The (Scenic) Road Less Traveled

As much as Mr. Rip and I like our routines, we are never afraid to change it up.  Sometimes we are veritable trendsetters, blazing our own trail fearlessly.  Ask anyone  who attended our wedding.

Sometimes it's more random.  We don't exactly think outside the box so much as fall out of the box accidentally.

For instance, when we went to New Jersey over the Fourth of July to celebrate my father-in-law's birthday, we took one day to go into New York City to see a show. This is typical.  We almost always do this.

However, when I asked Mr. Rip what show would be his first choice at the TKTS booth that day, he boldly replied that he might like to see The Nance  with Nathan Lane.

The Nance?  I was shocked.

Mr. Rip went on to explain that it sounded like a really interesting story, the show and Nathan Lane got good reviews and Tony Award nominations, he had never seen Nathan Lane live and the show was only running until August.

Of course I understood all that and totally agreed with him.  Everything he said about The Nance was true, but no matter what else you want to say about it, it is NOT a musical.  You see, we usually see musicals on Broadway.  No, that is not true either.  We ALWAYS see musicals on Broadway.  I was thinking that it might be fun to see that new version of Pippin.

It didn't take me long to wrap my head around the idea of The Nance.  I was game to see a play on Broadway.  No one can accuse me of not being adventurous.

Well, Mr. Rip made an excellent choice.  The Nance had a little of everything - humor, drama, pathos, an incredible and unique scenic design, a bravura performance by Nathan Lane, and even some music in the burlesque show-within-the-show.  There was no way that any other production of this show would quite match what we saw on Broadway.   There's a reason I trust Mr. Rip with my life.

Now, we always take the same route to and from New Jersey - that is to say, the Turnpike.  We go straight to the Turnpike by the most direct route.  However, we went a little farther north than we should have yesterday on our way home.  Luckily, we are not the kind of people who let a wrong turn or a missed exit ruin our day, especially now that we now four devices between us with GPS capabilities.

I grabbed my Tablet and asked Mr. Rip what destination I should enter into the GPS app.

"How about our home address?" he replied.  "Let's see how it would take us home." That seemed logical, so I did.  

I don't know if  you know this, but there are roads other than the Turnpike that lead from New Jersey into Pennsylvania. We ended up taking a lovely scenic route back to the Turnpike which we picked up in Harrisburg.  We traveled some new roads, and at one point weren't sure what state we were in.  

We sampled a new taste treat at  a Burger King  in a Travel Station in New Jersey.  It was a cookie where crushed up Oreo cookies took the place of the chips in chocolate chip cookie dough.  I thought they should have called it the Best-of-Both-Cookies.

We ate lunch in a little family-owned diner in rural Eastern Pennsylvania that hadn't updated its decor in the 63 years of its existence, but served us some of our favorite comfort foods (turkey and stuffing for Mr. Rip and a lightly toasted BLT on white for me) just the way we like them.

Eventually we got back on Turnpike, and took our more familiar route the rest of the way home.   So the new adventures continue, but always in the same excellent company.