So Long U-Turns

February 11-14

Our penultimate stop was in Winchester, Virginia, near the north end of the Blue Ridge. We were literally in the jurisdiction of Stephens City, Va., but the hotel was called Holiday Inn Express Winchester South.

We were there for two nights. The stay for a second day gave me time to put together the last report and also to get a little rest.

We couldn’t find anything in the neighborhood that looked too original, so we went for another steakhouse. Outback, I think. But we never got there.

We were staying right by the I-40 interchange and the roads were ripped up. There were lines of cones intended to make things easier to sort out, but indeed were so distracting that they made it harder to find my way through the maze.

Google directions told me to turn left at an intersection where a barrier had been put in the middle of the road. That was fine with me. I could go the other way and execute a U-turn somewhere. For a New Jersey driver, the legal U-turn is an irresistible novelty.

I remember my daughter Kate telling me years ago about her first trip driving out of state. When friends told her to make a U-turn at an intersection, she wondered if they were kidding.

Anyhow, I turned right and Joanna almost immediately spied a sign that said “Roma.” It was probably not a steakhouse.

She pointed it out and asked me to take a look. I had turned up the name during my Google search and had dismissed it as a take-out pizza shop.

When I drove into the parking lot, it looked like a narrow shop with a counter and a couple of tables. Not promising at all. A take-out shop.

Then Joanna pointed out quite correctly that it wasn’t a counter. It was a bar, and next to it there was a large room with lots of people eating at tables.

Roma turned out to be pretty good. I’d put it roughly on a par with Mario’s in Clifton—not the best, but certainly enjoyable.

It was literally around the block from our hotel, so we went there for dinner on our second night, too.

We each had the chicken Marsala on different nights. It wasn’t great, but passably good.

The eggplant Parm was better, with even a proper toasting on the mozzarella. 

Both meals came with plain pasta and a salad. There was red wine vinegar available for dressing, which made me very happy.

Balsamic has been the rage for years, and I’m no big fan. 

Yeah, I’ve heard that, if you let your wine sit out and collect yeast from the air, it will turn into vinegar. But I can’t wait that long when I’m hungry.

If I remember right, they had a mild Chianti. It may have been an American knockoff. That would be all right with me, mind.

Mario’s house Chianti was Opici. That’s not made in Tuscany, but in New York. 

Before Larry spoiled my taste buds by taking me to a commercial wine-tasting in Manhattan, I used to buy Opici Chianti in a case of four three-liter bottles. 

It was my go-to vino. I’d cook with it, take it with my meals, get loaded on it at night.

I took a jug of it to a July 4 party at Karl’s house, years ago when he and Jeanie lived next door to me in Montclair. I woke up the next morning at home, but had no recollection of how I got there.

The 13th brought Joanna and me back to the official North. Old snow was lying thicker on the ground, but the roads were still fine and dry.

We crossed the Mason-Dixon Line into Pennsylvania and drove another 80 or 100 miles to a place called Midway. We stayed at a Quality Inn, right next to the Midway Diner on Diner Road.

The mailing address is Bethel, Pa., but it’s miles past the exits to Bethel. Midway gets its name, we were told, because it’s midway between Harrisburg and Allentown.

We walked over to the diner for dinner, but found we were about an hour late. It closes at three on Sundays.

It was back to Google for us. We were out in rural Pennsylvania. It was Sunday, so most places were closed. 

We wound up at another diner, Esther’s on U.S. 22, about seven or eight miles away in Fredericksburg, Pa.

As you might guess, nothing like Fredericksburg, Va. Not as big or as old.

We ate some diner food. Nothing to write home about, but it was my first solid food all day. My morning yogurt can hold me a good while, but not forever.

We drove straight back to Montclair the next day. 

Joanna was very glad to be back. So was I.

One of Joanna’s sons, Chris, has been staying at the house and keeping an eye on things. He arrived a few days after we left in November.

At some point since I saw him last, he has grown a mustache and goatee. It’s a completely different look for him, a little roguish maybe. 

Change is good.

Be well, everyone.

I don’t know when I’ll hit the road again. Maybe not till April. I may need to quest for elk or something.

