I hadn’t planned on going back in time when I woke up on Saturday morning but that’s precisely what I did.

No, I didn’t finally invent a time machine, though my draft schematics should produce a working prototype if someone could only send me $325 million for all the parts.

Instead, I had a visit from my brother-in-law, Mark and his two children, Alexander, age 6 and Ana, age 4.  The plan was to have breakfast/lunch then head to the airplane museum in Langley.  Yes, we have an airplane museum in Langley.   Mark, as a pilot, never lost his love of planes and for me, hanging with him and the kiddlings is always fun.

So off we went into the sometimes sunny, sometimes rainy weather.  To make it a bit more interesting, we decided to eat at a classic diner in Langley City.  Dot’s café.  Located on the revitalized mainstreet with diagonal parking , it’s a timeless place surrounded by a host of nifty little niche market stores. It’s not a place you go for linen table cloths, ornate silverware and delicate entrees served on shiny black plates.

No, it’s an old-fashioned family run restaurant with great tasting and inexpensive food.   It’s the type of place looks like nothing special from the outside but which always seems to be full.   The type of place that’s a secret to everyone but the locals.  The type of place I remember from when I was a kid, way back in time, back before we had cellphones, a 24hr news cycle and microwave pizza.

I had the artery-hardening eggs benedict with a buttery, creamy hollandaise sauce and perfectly crispy-but-not-too crispy hashbrowns and oh-so-bad-for me, coffee.   But it was all so very good even if it was also so very far from my diet.  Mark had the same as me and the kids ordered from the kid’s menu.  The highlight for Ana was being able to load up her toast with lots and lots of jam.  The highlight for Alexander was eating his own plate of food, half my hashbrowns,  one of Marks’ Eggs Benny and most of Ana’s fried egg.  My plan is to be super nice to him because when he’s 6’8” and 250lbs of muscle, I want to be on his good side.

The napkins we pulled from a metallic dispenser on the table.  The sugar I put in my coffee was poured from a glass sugar dispenser with a metal top.   Beside us, behind us, regular people hunched over their plates or talking with each other or reading a paper.

Everyone simply enjoying being there.

It was perfect.

So, for $36 dollars, I not only had a great meal but a fantastic experience.

What I didn’t know was that this was just the beginning of our adventures back in time.