Road Trip part 2
Wednesday, 10/3
We went to a wine tasting and tour of a vineyard in Truro, which was well up the cape. It was foggy and misting all morning, all day, and all night, and according to the tour guide the Cape Cod rain-all-day weather brings in minerals that feed the grapes. Cool.
Jason managed to get off work, so we actually got a chance to spend time with him, thank god. It was great to finally catch up with him... I mean, it’s been how many years since I’ve last seen him? Four? More? Anyway, we had a good fancy dinner where every course was great, well, aside from the corn dogs. But that was worth it just to get corn dogs at a fancy restaurant - Kobe beef corn dogs.
I have to go into detail on the meal. I had a three course meal that began with New England Clam Chowder, my main course was Thai Cioppino - a stew of in-shell clam, mussels, shrimp the size of a White Castle slider, king crab, salmon, and some kinda whitefish in a Thai-flavored tomato broth, and my dessert was a swoon-inducing maple pecan tiramisu. Mike's hand-cut truffle fries were amazing: visibly oily but it didn't taste oily; it just tasted earthy and right thanks to the truffle oil.
Tomorrow we hit the road again to begin the long trek home.
Thursday, 10/4
Shortly after getting on the road this morning Mike and I had a conversation that went something like: Mike: “I forgot my toiletry bag."
John: “Well, you can use my toothpaste, and most hotels offer toothbrushes and razors..."
Mike: “My meds are in there."
John: “Oh."
The roads are back to being beautiful. This time, the trees are two parts red, two parts, yellow, one part green.
Lunch was at Eveready Diner. This was a kinda kitschy throwback diner with a huge menu, and once again, surprisingly good food. Yesterday, Mike had a craving for pancakes - which lead to him shouting at his Iphone, “I NEED PANCAKES” - and today, he got his fix: red velvet pancakes with a frosting-like syrup that together legit tasted like cake. The other standouts were: the expertly-seasoned mashed potatoes which had grilled onion, and the coffee which, as Mike put it, “Even after I put my cream and sugar in, which usually destroys the flavor, it’s still there!”
At mid-afternoon, we got caught in a rainstorm in Poughkeepsie. I made Mike pull over. When the rain cleared it made for some amazing sunset-through-low-clouds views.
After the rain, we had some god-tier driving on two-lane roads through Catskill Park with small mountain towns with wooded hills towering over, a couple of weird artist shops you only see in mountains, bear crossing signs, the sort of driving-down-a-mountain hills that actually call for engine braking, and turning trees everywhere... but then got dark and pea-soup foggy. When it was bad, we could see maybe fifty feet or five lane stripes, and that’s with fog lights on. We were pretty damn glad to get to our motel, or at least I was. Mike was threatening to drive to the nearest Holiday Inn if it looked like the Bates Hotel, and he still had his suspicions when we arrived. The motel was quite nice in my opinion.
Friday, 10/5
The weather on the return trip has been mostly rain or fog. The temperature averages seventy degrees, thankfully. We awoke to fog. After that cleared, it rained. Yup. Luckily, the rain didn’t keep the scenery from looking beautiful.
The fourth and final Triple-D stop was dinner at Cleveland’s Melt Bar and Grilled. I had high hopes for this place, and it didn’t disappoint. The interior was an entertaining clash of childish delights versus hipster bar stock. Light-up Christmas lawn ornaments, giant Velveeta and Dairy Queen decorations, and televisions playing the Disney channel and the old Transformers series alongside televisions playing sports, a long black and white hipster mural, a prominently located bar with an extensive menu of craft beers, and tattooed servers. Our server wore a black N.W.A. shirt, to boot. He was white. The clientèle followed suit: young hip urban people and children... with young hip urban parents. The menus were pasted on the back of vinyl album covers, which while very hipster was actually pretty cool. But enough about looks, there was food. And lots of food. They specialize in grilled cheese concoctions done well. I looked at the menu and realized this is exactly the shit I throw together when drunk, and it usually tastes amazing. We both ordered one sandwich to eat here and one to go. I had, “The Dude Abides”: giant homemade meatballs, fried mozzarella sticks, marinara, provolone melted in and romano cheese dusting the top. To go, I ordered the “Flying Falafel Melt”: falafel, roasted garlic, hummus, pickled turnips, fresh tomato, and pepper jack cheese. The latter is waiting in our hotel fridge since the former was too damn much on it’s own. But it was so good... albeit akin to eating a brick of melted cheese. Oh, and one last thing, this was the only “Diners, Drivins, and Dives” stop that didn’t advertise in-house that it’s been on TV. They’ve also been on “Man Vs. Food.”