Love to all.

Harry and Joanna

History, Geology, and the Search for Food

February 7-11

The original plan for this trip left everything open-ended. We might not be back till the first week of March.

It has been the longest run I’ve ever made. We left Montclair on Nov. 28 and we’re not back yet. So far we’ve been on the road for a full 11 weeks. 

We have a few more days to go.

The forecast includes some snow, which isn’t expected to amount to much. Nobody’s talking about another ice storm episode. So weather permitting, we’ll be back home on Valentine’s Day.

We did the cities—including Nashville, Memphis, Santa Fe, Phoenix—on the way West. We’ve been hitting a lot small towns, many of them in the middle of nowhere, on the way back.

We’ve had to spend a lot of time searching Google for places to eat. Pickings are slim, especially if you want a glass of wine with dinner.

I have not seen the inside of so many Texas Roadhouses or Outbacks before. In many cases, if we find an OK place we’ll go there twice. 

That was the case in Lebanon. We went back to Demos’.

Joanna had meatballs with plain spaghetti. I had a couple of glasses of Cab with—well, I’m having a senior moment and can’t quite recall. 

But it was OK, I’m sure.

Our next leg of the journey brought us to a Quality in on a hillside overlooking Kodak, Tennessee. I-40 runs through Kodak just north of Sevierville.

A highlight of the drive was a stop at a rest area. Outside on the lawn, there is a large sundial. The hours are marked by rows of plaques, each with the name of a Tennessee county.

Sevierville is famous for two reasons: It’s Dolly Parton’s birthplace and also home to the Smoky Mountain Knife Works, one of my favorite stores. 

I must be wearing down, though. We were there on Tuesday the eighth and Wednesday the ninth. Even so, I didn’t even want to buy a switchblade on this trip. We skipped the drive through the delights of Pigeon Forge. And the Great Smoky Mountains National Park seemed so far away. 

We may come back this way in a few months, or maybe next year, to explore more of the park.

We found a place called The Chop House that looked promising. So we tried it for dinner. It’s fun getting there. You have to do a U-turn on the state highway and then follow the arrows through a warren of crossing roads. 

Then you come to Bass Pro Drive. The Bass Pro store dominates the hill on the north side of the Interstate.

We actually had tried the Chop House once before. On a trip out this way a few years ago, we stayed at Holiday Inn Express and were able to walk to the restaurant. That time, it was closed for some reason. 

This time it was open for business, and not too crowded.

I tried the burger the first night, and it was all right. Not as tasty as the one at Egan’s in Montclair, but still better than most.

The second night, I had the small sirloin and some of Joanna’s prime rib roast. She gave me the rarest parts from the middle and ate the rest, including some of the pink meat, which is unusual for her. Cantonese palates avoid anything cooked rare.

The rib came au jus and dipping the meat gave it a pleasant kick.

Our next stop was John and Kim’s in Virginia on Thursday the tenth.

On the way, when we came into Virginia, we stopped at a rest area, which had information about something called The Crooked Road. It is a driving tour to key music-history sites in the region. 

I think there is a stop connected with the Carter Family and other sites related to country music. 

One of those stops was in Bristol, Virginia, billed as “the birthplace of country music.” There was a museum in town with that name.

Actually, the music was certainly not born there, but the business of packaging it and selling it to the nation was.

The company that would become RCA brought recording equipment to a building in Bristol and invited local people to perform. The recordings are known as The Bristol Sessions.

Among the first people to record there were Jimmy Rodgers, known as the Father of Country Music, and the Carter Family, who are downright legendary.

The museum has bits and pieces of recordings. I would have liked to hear some of them complete. 

There were also short films. One, for instance, is about the sessions. Another explores gospel music.

It was a great place to spend an hour or so.

When we reached the house, we learned that John’s mother, my Aunt June, was there this time. She was visiting one of her daughters, Laura, when we stopped here in November.

She joined us for a terrific dinner. Very unusual flavors and, as usual, great wine. 

The flavors were unusual because all the dishes were based on traditional Finnish recipes.

The house had been celebrating John’s Finnish heritage for his recent birthday. Kim had done the research into the food and had even posted Finnish phrases around the house.

