So after a good night’s sleep in a seedy motel, we stopped at Bob Evan’s for breakfast, since the continental breakfast at the motel was anything but. What does that mean, anyway, continental breakfast? I’ll have to look that up later. I’m actually writing this in the car and will upload it later; otherwise I’d google it now. I’ll get back to you on that. I also had an idea to list every river we crossed, but that might be a notion that has already lost its appeal.
So the mystery of the moment is how a restaurant can suck the joy out of a simple breakfast. A little fleck of crisp, a sneak of rich, a glimmer of spice, a wisp of tang.. but no, weak lukewarm coffee, an egg scrambled in the factory weeks ago, home fries - again, what does home have to do with these what-used-to-be potatoes? Couldn’t some of them be crispy, a little disheveled where they stuck to the pan, some bits of flavorful yum to indicate that this food was cooked by a human being? And how hard is it to make a good cup of coffee? It's breakfast, for crying out loud - have some pity. Anyway, remind me not to go there again.
Steak and Shake works for me, incidentally – I’ll stop there once (but only once) every roadtrip. We stopped there yesterday in Indianapolis. I enjoyed the crisp onion slices on my single burger with cheese (albeit cheese of an unidentifiable nature). The fries are crispy, and I like places that use those squirty red bottles of ketchup that they refill, thank you. I hate the small plastic bottles of, say, Heinz that you know they are going to toss when empty. How hard is it to refill the squirt bottles, and think of the plastic you keep out of a landfill. I’m just sayin. Their ice tea was cloudy and bitter, though, but several lemon squeezes made it drinkable.
Did you know you can cross the state of West Virginia in about 20 minutes, across its panhandle that is squeezed up between Ohio and Pennsylvania? The second half of Ohio starts getting quite pretty, as it gets hillier as you go along (I disparaged Ohio in the last post, along with IN and IL. Blame the corn lobbyists. My apologies to the eastern half of Ohio). Some of it is downright picturesque, rolling hills becoming mountains, and increasingly more lush as you head east. There’s the strange billboard phenomenon, though. I personally vote for outlawing them altogether, but nobody asked me. Along most highways it seems that there is a frontage area along the highway where the billboards are – all equidistant from the highway, like somebody sat down and made up some rules about it. In the hills of Ohio, though, all bets are off – it seems that the private landowner succumbs to the temptation of some easy money, and puts a billboard up on their otherwise stunningly pristine homestead. Breathtakingly beautiful rolling hills, lush woodlands, fog in the low valleys, crisply painted barns and outbuildings, and smack dap in the middle of it, a board for an XXX Adult Toys store. Or McDonalds. Or adding insult to literal injury, the coal industry.
Then into Pennsylvania and the Allegheny Mountains. Tunnels going right through ‘em. I love tunnels, no idea why, I think it's a childhood going from NJ to NY memory. Exciting if fleeting drama. The Turnpike was odd though. Posted speed limit of 45 much of the time, orange cones blocking off the shoulder, and absolutely no construction workers in sight. After a while you get cocky and, like everyone else who has been passing you up till now, you damn the torpedos and barrel through at 87 mph.
Then, maneuvering highways white-knuckled through Philly. There’s Billy Penn on top of City Hall - there was a law for decades that you couldn’t build anything taller than Billy, but commerce won out and the poor little fellow is dwarfed by the skyscrapers around him, but there he is, holding his own nonetheless. Over the Betsy Ross into south Jersey, gingerly following the google directions to my mama’s house. Hugs, welcomes, fresh linguini with fresh clam sauce at Red Lion. Rob and Laura finally say good night across the gap between the twin beds.
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