to the room and discovered the delights of ordering from the Mellow Mushroom. Owen looked at our pizze with disdain, saying "that is NOT pizza." We loved our Kosmic Karma pizza (red sauce base with feta and mozzarella cheeses, spinach, sun-dried tomatoes and Roma tomatoes with a pesto swirl). Owen went with a standard cheese and sausage, only to add nonchalantly at the last minute as Ernie was ordering over the phone, "oh, green olives and onion too." THUNK went my head as I fell over. He proclaimed it delightful. My sweet pea. The next morning we took off for Chattanooga.
Good bye Clemson. It was good to see you.