We had Finnish meatballs which we ate on mashed potatoes with a cream gravy. There was a savory pastry that looked like a cheese Danish to be eaten with a topping of chopped egg and butter. Another dish combined ground beef with rice and cabbage.

Wines included a red blend from Venge Vineyards and another from California that was produced by a man from Finland.

Still another red was a Machete blend. Kim said you go “wow” twice with this wine. First for the fantastic mouth-filling flavor, and then for the sexy label, which parodies the old Blacksploitation movie ads. 

Each label features a scantily clad model wearing a huge, Pam Grier 70s style Afro. She is always sitting in a provocative pose with a machete in hand.

John’s Finnish heritage is also mine, and we’re very proud of it. A lot of times you hear people joke about an ancestor run out of the old country for sheep stealing or some other infraction.

Well, in fact, our great-grandfather, Jacob, was indeed run out of Finland. He was a member of a progressive socialist party that, in addition to backing a graduated income tax, wanted the bars closed because it saw drink as the curse of the working class.

The family story goes that, when the czar started to allow taverns to reopen in the late 19th century, Jacob protested too loudly. The czar’s police gave him 30 days to get his affairs in order and his ass out of the country.

The next information we have of him is in a newspaper story from 1904. He was in trouble with the child welfare authorities in Philadelphia because two of his teen-age daughters were supporting the entire family by performing song and dance routines on the street.

Then there is a photo of him dated 1911. By that time, Jacob had bought a property that everybody in the family still calls “the farm.” He’s standing by a sand road in Weymouth, N.J., in front of his house. No kidding: he looks like Trotsky, cloth cap, boots, tweeds and whiskers.

Definitely one of our more colorful forebears.

Later in life he started writing his memoirs. Some distant relatives discovered the papers, which were in an obscure dialect of Finnish. They found a professor at a university in the Midwest who would translate it. They contacted my mother when they were taking a family collection to pay the translator. It was from those papers that I learned about Jacob’s socialist connections.

It was another great evening with John and Kim.

Friday, the eleventh, we were coming north on I-81 toward Winchester when we saw signs for Natural Bridge. 

Want to see if we can find it? Sure.

The way was clearly marked and we found the Natural Bridge State Park with no trouble. It’s on U.S. Highway 11.

I had brought my stick from the car because I had no idea what kind of walking we were in for. The lady at the admissions counter said that we could drive if we couldn’t manage the steps.

How many steps? One hundred thirty.

I did about 90 or more in Mammoth Cave a few years ago and that was about my limit.

There is a one-way drive to the stream that formed the natural bridge. She had to radio below that a black Ford Fusion was coming down. 

The bridge is created by a hole in a mountain more than 200 feet high and 90 across. U.S. 11 runs over the top.

You come to a walkway by Cedar Creek, a modest flow of water to have worn a hole that big, but I guess persistence pays if you have the time.

According to a sign, George Washington was here as a young man, hired to survey the area for Lord Fairfax. Washington climbed up about 25 feet and carved his initials in the rocks. 

You can see them today, the sign said. I didn’t see them, but there is a rectangle of yellow paint across the Cedar Creek that may mark the spot.

Lots of other people over the years, it seems, followed Washington’s example. Climbing and carving are forbidden now.

Thomas Jefferson bought the property and built a small cabin nearby.

You can walk under the bridge to an open-air auditorium. Lots of kids were there throwing snowballs into the creek.

There was another sign in the park about a pageant or play that celebrates creation. I guess that should be Creation with a cap C, following the account in Genesis. 

The program does not take place on park property, nor is the park service involved, the sign said. It’s sponsored by a separate, private organization and performed only when the park is closed.

Speaking of that, my word count tells me it’s time that this should close.

Be well, everyone.

Love to all

Harry and Joanna

 

Music Highway

February 4-6

Needless to say, not much happened on the third or the fourth in Forrest City.

We were iced in. Temperatures were in the teens at night, and when the sun came out during the day, we got a little bit of a melt, but not much.

I was able to get the ice off the car on Friday afternoon, the fourth. It was bright and the sunlight was helping a bit. It took maybe half an hour. I was wearing lightly lined gloves and managed to lose all sensation in my fingertips. 