The room tonight is a Hilton that serves the Cleveland airport. Being in a Hilton reminds me of anime conventions, because the only time I’ve set foot in a Hilton, Hampton, or any hotel as posh is when I’m dressed up as an anime character, surrounded by fellow nerds in costume, and doing stupid drunken nerdy things. So I poured a beer into a coffee mug and we went to the lobby to play Magic. It was almost the same.
Saturday, 10/6
Cedar Point! First ride was the illustrious “Millennium Force” with it’s 90+ mph top speed, extended zero gravity moments, and never-ending first drop. Ahh, it was so good to be back, tears streaming out of my eyes and all. No really, that’s how fast it is: it forces tears from your eyes. After that, we jumped on the ginormous old wooden coaster, “Mean Streak,” that beat our brains so hard that we were grumpy for hours afterwards. But we got over it and had a good day over all, even if I had to wear my fleece pajama bottoms, denim pants, two tee-shirts, a polo, a dense fleece jacket, and a knit cap to stay warm. You see, the high temperature in Sandusky today was 52 degrees, plus it was windy. At least it wasn't raining.
We ate leftovers from Melt for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Sunday, 10/7
We finished our trip with a relaxing stop at the Three Floyds brewpub. I quaffed delicious Zombie Dust and Broo Doo, and I went home with a case of Zombie Dust. That stuff got so popular so fast that I hear you can only buy it either at the brewpub or in one location in Chicago. The food was delicious, as usual.
It's good to be home. I asked myself, what was the highlight of the trip? That meal with Jason? Hanging out with Sarah? All the food? I guess it was that we did it. That's a total cop-out answer, I know, but it was all fun and good, even the bad. Know what I mean? I even got used to Mike's snoring. Well, almost.
We went to a wine tasting and tour of a vineyard in Truro, which was well up the cape. It was foggy and misting all morning, all day, and all night, and according to the tour guide the Cape Cod rain-all-day weather brings in minerals that feed the grapes. Cool.
Jason managed to get off work, so we actually got a chance to spend time with him, thank god. It was great to finally catch up with him... I mean, it’s been how many years since I’ve last seen him? Four? More? Anyway, we had a good fancy dinner where every course was great, well, aside from the corn dogs. But that was worth it just to get corn dogs at a fancy restaurant - Kobe beef corn dogs.
I have to go into detail on the meal. I had a three course meal that began with New England Clam Chowder, my main course was Thai Cioppino - a stew of in-shell clam, mussels, shrimp the size of a White Castle slider, king crab, salmon, and some kinda whitefish in a Thai-flavored tomato broth, and my dessert was a swoon-inducing maple pecan tiramisu. Mike's hand-cut truffle fries were amazing: visibly oily but it didn't taste oily; it just tasted earthy and right thanks to the truffle oil.
Tomorrow we hit the road again to begin the long trek home.
Thursday, 10/4
Shortly after getting on the road this morning Mike and I had a conversation that went something like: Mike: “I forgot my toiletry bag."
John: “Well, you can use my toothpaste, and most hotels offer toothbrushes and razors..."
Mike: “My meds are in there."
John: “Oh."
The roads are back to being beautiful. This time, the trees are two parts red, two parts, yellow, one part green.
Lunch was at Eveready Diner. This was a kinda kitschy throwback diner with a huge menu, and once again, surprisingly good food. Yesterday, Mike had a craving for pancakes - which lead to him shouting at his Iphone, “I NEED PANCAKES” - and today, he got his fix: red velvet pancakes with a frosting-like syrup that together legit tasted like cake. The other standouts were: the expertly-seasoned mashed potatoes which had grilled onion, and the coffee which, as Mike put it, “Even after I put my cream and sugar in, which usually destroys the flavor, it’s still there!”
