Retirement, a funeral & Dr. Pepper

Busy day traveling I-81. My mother has decided to retire. My daughter Macey & I attended her retirement luncheon in Greenville, TN. We ate The general Morgan, a beautiful restaurant inside an old inn. I was honored to be a part if this special day with my mother. She is a blessing to so many people. It was a great celebration.

Afterward, I met up with Ann Dunkin & Sandy Miller to travel to Rural Retreat,Va. That turned out to be an adventure. We have a good friend who serves in the children's ministry with us and her father had passed away. We were traveling for the funeral. It was a great visit with Dawn Shinault, Tammy Coates and the entire family. There were not lots of tears. Her dad had been ill for a while and the family was truly celebration his life on earth and rejoicing that he was in heaven now.
After the funeral we were beginning to be hungry so we decided I be adventurous and eat in Rural Retreat. The place we found was called Joey's Country Kitchen. We walked in the door and the entire restaurant turned to see of the knew us. It was obvious we were not from there. The tiny restaurant was absolutely packed and it was desperately understaffed. We waited for people to finish eating and leave; then we claimed our table. We stood by the table for a moment thinking some one would clear the table for us and then we would sit down. No so. I cleared the table and asked a lady to wipe it for us. She took our drink orders and we waited. We waited for 30 mins or more for our food but we had great conversation. We, Sandy & I, rarely get to sit and chat with other people on staff with us. It was a great time o fellowship with Ms. Ann. We did not even know it had been 30 mins that we waited until "Joey's Sister" came out to apologize for our wait. We figure since the grilled cheese sandwich was only $1.75 it was ok.
On the way out of the restaurant we found out the Dr.Charles Pepper lived in Rural Retreat for many years and ran a pharmacy there. He developed the drink "Dr.Pepper" in that pharmacy. There is a town in Texas that claims that they are the home town of Dr. Pepper but actually, he moved there after he retired to be with his daughter and grandchildren. Lol. Just a bit of fun trivia for you today :) You just never know what new things you will discover until you are willing to step off the beaten path :)