Go West, 1.20 to 2.03.06
IS there any truly good food in fly-over country?

WHICH are the most Pork-a-licious beans in Tennessee?

SHOULD you have a PigSickle at Jiggs Smokehouse in Clinton, Oklahoma, no matter how enticing it sounds?

HOW could a lust for lunch result in a truck getting trapped in a sun-drenched Spanish square, with no possibility of an unscathed escape?

And other FOOD- and DRINK-CENTRIC questions.....as well as social,
political, and cultural quandaries like:

WHY are there so many tennis-shoes in cowboy country?

SHOULD we blame the entire state of Texas for George Bush?

WHY do Americans buy things they can't afford?

WHEN will America's restaurants get the concept of portion-control?

Athens to Richmond
Richmond to Knoxville
Knoxville to Memphis		 Memphis to OKC
OKC to Amarillo
Amarillo to Albuquerque
Albuquerque		 Albuquerque to Sedona
Sedona to Scottsdale
Scottsdale to Topanga Canyon

Friday, Jan 20
Athens, New York to Richmond, Virginia                                                                 
470 miles
Route: 87 to 17 to 80 to 95.

It’s late; I should have been out of here in the first few days of the year, but the house wasn’t finished and I’d only just unpacked from storage. I wanted to fondle my cookbooks for a little longer, before being separeted from them for another three months. And cook more beans in the fireplace. But now C. has gone south to work for five weeks and the cold begins to penetrate even my cozy new home. It’s lovely looking out at the snow, but I can hardly stay inside for the whole winter.The Driveway in Athens

So I pack the car with clothes for three climates, my tea things, best corkscrew, and the road guides that served us well last spring when we drove East to begin the semi-annual bi-coastal adventure. I’m excited about this new, seasonally peripatetic lifestyle, and eager to find the elusive good food along the road. Once, I believed that good road food was only available in Europe. Here, it is harder to find and it’s a different kind of good food. But it’s out there. Last spring we made it all the way without ever patronizing a chain restaurant. But there were two of us: a driver and a navigator (we switched off). Now, there is only me, so I will, only occasionally I hope, have to partake of that which most of the country thinks of as sustenance, i.e. fast food. With my trusty copy of Roadfood in the passenger seat, I trundle down the icy driveway and wave goodbye to the Hudson river until spring.

I’m heading straight south to Richmond, to spend five days with C. before heading off west by southwest. Richmond’s restaurants have been highly recommended. My ex-husband, a location scout, recently made a movie there, so I have names. I’m trying to keep my daily miles below 400, but today is a long one and hunger strikes. The roadside signs are soul-destroying, but I spy a “Nathan’s.”

Now, Nathan’s does a pretty good dog. I am a long-time connoisseur of dogs, having survived three years while working on Wall Street lunching exclusively on Sabretts. The first one is closed, since it’s before 11am, but I’m in luck: 40 miles later there’s another Nathan’s, the sign informs me. I have always studiously averted my eyes from these signs, and am certainly not willing to settle for any more prosaic chain. But then I make the mistake of ordering cheese. It’s not cheese. Note to self: Never order cheese in any restaurant that has more than one location.

Richmond’s restaurants prove equal to their reputations: I actually eat sturgeon at a fantastic Cary Street fish house called Limani. The choice of sauces offered is a bit odd, but the fish—and the range of fish available—is excellent. Citysearch reveals a most amusing discourse about past cases of diarrhea amongst customers who have ordered the escolar; don’t they know it contains olestra (with the “amazing new fat that goes right through your system,” i.e. without stopping at your hips). The substance that the FDA insisted the less-than-ecstatic potato-chip makers warn, on the label, often caused “anal leakage.” Clearly the chef or wait staff either didn’t know or thought the information might prove off-putting. No one mentions escolar the night we are there. Across the street, oysters and a generous happy hour claim us the next night. A hanger steak is beefy and good but I pass it over: C.'s short ribs are a bit fatty, but moi, the fat hound, is able to take them off his hands and salt ‘em up good. Mmmmm, salty fat.

The night before leaving, I am supposed to meet a new friend at The White Dog while our mutual husbands are in rehearsal, but her own dogs get into a fight and she has to cancel, so I decide to stay in. Inside C.’s refrigerator are some olives and a tub of whipped butter. Outside of the fridge there is a box of Spaghettini and a big jar of “Four-Cheese” pasta sauce. I haven’t eaten pasta in years and perhaps never with sauce out of a jar, but I’m not going out shopping after dark in the 4th most dangerous city in the USA. So I figure I’ll go contra-the-authentic-Italian-way and have more sauce than pasta. I pit some olives, heat the sauce, and finish it with a huge chunk of chilled butter, for a nice emulsification. It’s damned good. C’s laid in some aged rum, triple sec, and limes, so that keeps me entertained, too .


Wednesday, January 25
Richmond to Knoxville, 440 miles
Route: 360 to 307 to 460 to I-81 to I-40

I’m on a state road until lunchtime, which I’ve scoped out in the pages of Roadfood as Dude’s Drive-In, in Christianburg, VA. On the way, I spot some interesting town names: Skinquarter is the most unsettling. This is Civil War country: I pass five historical markers labeled “Lee’s Retreat.” Then I drive through Appomattox, “The town that reunited the country.”

Along the way, I see an alarming number of vehicles for sale: pickup trucks, Cadillac’s (all pretty old), and boats. It occurs to me that this is just about the time that the Christmas credit card statements are due. No money? Sell your vehicle. The blood-sucking banks and multi-national advertising machines continue to prey upon the confidence of America’s middle class. Must-have possessions show up in yard sales three years later while the interest still mounts and compounds itself on the original purchase. The temptation is too strong and the audience, evidently, too weak. I hate debt. This is a pet peeve.

I reach I-81. Wish I could go all the way on state roads: you learn so much more about the people, the country. But with me doing all the driving, I’ve got to keep the hours down. Next time.
I locate Dude’s Drive-In (“Honk Your Horn for Car Service”; there are no seats inside). There’s no need to honk, though, because the carhop is already there at my window. I wasn’t sure what to expect…would there be one of those little window trays, as in an old California drive-in? Happily, no, because it is 36F and snowing. The menu is posted big-as-can-be above the bustling little building. I could have almost anything, within the local vernacular, anyway, but of course I go for a dog. God is very big around here, after all (a billboard along the way asks “Do you know where you are headed?” It is signed “God”). A dog is God spelled backwards, and is far more predictably satisfying. I consider the foot-long but it seems excessive, so go for a regular dog with mustard and relish. At the last moment I unwisely add cheese. And a glass of milk. It’s a very small dog, and of course the cheese is not cheese, even at this one-location establishment. Cheese is not supposed to be liquid unless it’s hot, i.e. melted. The hot dog is an alarming shade of pink. It’s actually hot pink. A hot pink hot God—oops, dog. But it hits the spot and the carhop is not insulted by my southern accent, which arrives unbidden whenever I spend time in the south. I can’t help it, really. My paternal grandmother did the same thing, my dad once told me, but in the Philadelphia of the 1920's people tended to think she was mocking them.
On to Knoxville, and dinner.