It was hilarious. My hands didn’t want to behave. It was an actual labor to turn off the engine and lock the car.  Getting into the room was even more fun, trying to draw the key card out of my shirt pocket and slip it into the lock.

Very little was moving even on Friday, although the road outside the window looked a little clearer than it was the day before.

It was by dumb luck alone that we didn’t have to bunk in the lobby at Forrest City. Actually, they had a spare room usually reserved for staff who have to sleep over. We were going to move there but then were told that the lady who had booked our room would be coming a day later than planned. 

We were able to stay in place till Saturday morning.

So Saturday we moved from one Comfort Suites to another, this time in Jackson, Tennessee, almost half way between Memphis and Nashville.

Temperatures were expected to reach the mid 30s or even low 40s by then. The highways were dry. The trees when we started were shrouded in ice. 

We passed the remains of one mishap on the way. An entire long-haul truck, cab and trailer still attached, lay on its side on the grass by the highway.

Trees still covered in ice were down everywhere.

I was taking it easy, staying to the right and letting everybody pass by. But the road was wide open. I was concerned about hitting a patch of ice in the shade. I’ve done that once before, but not at 70 miles an hour.

When we crossed the Mississippi from Arkansas into Memphis, the road was wet. All I could think about was a detail from the storm coverage on a local Fox affiliate out of Memphis. A semi had jackknifed on the westbound side of the bridge and blocked I-40 for hours on Thursday.

I thank the higher powers that there was no freeze on that deck.

There had been a 15-car pile-up on one of the Interstate highways in Memphis but we saw no sign of that.

In Memphis, many local streets were still blocked by fallen trees. Well more than a hundred thousand people were without power. Hotels were booked solid everywhere by storm refugees.

The ice became less and less evident as we moved east. Where the road passes through a cut, the shaded side had icicles. Even so, the fields and the roadside were clear after Memphis.

There were no more puddles after the bridge.

Every once in a while, though, we still encountered trees crowned with ice.

The stretch of I-40 between the two cities is nicknamed Music Highway.

We stopped at a tourist information center that was also a local cultural museum. There’s a room devoted to cotton, for instance, and another with live catfish in aquariums that discusses the ecology of a local river.

Music, though, is the main theme. People were setting up sound equipment for a jam session that was going to be carried, I believe, on YouTube. We didn’t stay for the show, but did get to hear two of the musicians rehearsing a song.

This part of Tennessee refers to itself as the Delta. It is home to a number of popular music headliners. The biggest name is Tina Turner, who was born in nearby Nutbush, Tennessee. 

The school she attended as a child has been moved to the property and houses the Tina Turner Museum.

The hotel in Jackson is on Casey Jones Lane. Apparently, his house—a white clapboard structure with two-story columns in front—is across the street. It’s part of a complex called the Casey Jones Home and Railroad Museum.

My favorite bit, though, is the caboose in the sky, in front of the Casey Jones Motel.

Joanna had never heard of Jones, and that didn’t surprise me. Train wreck songs seem to be a peculiarly American form of entertainment.

We were in need of lots of basics—grooming supplies, cheap wine, bar food.

After half an hour of Google, everything seemed to fall into place. First we drive to Party Mart, a liquor store just a little north of Union University. Then we move a quarter mile up the same street to Walgreen’s. Finally, we swing back and detour to Texas Roadhouse. 

So simple. Life is good. Till we saw the Roadhouse parking lot almost full.

It was Saturday, OK, but it was only 4 p.m. We went inside to learn there was a one-hour wait to get a table for two.

The nearest alternative was another Outback, which we had passed on our way to Party Mart. Joanna had prime rib au jus and I had a rare sirloin. I tried the Coppola Cabernet Sauvignon, and it was all like heaven after two days dry and eating Lean Cuisine.

We left Jackson the next day, Sunday, and moved on to Lebanon, Tennessee, about 20 miles east of Nashville.

On the way we stopped at a rest area for a brief stretch. Since this is Music Highway, the rest area was named in honor of Loretta Lynn and Hank Williams.

