One kind of Arizona landscape

Barstow, California is a wind-blown, sun-faded little town that seems to me to be a stopping over place for those who trek back and forth to Vegas. I found it difficult to distinguish between the winners and their counterparts and wondered if perhaps the winners chose a different route home. Upon further reflection I decided that the only real winners never left Vegas at all but instead stayed to operate the cash cow concessions that drew the losers.

I grow weary of the road.

We left Barstow around 10:00 AM this morning and headed east on I-40. We must have been very near the beginning of that famous American highway because we very shortly came across exit #2. The music of choice on this warm sunny day was Here Come the Noise Makers by Bruce Hornsby and the Range. And excellent live album that helped to cheer us on our way. Later in the morning we listened to several hours of “the Van Man”. My wife and I loves us some Van Morrison.

About 140 miles down the road we came to Needles, CA and soon after that entered Arizona.

At the motel we stayed in last evening there was a large group of bikers staying over. Bikers are pretty cool these days. Most of them have aged quite a bit since I was a young man and they never really bothered us, or as near as I could tell, anyone. Just large men and women in lots of leather attire riding on very large and loud motorcycles. There were quite a few on the road that we passed as we traveled and quite a few who passed us.

When you live in a number of different states during your life and/or travel through several of them you come to realize that this country is indeed a United States of America not just a country composed of the same sort of people with the same sort of ideas about what is right and what is wrong. At least that is true in terms of the various state laws governing almost everything. I seem to recall that in South Carolina you don’t have to wear a helmet while riding your motorcycle but you cannot buy beer on Sunday.

When we entered Arizona the biker’s helmets came off and the speed limit went up to 75 MPH. I could not help but think that this was a somewhat unusual combination of ideas, but what the heck. To each state its own.

The Cracker Barrel Resteraunt in Kingman, AZ

Lunch was had at The Cracker Barrel restaurant. We loves us some Cracker Barrel as well.  Check out my life mate’s comments on the service at this fine dining establishment. http://www.managemypractice.com/road-trip/

My wife had some sort of broccoli chicken skillet dish and I had the meat loaf dinner with southern green beans (meaning cooked to death), turnip greens and pintos. The food was great, as always. The only down side of the meal was the caramel apple pie with ice cream we split for dessert. I think they take their regular sugar free apple pie and just drizzle caramel on it. Sugar free pie is fine for those who want to avoid sugar or just don’t really care how pie tastes. It did not really cut it for Bob.

Back on the road we were amazed at how the vegetation changed every 50 miles or so. We saw scrub bushes in a desert environment that changed to red dirt with huge piles of boulders that made us feel as though we were traveling through a land of giants. The elevation rose as we approached Flagstaff with larger pine trees dominating the landscape and then dropped off again as we moved past it and in to Winslow, AZ.

Remember the Eagles song, Take It Easy?

“standing on the corner of Winslow, Arizona I got seven women on my mind.”

Of all the songs I have on my iPod for us to listen to on this trip, would you believe it?

Not one song by the Eagles.

The best music we heard today was after lunch when we played some songs by Big Sandy and his Fly-rite Boys. A great bit of Texas swing with some outrageous pedal steel guitar. Good Stuff.

A plant in the desert of Arizona

Good night y’all.

No, my head is not on fire!

I started this blog last summer as a place to practice writing. I chose food as a starting point because I love to cook and eat. Since then I have drifted afar and really had a good time but I usually wind up coming back to where I began.

I guess this is the third day of the road trip my wife and I are taking. To tell you the truth I am pretty worn out this evening as I sit here in our hotel room in Barstow, California. We have traveled somewhere around 1200 miles in about two and a half days and while we are not setting any distance records, we feel as though we are making progress. At the same time we are trying to have a little bit of fun and enjoy each other’s company. I must admit that I have been kind of grouchy this evening and so far, my wife is putting up with it pretty well.

We started the day just a few miles north of Sacramento and went about 300 miles before stopping for lunch in Bakersfield.

Most of food we have eaten on this trip has been not particularly noteworthy.

We brought breakfast food to eat in the mornings as we prepare for the road. I am eating my standard peanut butter sandwich, banana and soy milk. I find that by beginning almost every day in this manner I feel much better overall. I did eat that large breakfast yesterday, but that was for lunch. Mary Pat usually has a bowl of the good Uncle Sam cereal that I wrote about some months back. Both of these breakfasts are proceeded by our morning coffee which I make one cup at a time from the beans I brought along with us. She has decaf with soy milk and I have regular black.

The first night in the motel we ordered a pizza for dinner and that was pretty good. Last night we ordered some club sandwiches and they were quite tasty as well. Tonight we drove out to a local restaurant called Carrows. I think that it is probably a chain and I was completely unimpressed. I got a rib eye steak that tasted like the ones you get in those “all you can eat” places like Golden Corral. I think you know what I mean. They were chewy and tough and pretty bland. Yum. MP got an Oriental Chicken Salad and I’ll let her talk about it if she feels so inclined.

For lunch today we stopped and ate at a place I have heard about a lot and it felt as though we were making a pilgrimage to a shrine of sorts. Today we dined at an IN-N-OUT Burger.