In the morning, I listen to seventies songs on XM 7, and sing along. By the afternoon, I need to keep my brain a little more stimulated. I’ve got Evan Kleiman’s excellent “Good Food Show” from LA’s great NPR station, KCRW, on podcast, so I listen to three in a row. Years ago, I worked for Evan and we were great friends for a long time, but now she’s gotten too important for me. But her show makes my mouth water! I’m really excited about spending some time in LA; at my old stomping (shopping) grounds like the farmers market in Santa Monica, Chinatown, 99 Ranch Market….the secret pork butcher in Gardena. Evidently the farmer’s market has an Italian cauliflower called Romanesco and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

The La Quinta hotel in Knoxville is way west of town, so I’m not going to explore a real, local restaurant tonight. Sixteen miles is just too far after driving 430 of them in a day. So I’ve researched the local chain-choices, and I figure Outback Steakhouse has to be the least offensive. I checked out the menu online, and it seemed to have some honest food in addition to the cheese-cream-glob-loaded pastas and potato skins that are so well loved by enough people to keep a zillion of these kind of restaurants in business. I chill down my travel bottle of chardonnay, pop it with my favorite corkscrew, and pour a little into a flimsy plastic cup (Note to self: next time, bring a glass). I catch up with e-mail and set out to find the Outback, billed as being within .37 mile. I sit in the bar because it seems to contain less fat people, but have forgotten that in the interior, people still smoke in restaurants. Especially in tobacco-country. I’m looking at the steaks, and thinking that the beef will likely be tasteless, but my waitress, Annie from New Jersey (who has moved here to be halfway between her husband’s family, in Florida, and her own), recommends the seared prime rib. The word “baked” when used in conjunction with steak seems wrong, but I realize they mean roasted. Then, I gather, they sear it with a spice rub. I order this with no potatoes, just broccoli, no appetizer (I get a choice of soup or salad; you tend to forget about this stuff). My salad is quite good, even though it is iceberg lettuce; the tomatoes are red and taste of tomato. The seared spiced steak was the right choice, and the broccoli is green and delicious. I have a glass of Black Opal Shiraz. There are many things the Australians do exceedingly well and I decide that Outback is a viable choice, for a chain (as long as I avert my eyes from the fat-laden hyperbole on the rest of the menu; many of these things could be very nice, if served alone; there is no need to put them all on the same plate). A brisk walk up and down the restaurant row, and I’m back in my room to work on this epistle, read my book, and watch CNN at the same time. That lasts about 5 minutes and when C. calls at 9:30 I’m embarrassed to discover that I’m already asleep.

Note to self: Add to dance mix: Everybody Everybody (Black Box), Groove is in the Heart (Dee-Lite).



Thursday January 26
Knoxville to Memphis
380 miles, all on I-40

I’m on the road at 9:30, after reading, writing, and drinking tea for a frightening total of about 3 hours. The i-pod and satellite radio hardware are loaded, and I’m ready for distance.
At about 10:15, it’s time for a merienda (Spanish for mid-morning snack; in Spain it’s usually coffee or chocolate and a churro). I, however, reach for my travel-size can of SlimJims and have two. C. resents my cholesterol level, but I can’t help it. I’m meat-, fat-, and salt-centric and so far have been allowed to get away with it. OK, let’s talk SlimJims: protein satisfies hunger better, and with less bulk, than any other food. But it’s important to take small bites and chew efficiently—otherwise I’ll be seeing these SlimJim’s ten years from now in a colonic at We Care in Desert Hot Springs.
This morning’s listening is mostly Electronic, interspersed with CNN. I’m driving through Al Gore country, and once again I regret that he didn’t have just a tad more charisma then, than he is finally finding now, so that he could have won over a majority of our country’s voters. Oops, he did win a majority, didn’t he? If our Supreme Court had given more weight to that fact then I wouldn’t be listening to Bush’s ludicrous speech this morning and the USA would not be the laughingstock/pariah/big-bad big brother of the entire globe.

I pass a sign for “Bible Factory Outlet, 75% Off!” Then, “Honest Abe Log Cabins,” and, an hour later “Daniel Boone Log Cabins.” This is still Civil War battlefield country and as a native Californian I’m constantly amazed at how widely that war draped its bloody horror across the American landscape. In Virginia, the docent on our country-house museum tour referred to that war as “The Late, Great Unpleasantness.” (But only when prodded—they’d all prefer to discuss the Revolutionary War and pretend the Civil War never happened.)
I pass Loretta Lyn’s Dude Ranch. Yesterday I saw Dollywood. I must be approaching Nashville. Sylvan Park
And there it is. My lunch plans involve a tiny diner called Sylvan Park, easy-off and easy-on from the 40. It’s perfect; a place I’d never have found without Roadfood. The dish to have is fried chicken with three or four sides, but I’m saving myself for the dry-rub ribs in Memphis tonight, so I just order “Three Sides and a Roll.” It all comes on a divided plastic plate; the turnip greens, although fresh, are the requisite dull green. The macaroni and cheese has no discernable cheese, but is good enough, and the pinto beans are slightly porky. At the table next to me, a man has the same sides but with the addition of a monster piece of golden, knobbly fried chicken. He eats every bite on—or near—his plate before breaking into the fried chicken. I know this game; I do it myself when the main item is the definitive, true paragon of its own genre, like the short ribs at 44 x X in Manhattan, or bistecca Fiorentina cooked in my fireplace. The menu features a “Congealed Fruit Salad,” but I pass, and hit the road again.

I’d like to segue here onto the subject of another, long past road trip, this time from London to the southern coast of Spain. My English first husband had experienced an emotional meltdown and, as a consequence, lost his ritzy job at a waspy US investment bank. He claimed to be unable to work ever again, so I put the London house on the market, had a big garage sale, and loaded up the remaining household effects into a three-ton truck with air brakes. After selling the house (at the asking price) in three days, salting the cash away in Jersey, Channel Islands, and writing out an inventory in three languages, we were ready to set out, heading South. I’d vowed to create a “new” life: The plan was to lick his wounds at our just-finished investment property in Estepona, a small vacation villa never designed to be a full-time home. I’d cater parties to pay the—hopefully minimal—bills. There was no mortgage on the little house.

