Trip home to visit Johnson City

We arrived at the chilly Binghamton airport last night at 12:15am. Exhausted and shivering, but excited to be in my hometown. Mom picked us up and we headed home. Dad and the cats (Bunny, Elmo, and Scroungie) were up and ready to catch up. The next thing we knew it was 2:30am and we headed to bed – those Hendrys really like to chit-chat!

We started today pretty lazily (as we were up well past our bedtimes). Mom and Dad had stocked the kitchen with summertime snacks so Frank and I enjoyed several bowls of fruit – Frank’s favorite! We did some more chit chatting and then headed out to get some shopping done and of course, Wegman’s was first. We spent a lengthy period of time pouring over all the delicious options and came out with 7 bags of groceries and souvenirs – don’t worry though because we bought plenty of spiedie sauce so dinner is at our house next week! We’re finally replenished! We visited Tom’s (our favorite jewelry and handmade stuff store) where we spent another length of time soaking in the sparkle but left empty handed so that we could sleep on it and make just the right choices. We were getting a little famished (home always does that to me) so we stopped at Nirchi’s for a few slices of the best pizza in the world. Dad wanted a spiedie from Pancho’s Pit (where the food is delicious but the kitchen is questionable as the name is accurate – it’s a pit). Three chicken spiedies purchased with cash – no credit cards, checks, or cell phones allowed, they’re not screwing around – and we were on our way. we arrived home to dine on our delicacies and were surprised by my sister Chrissy, and the kids (Kayla, Jessica, and Joshua) who’d stopped by to say hi. We ate and caught up while I went through boxes of treasures from years gone by. As I’m not much of a collector, most of the items were going to be discarded but luckily for me, the nieces and nephew fell in love with many items who fortunately found new homes. Ron (brother-in-law) popped by and we made dinner plans for the evening.

We headed off to Nick’s (Tony’s brother’s restaurant – no, we don’t know Tony, but his food is deliciously infamous but a little more fancy and expensive because of his local fame… oh, and his son isn’t such good people but that’s a story for another time). We arrived and were presented with the most delicious meal of all time – Nick and Tony’s pizza (which has been said to be the best in the world by my aunt Loris and her daughter Leslie), gnocchi (which I swear to God is the best gnocchi you’ll find anywhere) along with lasagna, chicken parmesan, and rigatoni. Though I was lucky to sit next to Jessica and Joshua (who agrees that my gnocchi is freakin’ amazing) I missed out on the people watching, which Frank says was something to behold. There was a person in an American flag blouse/oxford who we assume was continuing his or her Independence Day celebration and making it a month long extravaganza. There were also at least three families dining with their young fancy sons who we envision moving to Orlando in the next few years to work in characters after having a thoroughly uncomfortable conversation with mom and dad. We wish them the best of luck with all that!

We all left filled to the gills (and with plenty to talk about) but had to stop at Pat Mitchell’s (which my mother refers to as an institution) for a late night ice cream snack. We picked up cookies and cream, red-raspberry cheesecake, chocolate peanut butter and cherry vanilla to-go and headed home. Before getting into the car we had a good laugh about Pat Mitchell’s slogan posted both inside and outside the restaurant – “Lick The Legend” which we thought was fairly unappetizing for an eatery of sorts. At least the old man didn’t quote it (a la “Have a Magical Day”) at us because that would have been truly disgusting. Anyway, we closed out the night with some CSI-esque programming and plenty of snacks. I love coming home to visit!

Tomorrow is a holiday in downtown Binghamton – get ready for the excitement!