We were also near the site of a raid by Nathan Bedford Forrest on the Union supply lines. In 1864, Forrest started shelling a heavily fortified Union supply depot called Johnsonville.

There were hundreds Union troops, maybe more, stationed there and they were backed up by several gunboats in the river.

The Union officers were caught entirely by surprise. Not knowing the situation, they ordered the destruction of the gunboats to keep them from falling into Rebel hands. Vast stores of ammunition, food, and other supplies for the Union Army also went up in flames.

Forrest was in no position to capture Johnsonville. He was raiding, not invading. 

The destruction of the stores was a major achievement. He lit out and barely escaped the pursuing Federal troops.

His escape route included a spur of the Natchez Trace. We had stopped at a state park named for the Trace back in December on our way west. The ranger there told us that Forrest had used it on his retreat.

With only a brief stop on the way, we arrived early at the Sleep Inn in Lebanon. It was a few minutes past one, and there would be no room available till two. 

We went to the local Waffle House to kill time. 

Eggs and waffles are always good for the spirit.

I was going to get the car washed at the Auto Spa next door, but it was closed on Sunday.

We had planned on going to Coach’s, a bar next to the hotel, for dinner. But that plan had to be put on hold because a sign on the door said the place was closed today for an employee appreciation event.

Google turned up a few places that looked reasonable and were open. We went to Demos’ Restaurant, a drive of six or seven miles, mostly on I-40. 

This was another popular joint. People were lined up waiting for tables. We took seats at the bar.

It was largely Italian fare, so I was able to have spaghetti with sausage. The sauce was rich enough. The sausage had a little heat, but the flavor of sage and fennel came through just fine. 

There was no Chianti. I opted for a couple of American Pinot Noirs that were all right, but nothing special.

Joanna ordered grilled tilapia filets with a side of beans and rice. She got a bit of a surprise when she tried the beans. They were actually chili and too hot for her. The bartender replaced it with pasta.

I believe a good time was had by all.

Happy trails and good music, everyone.

Love to all.

Harry and Joanna

Twice as Nice; Watch the Ice

January 31-February 3

Monday the 31st, we took Interstate 30 out of Grand Prairie toward our next stop, Texarkana.

It took about three hours, and the sky was clouding up. No rain. That was coming later. With a vengeance.

We were finally out of the desert. After almost two months of it, we’ve had enough desert to last us a long while. 

Most of the drive was in Texas, because Texarkana bills itself as a single town divided by a state line.

I knew there was a Texarkana, Texas, and a Texarkana, Arkansas, but didn’t know that you pass from one to the other seamlessly. On the highway into town you pass a water tower that says “Texarkana, twice as nice.”

The hotels in Arkansas were getting better reviews and I was tired of Texas, so we stayed at a Best Western franchise called the Texarkana Inn & Suites on the Arkansas side. It was roomy and comfortable. If I go back to Texarkana, I might stay there again.

Seeing that it was Lunar New Year’s Eve, we tried to find a place to have a Chinese dinner. Joanna said you’re supposed to eat certain things—chicken, pork, fish—at the New Year because they are auspicious.

A very long mung bean noodle called fun see is also auspicious because it symbolizes longevity.

I checked out what I could of the Chinese fare on offer in the area, and none of it looked very auspicious at all.

So we found one place, Osaka Steakhouse, that had drawn some good reviews. Not Chinese, but we’ll give it a try.

There was sashimi on the menu, too. That really put me in the mood for some raw fish. I hadn’t had any of that since we went to dinner with Bill and DeeDee in Mesa just before Christmas.

Google showed the way. We take I-30 back to Texas, merge onto the Frontage Road, then take Guss Orr Parkway until it turns into West Park Blvd., and you’re there.

We gave up after two failed attempts to find Guss Orr Parkway.

We wound up going to a nearby Outback Steakhouse. 

Joanna mentioned to the waiter that she has to avoid pepper. She has had some reactions to it lately and is being even more careful that usual.

The waiter went to check on a couple of questions she had. The next thing to happen is a visit from the manager, who went through the whole menu with Joanna, to point out what had and didn’t have pepper in the seasoning.