We’d spent six years as Michelin junkies, driving through France and Italy always on the lookout for a one- or two-knife-and-fork place in a simpatico little village not far from the route. Actually, I had often planned entire trips around a particularly succulent entry, say, a two-knife and fork with a red rocking horse. (I still do this.)
But on this trip, due to the size of the truck, its lack of maneuverability, and our time-table (the truck had to be driven back to England, empty, within a week), we swore to bite the bullet and eat whatever the roadside had to offer. That lasted all through France (Mon Dieu! The restraint!) but not long after we crossed into Spain the lure of the big red Michelin was too strong. Innocently leafing through it, I noted a two-knife-and-fork about 5 miles from our motorway, and we quickly agreed to the aberration-from-plan. Slowly, the big fat truck wound its careful way up the little road towards a lusted-for lunch. The restaurant was in a big whitewashed square; we sat in the shade and consumed pistou, alubias and morcilla (a pesto-like vegetable mélange, beans, and blood sausage) with a small carafe of the local red. Sated and feeling well-armed for the rest of the journey into a new life (before long this may begin to sound like a recurring theme), we climbed into the cab of the truck, patted the big stone lion who sat on the seat between us, (at the last minute, he wouldn’t fit in the back alongside his mate), and prepared to head back to the motorway. There was, however, an immediate problem: We couldn’t get the truck out of the square. The wrought iron balconies at all four of its corners were too low to allow the truck to pass. How we got in, I can’t say, but clearly, we had gotten in and we should be able to get back out. This reasoning was unhelpful. Eventually we scraped the hell out of the metal roof of the cab while amusing a small crowd of black-clad old ladies. It was horrendously embarrassing, but the ladies just nodded. They knew something we didn’t, but I still don’t know what it was. There were no more Michelin forays.

Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I’d just said, “Stiff upper lip, dude, get another job.” Only I wouldn’t have said “dude” in those days.

Well, it’s no wonder I couldn’t book a hotel room in downtown Memphis, it’s the International Blues Competition. I could have gone for the outskirts, but I need to be in easy driving distance of dinner: Charlie Vergos Rendezvous (“Not since Adam has a rib been so famous”). I end up taking a room at the Super 8, which, when I eventually find it, is decidedly down-at-the-heels, in a scrubby, run-down area of abandoned post-industrial buildings. The visible clientele is none too salubrious, either.
C. says “You don’t have to do this when you’re driving alone.” But it’s done. After all, dinner is very important to me. And I lived for years in Venice Beach (before it got gentrified), alongside our more bohemian denizens, plus the crack-heads. I found that an attitude of mutual camaraderie, of brotherhood, was good protection. We are, simply, outraged fellow travelers on life’s lonesome road.
(Implied, but unsaid):
“Yo, this so totally sucks, right?”
“Right. Right?”
“Right.”
“Yo.”
I try to radiate this in-the-know insouciance in the lobby of the Super 8 as I wheel the luggage cart, loaded with my 85 different little bags, toward the elevator. (I just can’t consolidate. That’s why I like driving—you don’t have to. However, you should also request a ground-floor exterior room. Note to self.) I surreptitiously twist my big ol’ honkin’ engagement ring around to the inside. Hey, it’s only one night.
With the now three-day-old travel chardonnay on ice in the plastic Super 8 ice bucket, I do a little writing, catch up on some correspondence (eeeew, dial-up!), and then set out for the Rendezvous.

Okay, I have never been much for barbecue, and this whole regional competition, plus the dry vs. wet discourse, means little to me. Given a choice, my pork is usually rubbed with garlic and rosemary. But these are the best damn ribs I have ever eaten. Oh geez, and the beans! If today’s lunch beans at Sylvan Park had a mild porky-ness, these beans are downright Pork-a-licious! Each bite contains a little hint of smoky, caramelized pork. Even the little paper cup of slaw is smoky. There are squeeze bottles of sauce on the counter but who needs sauce? These justly famous dry-rub ribs are simply the Pork’s Meow. The place is slightly touristy, but not too bad. I will choose to see it as kitsch. Eating at the bar is always the best, I think, when you’re alone, as you can talk to the bartender and often strike up fraternal conversations with fellow bar diners. This time I chatted with “Benjy” (young enough to be my son), here from Boston to sell online press kits to the musicians at the competition. He showed me the huge program: there was a Polish woman who I swear looked exactly like Janis Joplin. At least in the picture.
There was some music going on, on Beale Street, he said, but I was headed back to my elegant lodging to multi-task and fall asleep with the lights on, as usual.
Points for Roadfood? About a billion. And worth the dubious hotel.
(A subsequent note from Benjy: Cosy Corner ribs are better; her name is Magda Piskorczyk (pronounced Peess-core-chick), and she sounds like Janis, too. Check out: http://www.sonicbids.com/piskorczyk)

Friday, January 27
Memphis to Oklahoma City 460 miles
All on I-40
I’m excited about getting into Oklahoma. Just after leaving the festive Super 8 I’ll cross the Mississippi, and then I’ll finally be back in my beloved West, even if I have to start with Arkansas. The travel chardonnay is looking a little wan so I’ll have to replace it today, but that shouldn’t be a problem because in Oklahoma all the gas stations sell beer. I know this because, for boyfriend reasons, I spent the summer after college and several subsequent Christmas’ in Oklahoma City (Oh, so pretty!). I recall a conversation between the boyfriend and his brother at a gas station, as they gassed up the ski-boat:
“Can’t you drive out to the lake without beer?”
“I don’t know,” the brother replied, with an air of perplexed wonder, “I’ve never tried.”
The lake, man-made, was called Tenkiller. Guess why.
Of course, they probably don’t sell chardonnay at the gas stations.

On the road today, I am surrounded by Fema. I pass at least five brand spanking new double-wides, plus an array of similarly brand new truck-trailers. Each double-wide is followed by a small “oversized-load” car; all are driven by what appear to be nine-year-old girls. I’m thinking “Too little, too late,” but that’s not true. There are many, many people still waiting for these trailers. I call my friend in New Orleans and she says “Oh goody, now they only have 100,000 to go.” Later I see an item in the news announcing that “80% of New Orleans’ Black Population May Never Return.”
It seems to me that white New Orleanians have been caught with their undies showing (not my friends, of course). That there was such a division between races and classes in the city would never have been known—at least by outsiders--if Katrina had not come along. Last May, I sat on a cookbook panel at a book conference there with Jeremiah Tower and Julia Reed, among others. I ranged the oysteries and drinkeries with glee, naïvely assuming it would always be there. I fear that I will never see that place again, and if I do that it will be some sanitized, corporate version. Without all the people, that tasty mélange of black and dark chocolate and milk chocolate and white chocolate, there will be no there there. At least not for me.

