Roadtrippin’

Tales From Out on the Road

I have driven across this great land of ours many times. I feel as if I have seen quite a lot of America, but when I look at a map, I realize I’ve only scratched the surface. There is so much more out there than I’ll ever get to see. Especially since my love of being out on the road has waned as I have aged.

My wife is a roadtrippin’ girl if there ever was one. It seemed natural for our wedding and honeymoon to be a big roadtrip. We decided to get married in Las Vegas, so we drove there and met a few family members and friends. We had the wedding in a tiny chapel on the Strip where my wife’s parents had married many years before us. We spent a few days in Las Vegas, then lit out on the open road.

For the record, we paid more than $29 for our wedding. We went with one of the fancier wedding deals, but we declined an appearance by an Elvis impersonator. Unfortunately.

It was wonderful being newly married and out on the road by ourselves. Heck, I thought I would never even get married. But, I did, and I had the wife and the marriage license to prove it.

We visited family in Missouri and Pennsylvania, and eventually found ourselves in Cincinnati, so we caught a baseball game there between the Reds and the Astros. I mentioned to my wife that since we were going through Louisville the next day, maybe we could stop at the Louisville Slugger factory to see baseball bats being made. She was all for it.

Guess what they make in this building?

In all, we covered 5840 miles in 19 days, visiting 17 states, and we did what we wanted to do, which may not have been traditional, classic honeymoon stuff, but we had fun together, and we had fun being together. And that’s all that mattered.

My wife taught me so much about how to enjoy being on the road. Before we met, my approach to roadtrips was to not deviate my carefully plotted, super-efficient route. I always figured that any time spent dawdling around at some roadside tourist trap, was less time I could spend at my destination.

She helped me realize that making time for some of the sights along the way, made the driving less monotonous and boring. And, getting out of the car to stretch a little more often, made the trip easier physically, as well. With her insight and encouragement, I was able to do something that was previously thought to be impossible - I changed my mind. I embraced seeing the sights as we traveled the highways of America. For that, I say, “Thanks, Dear.”

I had my brand new Monte Carlo less than two months before we took it on a cross-country roadtrip.

Food is a big issue when roadtrippin’, obviously. Where to eat and when, are important decisions that are made each day. My wife and I made a pact that, while on our roadtrips, we would not eat at any place we could visit at home. Meaning, no McDonalds, no Olive Garden, none of the national chain restaurants. Which forced us to look for local diners, burger joints, hot dog shacks, and the like.

We found a wonderful book that was extremely helpful on our travels around America. The title is Eat Your Way Across the USA, by Jane and Michael Stern. I do not know if they dined at every establishment listed in it, but they published reviews of hundreds of interesting, sometimes out of the way places that we would never have known anything about, if not for their helpful, informative book.

Our warped, well-used companion on many a roadtrip.

Thanks to Eat Your Way, we found a great barbecue place in Memphis, Tennessee, called Jim Neely’s Interstate Bar-B-Que. It was excellent. I had a huge barbecued pork sandwich with a big pile of fries, and my wife had a specialty of the house called Bar-B-Que Spaghetti. We had a fine lunch and were pretty darn full afterwards.

According to the book, we were only about two hours away from another cool sounding place, in southeastern Missouri - Lambert’s Cafe in Sikeston. We had seen the billboards that advertised Lambert’s as “The Home of Throwed Rolls”. So, even though we had just stuffed ourselves full of barbecue in Memphis, we headed for Sikeston to check it out.

I’m glad we went to Lambert’s Cafe, even though it was a mistake to do so, which sounds contradictory, I guess. Perhaps I should explain. When we left Interstate Bar-B-Que, we were full. I mean, we were stuffed like a couple of Thanksgiving turkeys. I am a compulsive plate-cleaner, so, if there is food on my plate, it is going down the hatch no matter what, and, as I mentioned, my barbecued pork sandwich was huge, not to mention all those darn fries. And my wife, who usually eats like a small, cute songbird, was full of barbecue spaghetti. So, why go to another restaurant to eat again in two hours? Well, we found this “throwed rolls” thing kind of intriguing and we thought it could be a fun adventure.

A couple of hours later, we pulled into the parking lot of Lambert’s Cafe. Neither one of us was hungry, but we were there, and we didn’t know if we would have this opportunity in the future, so we went in.

They really do throw the rolls to you.

As I recall, we ordered one meatloaf dinner with the idea that we would share it 50-50. While we were waiting for the food, someone entered the dining area with a big metal pan full of hot rolls, shouting, “Hot rolls! Hot rolls!” Someone would catch his eye and he would throw them a roll. Throwed rolls! The billboards were true. Naturally we had a few tossed our way, and, if you’ll pardon my bragging, I am proud to say I caught them all.

The meatloaf arrived, and it was very good, but I don’t believe my wife held up her end of the bargain. I ended up eating way more than half. And, between the meatloaf and the rolls and mashed potatoes and the barbecued pork sandwich and the french fries, I was in a gastrological danger zone. I was afraid I would blow up, or all that food was going to come back up, and it was going to be one hell of a giant mess either way.

I could barely move. As I waddled uncomfortably back to the car, I told my wife I was in no condition to drive, so I eased into the passenger seat, undid the button on my pants, put the back of the seat down, and laid there like a beached whale, groaning, wondering why I did this to myself. I imagined a headline in the local newspaper: “Out-of-Towner Eats Himself to Death at the Throwed Rolls Place”. My wife was sympathetic to my extreme discomfort, but, I vaguely remember a bemused look on her face. Plus, she seems to enjoy telling people of the time I dang near blew myself up.

Fortunately, my wife made sure to record my bout of gastrological distress for posterity. Note the undone button on my pants.

Speaking of eating large quantities of food . . . a restaurant we’ve been to several times is The Big Texan in Amarillo, Texas. This is another one of those places that has billboards for hundreds of miles in every direction. The Big Texan’s attention grabbing gimmick is that if a customer can consume a complete 72 oz steak dinner in an hour or less, the meal is free.

I never accepted The Big Texan’s eating challenge. I wasn’t sure I could eat almost 5 pounds of meat, plus the potato and salad and shrimp cocktail and roll. But, I knew for darn sure I couldn’t do it in an hour, given that I am one of the slowest eaters on the planet.

But, as luck would have it, we were there one night when two rather cocky young fellas accepted the challenge. They were seated at a special table on a small riser that had a large digital clock on it. And, of course, a big announcement was made so that everyone in the restaurant knew the challenge had been accepted.

Those enormous 72 oz pieces of meat looked pretty intimidating to me, but those guys attacked their meals enthusiastically, playing to the crowd cheering them on. After a while, though, they started to slow down. They were smiling less as the enormity of the situation began to take root. It became clear they weren’t going to make it.

When the hour was up, neither of the guys had come close to finishing. Looking back, it seems strange that we were entertained by watching two guys eat a steak dinner, but, we were. It just goes to show that, when out on the road, one never knows when something fun will happen.

Billboards such as this can be seen hundreds of miles from Amarillo.

Ah, those were the days. My wife and I went on many long roadtrips back then, and now I don’t even want to go across town. The thought of being away from home for more than a day or two, is distressing to me. What changed? Well, besides the passage of time, I don’t know. I just do not want to do long roadtrips anymore.

However, I remember those days fondly. We had some of our best times seeing different parts of America. I wouldn’t trade those experiences for anything.

I drove this Thunderbird for almost 15 years. It was an excellent road car.

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