Yesterday Maribel and I and some friends ate lunch at the Local Goat restaurant in the city of Ooltewah, TN. It is a fairly new restaurant in a rapid growth area. The exterior appearance is tastefully modern as is the interior. The food and drink menus had a good selection. The ambience was so-so, the service and food quality was good. What was most pleasing, most enjoyable was the lengthy discussion with our friends. That is almost always the case. It doesn't matter where we are, it is being with our friends and the conversation that leaves us with that good feeling and memories afterward.
This morning Maribel and I were critiquing the Local Goat restaurant and concluded, as we usually do, that it was okay but no wow. That led to us to trying to recall the last time we were wowed by a restaurant. Neither of us had an answer. We decided that if you've seen one restaurant, you've seen them all. What got interesting is that we began applying that same 'seen one seen them all' concept beyond restaurants. Yesterday afternoon we went to a Labor Day fair. Same thing...if you've seen one town fair you've seen them all. And our list kept growing to include: antebellum mansions, Civil War battlefields, antique shops, mountains, rivers, clothing shops, grocery stores, gift shops, and as much as we enjoy visiting and walking the main street of small towns, there isn't much difference between them. We know pretty much what we're going to see before we get there.
We then asked each other, when was the last time you experienced a wow feeling from any source? Maribel had to go all the way back to December, 2013 when she achieved her goal of many years...seeing Machu Picchu, with her son Brian and me. There is no doubt that Machu Picchu is a magical place. Even though we had crappy weather on the day of our visit, taking photos with the iconic background was a thrill for all of us.
My last wow moment occurred in Nashville in September, 2018. Some friends were showing us the sights. At one stop after getting out of the car, there in front of me was a full scale replica of the Greek Parthenon. Given my life-long penchant for history, that by itself was enough to get me excited.
What I saw when I stepped inside was a powerful WOW! experience. There stood a 42' statue of Athena, gilded in shining gold. The statue in her hand is 6' tall. I walked around and around that statue, snapping I don't know how many photos. I was spellbound. The size, the detail and sheer beauty were awesome. Had I been by myself I probably would have spent the rest of the day gawking at my surroundings.
Seeing Athena happened 6 years ago yesterday. Machu Picchu was 13 years ago. That's a long time since our last wows. I do hope that they won't be the last ones. Maribel has been suggesting for some time that we visit Europe. It could be that in Italy, France or Germany there are several WOWs! waiting for us. I hope so.