Lunch today is in Russellville, Arkansas: Feltner’s Whatta-Burger. Now, Roadfood has so far served me well but I have a bone to pick: there are no—not any—directions. I’m be not expecting a Michelin level of detail here, guys, but I’d at least like to know the exit number off the highway. I spend an hour and a half in Russelville, looking for the Whatta-Burger, and it ain’t all that big. Three different people give me conflicting directions and at some point I’m near the end of my rope. This is exacerbated by the fact that I have somehow miscalculated my miles for the day: instead of the 341 I had in my notes, it turns out to be 460. I have a lot of ground to cover and lunch, although important, should not take this long. Of course, I must admit that for 25 minutes of this time I was stopped in a parking lot talking to my agent. He doesn’t call often. I take the call. Whatta-Burger
In the end, my Whatta-Burger is damned good, with a pickle and mustard and beefy flavor and a squishy bun. The place is festooned with awards claiming “Best Burger in Arkansas.” And perhaps it is. The headline on a framed newspaper article, prominently displayed, announces “Whatta-Burger Lives Up to its Name, Customers Tell Others.”

Question: Why is Arkansas pronounced “ARE-CAN-SAW” and not “ARE-CAN-ZASS,” if Kansas is pronounced “KAN-ZASS”?

Signs I loved today:
1. “Aux Arc Park,” in Ozark, Arkansas (I shit you not).
2. Frog Suck Park
3. Lotawatah Rd. (is it very moist there?)
4. Home of Carrie Underwood, American Idol 2005 (a green highway sign; not a brown “local attraction” sign)
5. Home of Clay Aikin, who is not having a good day
And on a casino T-shirt spotted at Whatta-Burger: “Liquor in the front, Poker in the rear”

I do love the seventies station: who remembers Gordon Lightfoot? Suzi Quattro? I guess I’m showing my age here, but I’ve developed this philosophy: Who Cares?

In the afternoon, the miles are starting to weigh heavily and I do some monumental yawning before remembering this crucial fact: I’m in Oklahoma! I could be listening to Asleep at the Wheel!! After that I’m fine all the way to OKC and my little room at La Quinta (thank God, wireless!).

At 7:15 I head up to the Cattleman’s Cafe, about 3 ½ miles away. It’s packed but they can offer me an immediate seat at the counter (note I did not say bar). I settle in and within seconds have struck up a conversation with my neighbor to the left, a sixty-something cattleman named Brian “Woody” Wood. Once it’s been established that we are both happily married, we enter into a spirited discourse on, among other subjects, things that clearly are equally important to both of us: meat and driving. In fact, we never stop talking until the last bite of my rib eye has been sopped in delicious juices and guided straight to my lips. (There is a moment of shocked hesitation—and even a few comments—from my neighbors to the right as well as Woody when I order steamed vegetables instead of a potato, but they get over it when they see that I’m a girl who knows steak.) He asks my advice about wine (he’s always been a merlot man). I guide him to Shiraz and he is (or claims to be) won over. I ask him about the dry- vs. wet-aging discourse. After he gets over the fact that a diminutive, city-fied woman knows as much as I do about meat, he gives me the all-time definitive answer: “Beef should be hung for so long that you gotta slice off the green part before you cook it.” Okey-dokey.Cattleman's, OKC

Woody’s not a rancher, he’s a feed man. That means he takes care of the appetites of 50,000 head at any given time. He’s traveled pretty widely in this pursuit, and has even been to my favorite beef-spot in California, Harris Ranch. He gives me a plethora of restaurant recommendations in California and Nevada, focusing on the apparently fabulous lamb cookery of our Basque population. But what about the legendary conflict between sheep men and cattlemen? Well, it transpires that Woody was raised a sheep man, in Colorado, and became a cattleman, so he’s a little more open-minded. He’s been married for 27 years and has a son in the Navy, currently in Hong Kong but on his way to The Bad Place. We discuss how much safer it is to be on a ship than on the ground. But his wife is still worried. He’ll see her when he gets home, sixty miles north of OKC. This guy is proud of his long distance driving; when I tell him my goal for tomorrow is Amarillo, he says “Y’all’ll be there by lunchtime, whatcha gonna do then?”
Implied but unsaid: that’s a pussy drive.

We part without exchanging numbers or e-mail addresses and head off into the rain. I’d considered asking him if he’d seen the cowpoke movie, but then I reconsidered. It was going too well.

Tomorrow, I was going to skip lunch in order to save room for dinner—my jeans are getting a little tight. But I just happen to be leafing through Roadfood before bed and espy Jiggs Smokehouse in Clinton, Oklahoma. And it’s just about half-way. Note to self: switch to those other jeans.


Saturday January 28
Oklahoma City to Amarillo
260 miles
All on I-40
Let’s examine my driving environment (in short-speak, is this my “Drive-ironment?):
On the passenger seat is my Tar-jay milk crate with the road atlas, AAA hotel guide, Roadfood, camera, SlimJims, Mentos Sours, etc. It’s the electronics that get crazy. The i-pod radio transmitter is plugged into one charger, my phone into the other. The headphones hang from the rear-view mirror (no bluetooth, wires all the way; C. hates this, but he’s not here), and the satellite radio control is perched in the center of all these wires, on a bracket. It can get hairy when the phone rings and I have to halt the i-pod and find the phone to push a button. Then there are my water bottles. And my purse.

I start the morning with Hank Williams, but then realize that I-40 is, for the foreseeable future, sharing the original Route 66, so I dial up all the different versions of “Get Your Kicks on Route 66,” including the smoky Depeche Mode cover from one of the greatest movies of all time, “Earth Girls Are Easy.” It’s one of the first films where we see Jim Carrey and Damon Wayans; Jeff Goldblum is sexier than shit, and one of the funniest men ever: the estimable, now-sadly-departed Charlie Rocket, surpasses every great thing he’d done before. Even the first woman president is pretty good. “’Cause I’m a Blond” by Julie Brown is a song everyone with any shred of a sense of humor should immediately add to their collection. Now. On video.
Jiggs, Clinton OK
It’s a short day today, and before I know it I’m approaching Clinton, OK, home of Jiggs Smokehouse. Ooops, Roadfood actually does supply an exit number, which is good because it’s waaay west of Clinton proper. I still, however, can’t find it when I leave the highway, so pop into the only visible business, an RV supply center. The nice man points back across the highway, where I just came from but further down, to a little shack. As I push out the door he calls out after me “Gonna get a belly-ache!”
I’m reaching the point where I need some salad in my life, but I ask you, who can resist a “PigSickle?” It’s billed as “boneless pork rib meat on a 5-inch bun with cheddar cheese and bbq sauce.” I myself have never seen cheddar cheese that color, or in such a perfect, thin square….This is the first time I don’t finish everything, but the beans are real good (somewhere in between Sylvan Park and the heady heights of the Rendezvous). The walls are covered with business cards. As I munch, deconstructing my PigSickle to exclude most of the bun and a fair amount of the pig, I see one from Ruth Day ‘OBrien, of Garland, TX. Under her name it says “Geneology Pleases By Being.”
Huh?

