The Deep South (Carolina)

Of course there was a Silver Strike Bowling game. I don't know if I told you about their obsession with Silver Strike, but it is an unholy addiction. Sure the game is fun and cool, but they have profiles in the game and saved data with averages and history. When you get that far, I think it's safe to assume you play it too much.

We got off to a slow start this morning for two reasons - it was Saturday and none of us are getting any younger. We're in no way old, but the older you get, the longer it takes to recover from a long fun filled night. I was in no way hungover this morning, but my body ached and I was pretty tired. Neither James or Melissa had to work today, which meant we had the whole day to goof around. So we sat around and addressed, stuffed and licked envelopes containing Save the Date magnets. It was a wild morning.

Lake Murray is within walking distance from their house. I have a picture of it on the next day (Sunday). Apparently it's a pretty big lake, because there is this dam that you can drive over, which is exactly what we did to go to the Dam Bar + Grill for some lunch and beverages. It was a pretty cool place, but our waitress was like 60 years old and she dressed like she was 20. It was like I was Jack Black in Shallow Hal and I could see her inner beauty (like Rosie's friend Tanya who is the old lady who owned Winfred Lauder on the Drew Carey Show). Apparently I watch too many movies because that is all I could think about that morning. I was having trouble choking down my beer after last night (ok, so maybe I was a little hung over) but I enjoyed hanging out with James and Melissa and eating my Best Dam Burger. It's good that they used that little play on words because it certainly wasn't the Best Damn Burger. But the Dam part was at least relevant to the area.

We didn't have any plans today so we hung out at the bar playing bar games. James and Melissa love bar games, so it was good that this place had a few that were willing to take their money. I'm sure that you've seen this game if you've ever been to an arcade or Chuck E. Cheese's. There are variations but the concept is the same - drop a coin on the ledge and something pushes it to the next ledge, which pushes more coins essentially ending with coins falling over the ledge. You get credits when that happens, and if you get enough you can print out a ticket and get money. Instead of getting money out of the machine, we put way too much in. We were trying to beat it, since it looks like the coins are always on the verge of falling over the edge, and you convince yourself it only takes 1 more coin to do it. That's how they get you.

I had a Dam good time at the Dam Bar & Grill. If that's not their slogan (or You'll have a Dam good time) emblazoned all over their menus and napkins, then it should be. And when they do adopt it, I should get monthly royalty paychecks for coming up with that incredibly obvious and horribly tacky tagline.