At mid-afternoon, we got caught in a rainstorm in Poughkeepsie. I made Mike pull over. When the rain cleared it made for some amazing sunset-through-low-clouds views.
After the rain, we had some god-tier driving on two-lane roads through Catskill Park with small mountain towns with wooded hills towering over, a couple of weird artist shops you only see in mountains, bear crossing signs, the sort of driving-down-a-mountain hills that actually call for engine braking, and turning trees everywhere... but then got dark and pea-soup foggy. When it was bad, we could see maybe fifty feet or five lane stripes, and that’s with fog lights on. We were pretty damn glad to get to our motel, or at least I was. Mike was threatening to drive to the nearest Holiday Inn if it looked like the Bates Hotel, and he still had his suspicions when we arrived. The motel was quite nice in my opinion.
Friday, 10/5
The weather on the return trip has been mostly rain or fog. The temperature averages seventy degrees, thankfully. We awoke to fog. After that cleared, it rained. Yup. Luckily, the rain didn’t keep the scenery from looking beautiful.
The fourth and final Triple-D stop was dinner at Cleveland’s Melt Bar and Grilled. I had high hopes for this place, and it didn’t disappoint. The interior was an entertaining clash of childish delights versus hipster bar stock. Light-up Christmas lawn ornaments, giant Velveeta and Dairy Queen decorations, and televisions playing the Disney channel and the old Transformers series alongside televisions playing sports, a long black and white hipster mural, a prominently located bar with an extensive menu of craft beers, and tattooed servers. Our server wore a black N.W.A. shirt, to boot. He was white. The clientèle followed suit: young hip urban people and children... with young hip urban parents. The menus were pasted on the back of vinyl album covers, which while very hipster was actually pretty cool. But enough about looks, there was food. And lots of food. They specialize in grilled cheese concoctions done well. I looked at the menu and realized this is exactly the shit I throw together when drunk, and it usually tastes amazing. We both ordered one sandwich to eat here and one to go. I had, “The Dude Abides”: giant homemade meatballs, fried mozzarella sticks, marinara, provolone melted in and romano cheese dusting the top. To go, I ordered the “Flying Falafel Melt”: falafel, roasted garlic, hummus, pickled turnips, fresh tomato, and pepper jack cheese. The latter is waiting in our hotel fridge since the former was too damn much on it’s own. But it was so good... albeit akin to eating a brick of melted cheese. Oh, and one last thing, this was the only “Diners, Drivins, and Dives” stop that didn’t advertise in-house that it’s been on TV. They’ve also been on “Man Vs. Food.”
The room tonight is a Hilton that serves the Cleveland airport. Being in a Hilton reminds me of anime conventions, because the only time I’ve set foot in a Hilton, Hampton, or any hotel as posh is when I’m dressed up as an anime character, surrounded by fellow nerds in costume, and doing stupid drunken nerdy things. So I poured a beer into a coffee mug and we went to the lobby to play Magic. It was almost the same.
Saturday, 10/6
Cedar Point! First ride was the illustrious “Millennium Force” with it’s 90+ mph top speed, extended zero gravity moments, and never-ending first drop. Ahh, it was so good to be back, tears streaming out of my eyes and all. No really, that’s how fast it is: it forces tears from your eyes. After that, we jumped on the ginormous old wooden coaster, “Mean Streak,” that beat our brains so hard that we were grumpy for hours afterwards. But we got over it and had a good day over all, even if I had to wear my fleece pajama bottoms, denim pants, two tee-shirts, a polo, a dense fleece jacket, and a knit cap to stay warm. You see, the high temperature in Sandusky today was 52 degrees, plus it was windy. At least it wasn't raining.
We ate leftovers from Melt for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Sunday, 10/7
We finished our trip with a relaxing stop at the Three Floyds brewpub. I quaffed delicious Zombie Dust and Broo Doo, and I went home with a case of Zombie Dust. That stuff got so popular so fast that I hear you can only buy it either at the brewpub or in one location in Chicago. The food was delicious, as usual.
It's good to be home. I asked myself, what was the highlight of the trip? That meal with Jason? Hanging out with Sarah? All the food? I guess it was that we did it. That's a total cop-out answer, I know, but it was all fun and good, even the bad. Know what I mean? I even got used to Mike's snoring. Well, almost.