My post-college days in Oklahoma must have had a profound effect on me, because I feel good out here. The sky is big and blue and these cute little fluffball clouds are floating equidistant from one another all the way to the far-off horizon. There’s a hint of dry warmth to the air, the sun is like a sweet kiss. My lungs feel bigger. I drive slower than normal, with the window down, left arm on the sill and right hand jauntily caressing the wheel. Soon, I see a sign: “An Amazing Spiritual Experience: Biggest Cross in the Western Hemisphere.” Is there a bigger cross in the Eastern Hemisphere? I take a picture of it. It is, indeed, very big. We’re in God’s country now, have been for quite awhile and there’s more on the way.
Then I cross into Texas—a very exciting moment because, even though it’s a long way from here, I’m in the same state with my spiritual home, The Gage Hotel in Marathon (it’s about as far from the panhandle as you can get which, in Texas, is a very long way). The only drawback is the Bush thing, which they just have to put on the Welcome to Texas sign, along with the word “proud.” Spoilers. But Texas is a big place and I’m not going to hold Bush against it. There is a rich tradition of good Texas democrats and two of the best are my friends Pat and Coquina, both from Austin and both now gravitating back there after many years on a coast. Oh goody. An excuse for me to go there.

Sign: “Xtreme Worship! Grace Assembly” The picture on the billboard appears to be of an extreme snow-skier. I get a disturbing visual.Big Cross

Many, many signs alert me that coming up is the “Free 72 oz. Steak!” In small print, they tell you it’s only free if you can eat it within an hour. I have experience with this steak.

I was the assistant food stylist on an obscure and soon-forgotten Billy Bob Thornton movie in which his charcter takes this very challenge. Billy Bob had two demands: A. he wouldn’t eat the real steak, which was over-nighted to me in LA from Texas—whatever actually passed his lips had to be a filet from Whole Foods—and, B. both the steaks had to be well done with not a trace of blood or pink left anywhere. I’d never seen a steak like this big fucker—later when I wrote the Palm restaurant cookbook I asked the executive chef Tony Tammero what it was. He had a name for it, but sadly I can’t remember. These places in Texas are about the only ones that ever serve it. Tough as old boots, Tony implied.

From the top, the steak looked like one large piece of meat, about two inches larger in diameter than a dinner plate. But if you turned it over there were two large lobes on the bottom, like huge butt cheeks. At home on my stove-top grill, I seared it to create the perfect criss-cross marks, then popped it into a 350F oven to finish for an hour, cooked the filet mignon to—at least Billy Bob’s idea of—perfection and set out for the studio. When I sliced into the big steak, it was still dripping with blood inside. Not a kitchen in sight, so I begged an oven from the craft services truck and I swear it was in there for another 1 ½ hours before it could be declared no longer pink. Whew. And I am not talking tender here. The idea was that the camera would see Billy Bob cut up the big steak with his knife and fork and begin to raise it to his lips; then I, standing behind him and wearing foodservice gloves, would snatch the bite off of his fork, he would spear a bite of the Whole Foods steak from the other side of the plate, and that would be the meat the camera actually saw going into his mouth to be chewed.
Ah, the glamour.
And speaking of butt cheeks, I feel compelled to note that Billy Bob had none at all. His body just went straight from his waist to the backs of his thighs. But he was very nice all through our intimate little dance.

Sign: On a huge flashing digital read-out at a Flying J truck plaza: Jambalaya!...Meatballs!...Kebobs!...Propane!...

Tonight, I’m going Mexican: Los Insurgentes in Amarillo. Mmmmm, fresh! Maybe I can have a cheese-free night and really clean out the old system. But I doubt it.

I arrive in Amarillo by 3pm, so decide to drive over and check out Los Insurgentes. It’s a wooden shack of many parts--most of them a large, curtained front window that has been cracked and scotch-taped about thirty times—in the center of a huge, vacant lot. A sign says “Open” but there is no sign of life, if you don’t count the rusted-out Impala by the door. Locked and curtain-ed up tight. I’m thinking it may be very authentico and even simpatico, and if C. were here, definitely. But maybe not just me. There are several non-chain Mexican joints around the hotel; one of them must be OK, right?
On the way back I stop into a seedy-looking discount liquor shack, and amongst the Boone’s Farm and pints of chocolate and apple brandy am able to locate a fine bottle of Beringer. C. and I often ask in bookstores for local restaurant recommendations, but I’m thinking here is probably not the place.
(“Hey Clint, some older babe came in, in ah sint ‘er down to--insert name of skanky establishment here. Less git the gahz together ‘n check ‘er out.”)
Not.
I work for a few hours on one of my actual paying jobs, then shoe-up, grab my keys, and start for the door, heading for, perhaps, the “Fiesta Grande” down the block.
Then I skid to a halt.
I am simply not hungry. This gives me an absolutely amazing sense of release. That partial PigSickle was about all this body needed for today. Or, perhaps, not.

Two hours later I order a club sandwich with a side of ranch dressing from the Denney’s Diner across the parking lot, and watch back-to-back Law and Orders ‘till after midnight.


January 29
Amarillo to Albuquerque
All on I-40/Rt. 66
286 miles
I see mesas! I see red dirt! It doesn’t take long to get through Texas when you’re up here in the panhandle and soon enough I’m crossing into New Mexico. There’ll be no lunch for this girl today, but just to be sure I check Roadfood: there’s nothing in Tucumcari, so I’m safe.

Sign: “XXX pounds of trash collected from our roads this year, “Toss No Mas!”

  Question: How did New Mexico manage to stay so Mexican? OK, it used to be a part of Mexico, but so did Texas. And California. I notice the license plates say “New Mexico, USA.” No other states seem to feel the need for this clarification. What I do know is that I love it here. I went to high school in the red-rock country of Arizona and it’s starting to feel like home. Not to mention the fact that I lived in Spain for three years. But that’s another story.

All the driving is starting to wear. I feel a little melancholy, perhaps aided by the fact that I’m listening to Moby's "Why does my heart feel so bad?" C. says I’m “game” but my neck is stiff and I’m getting a little tired of looking at myself in the mirror under motel fluorescent lighting. Do I really look like that? I’m starting to believe it.
I stop to walk around at a rest stop and meet a nice couple from Texas with two fabulous dogs, JD the stropping young standard poodle and Gina the sweet old white schnauzer. They register shock (the people, not the dogs) when I tell them I’m driving across the country solo, Suddenly I realize that, no matter how much fun I’m making this, it is kind of a big deal. The timing for this realization and my melancholy couldn’t be better because tonight I get to stop, at least for a little while. I’ve found a cute-sounding B&B in Albuquerque and will be staying there for two nights. Last year we broke up the drive with a stop at The Gage Hotel in Marathon, which, as I may have mentioned, immediately became one of my spiritual homes. I think it should become a tradition, this stopping to rest at somewhere simpatico in the Southwest. I can’t wait.

