IHOP & Irene

We decided we'd treat ourselves today as we were feeling a bit down over the lack of response in New York. So we found a restaurant which had been recommended to us called IHOP. It is a chain across America and is short for....International House Of Pancakes!!!! It is obviously a popular place as we arrived at about 10.30 and already there was a 10-15 minute wait to get a table!! With nothing better to do, we waited and eventually were seated and given our menus. Sooo much choice...not only are there a multitude of pancake combinations to choose from, they also come with most breakfasts and meals too. Along with this there are the usual burger type options which all looked really nice too. After much umming and ahhing and rumbling of tummys I decided on a sampler breakfast which consisted of sausages, bacon, eggs, ham and hash browns plus 2 pancakes...nom!! Andy had a Colorado omelette, this was the biggest I've ever seen and must have been made with about a dozen eggs along with pretty much my breakfast as its contents plus cheese on top and came with 3 pancakes!! With this we both had unlimited coffee, the whole lot only came to $26 and its the 1st time I've seen Andy unable to finish a meal...we saved half his omelette and had it for supper that night! I have to say, it was absolutely delicious, the pancakes are thick and soak up the maple or other syrup you pour on along with the ball of what looked like ice cream but turned out to be butter that was perched on top! We have to go again...by filling in a survey we get free pancakes!! :) Feeling very full we got back to the car and set off once more on what turned out to be a very frustrating day. The roads are appalling and every bump made us wince in anticipation of Bertha's ball joint disintegrating, along side this we were constantly stopping at MacDonalds to check our messages to see if we had a place to stay if only for the night. Hurricane Irene was making herself known as the weather got progressively worse and we got more desperate for a bed for the night. After god knows how many messages all we had turned up were scams trying to get us to send our deposit for a room to their sister in Indiana via Western Union, so we found a Walmart and settled down to brave Irene in the car. The remains of Andy's omelette, rum, coke and some chocolate kept us happy while we watched Dirty Dancing 2 on the laptop before trying to get to sleep with the rain thundering on the roof and the wind rocking us about all night.