When I was younger I could tell you my favorite book or my favorite song or movie. Now that I am older it feels kind of stupid to think in those terms. Now I tend to think of the things I really enjoy as just that. They are books, movies or songs that I really like. Which one is the best one? I don’t know. I guess it depends on my mood.

One movie that I really love is The Big Lebowski. In fact, our whole family loves it and there are a great many quotes from that movie that we use in casual family conversations all of the time. It has become almost a secret family language for us.

In the movie they mention the IN-N-OUT Burger and that is where we first heard of it. Since they are only located on the west coast and not in Oregon or Washington, where we lived the last few years, we have never had the opportunity to eat there. I know what you are thinking?

Gee Bob, that sounds really boring and/or stupid. Well perhaps, but know this, we are entertaining ourselves and that is all that is really required to get through life happily.

I have to tell you, however, that they were rather boring and not much of a big deal. Surprise, surprise.

I had not realized that they were just basically a very simple fast food place. There are only four things, outside of the drinks and shakes, on the menu. Hamburger, Cheeseburger, Double Cheeseburger and Fries.  That’s it. The menu is very simple and inexpensive. The burgers were alright, but just not special and the fries were sponge-like and dull. Oh well.

If I was to compare them with some equivalent burgers in Seattle I would have to say that they fall somewhere above Dick’s Burgers (very greasy but cheap) and way below Red Mill Burgers, which I think are among the best burgers I have ever had. Notice that I did not call Red Mill the best. I like to think I am more mature than that.

But the good news is that my pilgrimage is complete and I have the pictures to prove it.

Go watch The Big Lebowski if you have not seen it. It is one of the very best by those crazy Coen Brothers and if you are in Seattle, go get a Red Mill Burger.

One small warning; if you are troubled by strong language, you should probably pass on the Lebowski movie. I am not offended by so called “bad” words but I know that some folks are.

FAIR WARNING

P.S For those of you who are wondering what we listened to in the car today it went as follows. We started out the morning with one of the great albums by Randy Newman. Bad Love. If you have not heard it, go pay ten bucks on iTunes and get it. During the late morning and early afternoon we were entertained by the greatest rock and roll band in the world for about three hours. I am referring to the Rolling Stones. As if you didn’t know. And as we pulled out of Bakersfield we fired up the legendary Buck Owens. Pretty good day.

Once again I feel compelled, in the interest of full disclosure to point you in the direction of my dear wife’s account of our journey. She tends to speak truly, most of the time, so it could be of interest to anyone who cares about what we are really up to. http://www.managemypractice.com/road-trip/

The IN-N-OUT Burger

Thanks for reading.

Mount Shasta

We are sitting in Woodland, CA which is just about 20 miles north of Sacramento. The hotel rooms were cheaper so we stopped here.

So far the music on the trip has been pretty good, but then, I was the one who picked most of it. We left Cottage Grove at 9:30 this morning and rocked on down the road with a couple of old Creedence Clearwater Revival albums blasting. What a great way to start a beautiful day on Interstate 5. The sky was clear and blue as we rolled into the mountains of southern Oregon.  After a couple of hundred miles we stopped in the town of Weed, California for lunch.

Weed was really cool.

Welcome to Weed, CA

Apparently there was a little bit of a controversy a few years back in Weed. Someone wanted to change the name to Shastina or some such thing. A number of the residents got quite stirred up about it and nipped that whole plan in the bud, so to speak.

My theory is that it was the folks who had invested all of their money in the ball caps, t-shirts and coffee mugs that said “I got high in Weed” who put an end to that crazy idea. But maybe that’s not the whole truth.

Mary Pat in front of the Hi-Lo Cafe

There are a little over 3000 residents of Weed and the town was formed in 1901 and named after its founder, Abner Weed. After filling up the gas tank we had lunch at the Hi-Lo Café beautifully situated in the shadow of Mt. Shasta. The portions were huge. MP got some eggs and French toast and I got the Hungry Man breakfast of eggs, hash browns, ham, biscuits and gravy. Check out the picture and you’ll see what I mean.

A huge breakfast

I showed more discretion than usual and only ate half of the meal but that did not stop me from ordering the peanut butter pie and coffee. Everything was delicious even though I was unable to eat all of the dessert either.

We got back on the road about 2:00 and rolled into California while listening to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young. Soon we began descending out of the mountains. As we rolled into the upper portion of the San Joaquin Valley MP turned the iPod to a greatest hits collection of the Turtles.

The San Joaquin Valley is the bread basket of America. It is here that they grow a tremendous amount of the fruits and vegetables we eat in this country. We saw olive and orange trees and many more bushes and plants that we had no idea what grew on them. It was a perfect day for traveling and after 450 miles we stopped for the night.

Thanks for all the comments and emails from our friends and family. We will miss all the friends we made in Washington and of course the folks in Oregon as well. A special farewell to the Kerner family who will always be close to us and I want to give a shout out to that old goat of a friend of mine who turned me on to the Oregon Country Fair, the indubitable, Randolph. I love you man.

Once again, I would point you towards my wife’s version of this day. She has been known to tell the truth. Check out, http://www.managemypractice.com/road-trip/.