Note to self: Add Honey and Bodyrock (Moby) to Dance mix.

I arrive at the pretty little Hacienda Antigua in Albuquerque in the early afternoon and no one is around, so I drive over to check out tonight’s dinner destination, Sadie’s Cocinita (found in the archives of the New York Times travel section). It’s in a strip mall and looks a bit on the large size for what I’ve imagined, but I decide not to jump to any immediate conclusions. My ideal of authentico/simpatico is not so easy to meet. Not after the Cattlemen’s Club.
Back at the Hacienda, I meet Bob the proprietor and his dogs: Ebony the fat, middle-aged black lab with an entire body that wags constantly, and the smile of an angel; and Max, the brand new and full-of-himself miniature schnauzer. After I yok it up with the dogs for a few minutes, Bob shows me to my big, rustic room.
I am saved! There is a kiva fireplace, a sunken Jacuzzi, and a king-sized bed arrayed with the kind of linens I’d buy for my own home. Antiques and a mini-kitchen round it out, and outside the window there is New Mexico. Bob’s son lays a fire while I choose from a cabinet full of fabulous beauty samples with which I will create my bath shrine (one of the owners sells a few lines of products on the side, and all the samples are available to guests). Once the chardonnay is on ice, I set the i-pod to New Age and just let it shuffle, then sink into perfection. I stay there for quite some time.
Things are looking up.
Bob tells me El Pinto, up 4th street in the opposite direction from Sadie’s, is a better dinner bet, and I’m game. When I arrive, however, my faux alarm goes off. It’s way too big, way too pale, and way too full of people wearing gym shoes. What does this mean? It means I’m out West and I’d like to see at least some cowboy boots. The inexorable homogenization of this country—and, really, the world—is so sad. Understandable, I guess, but still sad. This is clearly not a boot-wearing crowd and not really my kind of restaurant. The menu is laminated, perfect, and bland. When I make my way to the bar and ask the pasty-faced teenaged bartender for a margarita made with fresh lime juice, he looks pained. “The margaritas are already made,” he gestures to a tap next to the beer pulls. When I look disappointed, he sighs and allows, grudgingly “Weeeelll, you’ll have to wait until I have time...I’m real busy right now.” I wait.
This is a pet peeve of C.’s and mine.
Sour mix, which most bartenders use for margaritas, daiquiris, etc., is the ultimate in faux. A daiquiri or margarita made with sour mix is not a real drink, as far as we're concerned. Sometimes, we’ll just ask for some cut limes on the side and squeeze them ourselves. At our local Mexican in Hudson NY, Pat the bartender starts squeezing limes the minute we walk in the door. But the ultimate margarita--the paragon of margaritas--was in Cabo Pulmo, an electricity-less village in Baja California where I spent the Millenium New Years’ eve. Carlos never stopped squeezing limes, and when more than five people were in his shack-bar (a generator made the precious ice), it took him quite some time to get everyone served. But these drinks were worth waiting for, because they were real. The legendary bartender at Hemingway’s hangout in Havana, La Floridita, had a bar-back whose sole function it was to roll the limes back and forth on the bar to release the maximum juice, before they were cut and squeezed by the Maestro. But I digress.
A quesadilla—an old, old friend and hard to screw up, arrives with cheese on top as well as inside the two tortillas. Is this a local tradition or just part of the incessant mainstream American restaurant’s drive to do more: serve more food, fattier food, more garnishes, more things on a plate than nature intended. Not that I am one to complain about fat. Or cheese. Ever.

But: Will anything on this trip ever equal my dinner at the Cattleman’s Club in OKC?


Monday, January 30
Albuquerque
Today, blissfully, I do virtually no driving. After a cup of tea and a poached egg, I explore Albuquerque a little and like what I see. A lot. Since you can’t roll in to L.A. with compromised nails, I spring for a manicure and pedicure. Even here, the proprietors are Vietnamese; can anyone tell me how this happened? I volunteered at the refugee camps in Hong Kong in ’79, when there were tens of thousands of Vietnamese waiting for resettlement. Not a one of them ever said to me “Brigit, I can’t wait to get to America to open a nail salon.”
I scope out my possibilities for tonight’s dinner in person, running to the doors barefoot to check out the menus of four different places, because shoes at this point would wreck the toenails that Kim has done for me so beautifully.

Back at the Hacienda I grab my cheap and sophomoric page-turner and sit outside, reading, for two hours. Heaven. A Santa Fe train rumbles past on the old El Camino Real route. This suddenly catapults me back in time, straight to childhood. When I was little my parents commuted back and forth from L.A. to New York city about twice a year, for my dad’s work (Déjà vu, anyone?). A few of those times, we went by train: the Super Chief to Chicago, where we changed to the old Twentieth Century. Sitting alone and cozy in my little Pullman berth with the reading light on, looking out at the dark country passing by—this is one of the strongest and fondest memories of my childhood. Many little slices of life passed by my window too quickly to truly understand but easy to fantasize about. The lights of a drugstore, a traffic light, a lonely truck waiting for the train to pass. As a child I knew nothing about the world in between the two coasts; I suppose I imagined Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, and James Dean out there on a windswept prairie. In fact, James Dean might have been in one of those trucks. And I remember well that those trains always stopped in Albuquerque. How life comes around full circle.

From this reverie, I looked up at the sky and found it covered with stripes, like a flag. Straight white strips stretched from eastern horizon to western horizon and top to bottom: jet-trails. I really am in fly-over country now, I thought, and I like it just fine. I think that at some point, you realize that you don’t have to be in the center of the universe anymore. The universe can get along just fine without me. Well, maybe if we can get a really decent democratic candidate fielded in time, this time around. One with staying power.

I head out to sample the Happy Hour at a fancy-ish place called Season’s, in the old town. I’m looking for various slices of the local life. Season’s is very nice and Sonoma Cutrer is one of the best there is, but suddenly I realize I could be in any city in the country. There is no hint of here here, so I head out. At a little joint called Garduño’s on 4th street, a mile or so north of Sadie’s, I elbow up to the almost-empty bar and order a bowl of chile con queso. The bartender is a real New Mexican, the chile con queso is good (but not as good as my friend Linda’s, which she actually has flown in from Felix' in Austin every Christmas eve), and the menu isn’t laminated. I quickly find myself chatting with a baby cowboy wearing what he clearly doesn’t realize is a ludicrous hat. On him anyway. It has to do with his ears and the alarmingly large diameter of the brim. Also a little to do with the height of the hat: There’s a whole lot of room between the top of his head and the top of his hat. Unless there’s something I don’t know here.
(From the table of three behind me, I overhear this: “She spent a year in jail, you know, but now she’s walkin’ the straight and narrow.” Eureka.)
It transpires that the baby cowboy is a union electrician who lives in some small town quite a bit west of here, but spends the week in town working. His wife didn’t like his long work-related absences, he says, and she walked out. “How long were you gone?” I ask. “Never more than two months.” Hmmmm.
Then it was just him and his dog, and then the dog died. But he inherited the land from his Irish-descended grandfather, and built his house with the intention of staying there forever. Land and family are king to this boy; he’s just not going to sell up and move to town, wife or no wife. When his buddy pulls up outside and honks the horn, the baby cowboy with his too-big ears and his too-big hat hops off his stool and heads for the door. “You’re real nice,” he says on the way out, “lemme give ya a hug. We hug here.” He does, and then he’s gone. Swear to God. I finish my seriously tasty beef fajita taco and then I’m gone too. But I think I’ll be back to Albuquerque.