We had never had that happen before. 

Joanna wound up getting grilled salmon. I opted for pork medallions with a semi-sweet sauce garnished with chunks of pineapple. It was good to change from red meat to the other white meat.

I had the La Crema Pinot Noir. It was good, but a little too mellow. I liked the Trinity Oaks at Longhorn better.

Tuesday was New Year’s Day. We drove down State Line Avenue to take a look at options and to take in a few sights.

We passed several of the Chinese eateries I had read about, and they looked dodgy indeed. Definitely not even in the league with Big Skyy in Riverside. Certainly not like a couple of authentic places we frequent back in New Jersey.

We parked near an Episcopal Church complex that included a day school. It surprised me to see that in Arkansas. I had always thought it was only the New York Anglo-Saxons who had Episcopal parochial schools.

The reasons we parked there were across the street.

First was the Jim Crow monument, dedicated to the mothers of the Confederacy who had sent off their “hero-sons” to lose the war to preserve human slavery. But an even bigger draw was something that I expect could be a truly unique public building.

It is a combined U.S. Post Office and Federal District Courthouse. It straddles the state line and serves the Eastern District of Texas and the Western District of Arkansas. 

If anybody knows of another federal or even state courthouse with a similar arrangement, please let me know. Let’s include a reference to that too.

We went back to the hotel and just for the hell of it, I rechecked the directions to the Osaka Steakhouse.

I realized that Guss Orr Parkway isn’t marked. It looks like an exit from the Frontage Road to get to Pavilion Parkway, which is marked.

So we gave it a try. Once you know the secret, the rest is easy.

We pulled up at the Osaka and found that for some reason we couldn’t guess, the Japanese restaurant was closed for Chinese New Year.

To hell with it. We gave up and went back to Outback. It’s the least we could do to return their favor to Joanna.

We struck out for Forrest City, Arkansas, on Wednesday. It was a three and a half hours of driving. With a stop for gasoline in Bill Clinton’s hometown, Hope, Arkansas, and another couple of stops for brief stretches, it took us a little more than four hours.

I got us lost looking in the dark for a seafood restaurant, and that’s how we stumbled on Ho Ho, a Chinese take-out joint. The name is Cantonese and means “very good.” That’s a bit of a stretch, but unless we wanted Popeye’s chicken or McDonald’s, it looked like the only option.

We shared the house special lo mein and a piece of Dixie-fried catfish.

The plan was to stay in Forrest City for the night and then take the much shorter drive to Jackson, Tennessee, on Thursday.

Funny how plans can change.

It was not actually raining, more like a mist that collected on the windshield, for most of the trip to Forrest City.

When we reached the Comfort Suites on Holiday Drive, the parking lot was full of white pickup trucks from a construction company. Several guys from those trucks were sharing beers in the breakfast room off the lobby.

As we were going into the elevator a man joined us. We asked why so many trucks. He said they were all here because of the ice storm.

I had been watching weather forecasts predicting little or no accumulation of snow and ice. That had changed in the past few hours.

The ice started sometime Wednesday night. There were travel warnings on the Accuweather website and on local TV.

By morning things outside the window were covered with ice. There was slush on Holiday Drive. Little was moving. The pickup trucks, though, were already gone, all on the job.

The TV station from Memphis has been carrying stories of power outages, fallen trees and car wrecks.

We managed to extend our stay in Forrest City by two days. We’re playing it safe, staying off the roads and indoors.

There were a few Lean Cuisine frozen meals for sale in the lobby, so we ate Wednesday dinner from the microwave. 

They were strange. Joanna had something like penne with chicken and broccoli in Alfredo sauce. Mine was a small chicken enchilada with Mexican rice.

I don’t expect ever to have a craving for Lean Cuisine in the future, but they actually weren’t bad. Boring, maybe, but nothing processed-food revolting about them.

Temperatures are expected to rise on Saturday, so we’ll head out then for our next stop, in Lebanon, Tennessee, on the other side of Memphis.

That’s only a two-hour trip, so even if we run into delays, we don’t have far to go.

Stay safe, gang, and watch out for the ice.

Love to all.

Harry and Joanna