Michael and I left home around 9 am to meet Barry and Rae at their place. Barry decided he didn't want to bring the Beamer on the trip, because we all had too much luggage, and after much discussion (coming close to a coin toss) it was decided that Michael would drive. So we packed up the Rav4 and left by 10.

The trip out to Maryland was quiet, uneventful. We stopped for a late breakfast around noon at Bob Evans. I'd never been to a Bob Evans before, it's a pretty typical American chain restaurant, low prices, mediocre service and food, and a glass of water with floating things in it (which I gave back for a replacement that never came).

By 1pm we were on the road again. Feeling sufficiently full of food without fear of car sickness I pulled out Michael's laptop and Rae and I watched The Incredibles DVD that she brought. It was cool, used a splitter for headphones. The movie's credits began to roll just as we drove into the town of Frostburg, Maryland.

From Frostburg we took route 36 which was supposed to take us straight to The Castle, I remember it being pretty simple. Unfortunately there was a detour, the road was completely closed to ALL traffic. We turned around and took the detour, which was a horribly bumpy, windy, narrow road, clearly not used to the kind of traffic it was now getting because of the detour. It was quite an adventure.

At precisely 3pm we arrived at The Castle!

We're the only two couples here, which is really cool. Our rooms are amazing we got the Ramsey Room again, yay super comfy bed! So we spent the next hour just settling down and checking out the "Library," which had a roaring fireplace and big-screen television.

At 4pm we went downstairs for "tea time" where they had freshly baked banana nut bread, cheese and crackers, red wine, and tea laid out for us, yum. We sat around the table and talked. Judy, our hostess, came out and she told us some stories of The Castle and previous weddings and the new Murder Mystery nights they're doing. She also told us about "The Cottage" which is a three-bedroom house on the property that they rent out to people, and when we asked to see it she gave us the keys.

The Cottage doesn't compare much to the rest of the place. Since children are welcome there the furnishings and knick-knacks are less delicate and more basic. The building itself still needs some work. Judy told us that when they bought The Castle almost 3 years ago the cottage, although within the Castle's stone walls, was being sold separately. They bought it as well and it was a mess. An older woman had been living in it and "they couldn't believe she had been living there with the condition it was in." Clearly they've done a lot of work to it, but you can still see it's age in the patched walls and water stains on the ceilings. Still, it's a cozy little house.

We spent the evening relaxing in the Library, just watching some dvds and TV, talking. At 7:30 we all piled into the car to go to dinner at Au Petite Paris, which our host had told us so much about.

The atmosphere was really cute, and small. They took our coats at the door and gave us numbers (which seemed unnecessary, since there were so few people there, but nice anyway). There was light music, and a warm cozy feeling about the place. The service started out good, but we got a waitress who was in training, and the man training her was lurking behind her every move and directing her, we could tell that she was horribly nervous. She was nice though. The menu had many delicious looking things on it, and I suggested to Michael that we try the Escargo, which I'd never tried before. I decided against getting Frog Legs, one new french dish per night is enough for me. For the entree I ordered the lobster, which quickly turned around my good opinion of the place.

"How is this prepared? Out of the shell and sauteed in butter?"

"Yes, but I must warn you, it's quite expensive this time of year. Do you want me to tell you how much? I don't want you falling out of your chair when you get the bill."

Ouch! This was not the waitress in training, this was an older woman who had clearly been doing this for a long time. Now, this lobster was one of the few things on the menu with "Market Price" next to it rather than a price. Now, if I was deeply concerned about money, don't you think my first question would have been that rather than "How is this prepared?" I was pretty insulted, just because we're young doesn't mean we can't pay for a nice meal.

And it turns out that it was only $15 more than the average price of the other entrees. Sheesh.

The escargo was ok, most of it's taste came from the butter sauce it was in. How unimpressive! And the lobster was wading in butter, on top of butter soaked toast rounds. Did I mention it had butter? Yowza. Afterwords Michael and I were both feeling a bit warm, and we were all making heart attack and cholesterol jokes.

For dessert Rae just had a coffee and the rest of us got chocolate cake with white chocolate frosting. Now THAT was good!

As we were leaving they handed us our coats, which turned out to be kept next to the bar where they allowed smoking, ugh.

They tried hard, but in all the experience was disappointing.

We got back to The Castle a little before 10. Barry and Rae enjoyed the comfort of the Library while Michael and I decided to take a bath in one of the huge cast iron tubs. It was great! I want one %)

A little after 11 we decided to go to bed in the super comfy bed. It was very nice.

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