Tuesday January 31
Albuquerque to Sedona
I-40, 17, and the Schnebly Hill Road
I could stay on another day or twelve at the pretty little Hacienda, but it’s already time to go. Driving out of town I see a sign on a church that proclaims “Come on in, we’re Prayer Conditioned!”

I'm not doing too many miles today, but I want to get to Sedona during magic hour, to see the old school in the best light possible. I haven’t been to Sedona in quite some time, and am aware that it’s experienced rampant development, but I can’t wait to see the red rocks. From that first moment in New Mexico I’ve been getting choked up every time I see a patch of red dirt. Instead of lunch I stop and eat my first-ever Krispy Kreme doughnut. It seems like the right thing to do, immersed as I have been in the real food of the interior. But twenty minutes later I feel sick. Does everyone?Wispy Clouds
It’s almost completely barren out there in between Albuquerque and Flagstaff, but the sky is huge and the clouds are doing something high, wispy, and western. Suddenly I discover that I’m pretty close to empty, gas-wise, so I take the first exit that seems mildly promising. A little hand-written sign advertises gas at La Cubana, but I’ve driven 1 ½ miles in the indicated direction without seeing a thing except ruins. Eventually I see La Cubana: it’s a little adobe building that appears to have been selling gas for several hundred years. The good news: I’m saved from running out of gas out in the middle of nowhere. The bad news: I have been driving on the old, abandoned Route 66, and it’s dotted with a host of miserable, ruined pueblitos and formerly seedy motels. Where the 40 and the 66 run together, businesses have thrived—but where they part it’s a long, dusty and strung-out ghost town. An unutterably sad place for me after listening to every available rendition of “Get Your Kicks On Route 66.”

I’m dreaming and driving peacefully across the pale, barren plains, listening to my original Road Mix when suddenly, out of nowhere, I am surrounded by pine trees. We’re climbing up towards Flag, I know, but the terrain changes in a heartbeat. If I had time, I could detour north to the Grand Canyon, where at the age of sixteen I hiked 150 miles in three weeks (boy, did my legs look great). But that’ll have to be another trip. Near Flag I see the first sign for Los Angeles, and my heart jumps into my throat.
But I’m not going there today, or even tomorrow. I head down Rt. 17 towards Phoenix, looking for exit 320 and the legendary Schnebly Hill Road. It’s a twelve-mile dirt road that drops from the pine-clad, mountainous plateau of Flagstaff straight down into the lush, red-rock and piñon pine-filled Verde Valley, home of the once-tiny town of Sedona, and my old high school. I checked before leaving that the road was still open, but it’s been thirty years since I’ve been on it. As I nose toward the start of the road this is, possibly, the most anticipated moment of my drive. I disregard the sign that says 4-wheel-drive vehicles only (they don’t mean me).
At first I am bumping and winding through thick pines, and then pine-dotted meadows. After a mile or so I catch the first glimpse of the rocks that line the valley walls. Capital, I think. Once, I knew the names of all the rocks. Then the land begins to slope gently, and then slope a bit more, and suddenly the full majesty of the valley is revealed. Monumental rock formations rise from the valley floor into pinnacles, small mesas, cow-pat-shaped, soft-edged formations, and craggy extrusions that reminded the early settlers of all manner of things. Coffeepot rock. Castle rock. Bell rock. Cowpie. Napoleon. Greyhound Bus Station rock. And hundreds more.Schnebly Hill Road
In recent decades, Sedona’s magic has inspired the new, pink-jeep-driving locals to boast of vortexes and harmonic vibrations. I don’t know about that, but long ago on a sunny day I found some damned fine harmonic vibrations--of a sexual nature--on one of the soft-edged, flat-topped rocks beside this, the Schnebly Hill Road. Vortex? Maybe. More like an epiphany (if he’s reading this, he knows who he is).

The road is so rough that it takes 45 minutes to cover the twelve miles, and just before I reach the end I see an ominous sight: two jeeps are stopped in the middle of the road. Each one boasts one bored, hat-wearing, post mountain-man driver and several velour-and gym-shoe-clad people snapping pictures of my special valley. When I emerge onto Rt. 179, I haven’t got a clue where anything is. Eventually I find my bearings and am beyond amazed at the damage (ooops, progress) that time has wrought here. I head out of civilization again as fast as I can, straight for the old school.

Magic hour it is, happily, and even though luxury homes have encroached to within half a mile of the school, when I get there it is like stepping back in time. Kids are around: having water fights in the quad, riding in the ring, and playing soccer, but there are no persons of authority visible. So I just help myself to a lovely long walk around the dilapidated but solid adobe-and-tile buildings that make up this tiny, perennially-struggling alternative school. I revisit the scenes of many a crime and some memorable (for me) stage performances. In the chapel, the place normally occupied by a cross or a pulpit is taken by a massive picture window. Through it, the congregation can gaze out upon the most magical rock of all: Cathedral. It was here that I graduated and, in theory, entered the adult world. What I can’t quite understand is why I skipped tenth grade. Idiot! I could have stayed here a whole ‘nother year. Why are we always in such a rush to grow up? (Easy to ask that question now.) Did someone say youth is wasted on the young? God I can’t believe how much that used to irritate me. Now I’m the next generation. I know that when I was here I never appreciated the spectacular world around me nearly enough.
My old high-school roommate, who I’ll be staying with starting tomorrow in Scottsdale, has recommended a restaurant called Renée’s, in Tlaquepaque, the now ancient-looking adobe shopping center that was new when I left here. But Renée’s is too empty and too fancy for me, so I find the Oak Creek Brewery and Grill. The good news: I can eat at the bar. Bad news: there’s a TV blaring away right above it. I’m still dreaming about that steak at the Cattleman’s in OKC, so I order a steak here. Mistake. No flavor. What am I thinking? However, the bartender actually seems happy to squeeze fresh lime juice for my one daiquiri. Sitting next to me is an incredibly attractive 50-something couple who moved to Sedona in 1985. They consider themselves the "old-timers" here, and are amazed that I left in 1974. We discuss Sedona, property values (they are in real estate, of course—what else would you do here to make a living?), their son who wants to be an actor, where they should buy a second home now that their nest is almost empty (perhaps Maui), and the demographics of this strangely precious community. It’s mostly second- and third-home owners, and shops have names like “Maggie’s What-Nots.” I’m wondering what the hell has happened to the boot-wearing, long-haired, red dust-rimed hikers, horse-back riders, pick-up truck-driving old Sedonans that I remember. They’ve sold up and headed to the next far-off place, I gather. Until it, too, becomes a destination for second-homers wearing velour and gym shoes. Back at my hotel I fall asleep in front of the computer, searching for a small town in New Mexico that offers what I have lost here. The sensation that I belong in the west is strengthening at an alarming pace. But the real west is gettin’ a little hard to find these days.Wednesday,


February 1
Sedona to Scottsdale
Rt. 179 to I-17 to Loop 101 to Shea Blvd.
Lunch today, at the Sedona Golf Club, is with my faculty advisor from high school, Judge. I’m worried that he’ll look old, and he does a little, but the spark in his eyes, the humor, and the infectious laugh are still there. He’s wearing shorts and, yes, gym shoes, but he’s also driving a big white truck and tells me that when the new Sedona gets on his nerves, he just looks out the window. Yeeee-haw!
I love that he expresses surprise that I, and my old roommate Zak (now named Mary) actually “made it.” It ain’t hard to figure out that he’s telling me we seemed so fucked-up at the time that we’d likely crash and burn. Sadly, he knows many others that did.
Reality check: When he helped to form the person I would become, he was thirteen years younger than I am now. We’ve kept in touch sporadically, and even had lunch in Los Angeles about ten years ago. I know we’ll keep it up. What an amazing job, to care for other people’s children. Zak-Mary herself has raised and launched three fine young men. I’ve, um, well, done an awful lot of interesting stuff. Oh yeah, and published fourteen books.

Driving out of the precious valley toward Phoenix after lunch, my feelings run the full gamut. Why has it taken me so long to come back here? Did I leave something here that can ever be found? Perhaps it is just lost along with my callow youth. How did I end up living in the Northeast if I so love the rocks and cactus and dust?

Now comes another day and a half break, in Scottsdale: cooking, appreciating Taliesin West, sitting on Mary and her husband’s patio surrounded by cactus and grapefruit trees, baking the Northeast right out of my bones. And talking. Perhaps because of my lunch with Judge, Mary and I talk about things that haven’t been mentioned in over thirty years. Her memory, sometimes, complements my own. I’m glad to note that she has completely forgotten some things I remember vividly (and, admittedly, vice versa). Our stories differ on some pretty basic things, like how long I stayed in Sedona after high school was over (I stayed for one summer and then hit college…she stayed for six years and two babies; she swears I stayed much longer).

On the final night, I test two of the ten remaining recipes for my Salad book, which is due in two short weeks. Mary and her husband and two of their extremely smart and festive friends are kind and willing guinea pigs, and give me the informed +/- feedback I need to be confident about the viability of the recipes. Yay! I get to feel proud and accomplished. See, I do work!


Friday February 3
Scottsdale to Topanga Canyon
Loop 101 to 202 West to I-10 to Pacific Coast Highway
Mary’s an inefficient sleeper, so she’s had time to come up with many questions and clarifications about the past-delving conversational subjects of the Cointreau-lubricated night before. She has a list. Over tea, we run through her queries, which include “How and when and why did you know C. was The One?” among many other pretty deep questions, some of whose answers I would have preferred to forget. I sense we’ll revisit these and many more subjects in the wonderful, eccentric years to come. We can gleefully remind one another of events that might seem best forgotten, but are really just, now, great entertainment. Because, as Judge so correctly put it, we’ve made it. Oh goody.

I can’t put it off any longer: I’m off to L.A. Feeling sad and happy and eager to see friends and settle down a bit, but melancholy at leaving the glorious open road. I’ve got one last day, so I’m determined to make it count. Roadfood lists “El Gallito” in Cathedral City, and this becomes my lunch destination. I get a wonderful sense of symmetry when my lunch spot is within 30 or 40 miles of being halfway, but that’s not the case today. It’s actually about two-thirds, hard by Palm Springs. And then when I get there, there’s no clue as to what exit to take, or where it might be. L.A.’s Friday rush-hour traffic is going to start brewing any minute now, and mindful of the 1 ½ hours spent looking for Feltner’s Whatta-Burger in Russellville, Arkansas, I make an executive decision to forge on. But soon I see the tell-tale dinosaur statues on my right, at Cabazon, and there’s The Wheel Inn! It seems just plain wrong that a California native has never had a date shake, so I stop in. And since I’m here, what about a nice hot dog? I’m going into salad mode starting bright and early tomorrow, so one last indulgence seems fitting.
“I’ll take a date shake and a dog with cheese,” I tell the waitress, who is wearing a leopard-print dress with bells at the hemline and matching boots, also with bells.
And then a lovely thing happens: She opens her mouth to ask me a question, “American, Swiss, Cheddar, or….Jack.”
I have returned to the world of real cheese. Hallelujah!
“I’ll have Jack, and make it double-cheese, please.”
It’s a fitting final dog and a sweet, cold confection I can only slurp half of; it’s like drinking the old California. And then I’m on my way. Back, now, in the land of my youth.
Of course, this has its good points and its bad.
First up, I drive through Banning, where I spent a night in jail at the tender age of fourteen. I remember they took away my glasses. What did they think I was going to do, eat them as a way of committing suicide? Dinner that night was chipped beef on toast. But that’s another story. View of canyon
Soon afterwards begin the endless suburbs that herald the upcoming arrival of the City of Angels. But something strange is happening: It looks exactly like someone has drizzled unfiltered brown chicken stock evenly across the bottom one-third of the horizon. Ohhhh, I remember: Smog.
Eventually, after the joy of downtown, I hit the Pacific, and turn north towards the canyon. The ocean glitters an intense blue. Today, the ocean doesn’t care about the smog. I’m sanguine: That’s what you get here.

Well, here I am. Coast to coast, solo, in only nine days and a few thousand thoughts, some of them profound. I’ve eaten things that no self-described gourmet, or foodie, would ever condone. Many of them, I liked. Fast-food-chain count? Two, Nathan’s back in New York and Denny’s Diner on the night I wimped out in Amarillo. Places I’d revisit? Oh, all of them! (Except maybe Jiggs, home of the PigSickle.)

Was it worth it? Here's a clue: I can’t wait for the next drive, in late April, back the way I came. Or maybe this time, a different way. One with people and food and sights to be slowly chewed and endlessly savored. The prospect brings happy tears to my eyes.
But in the meantime, here's the view from my front door in Topanga Canyon. For balance, compare with
this view, of the driveway in New York on the day I set off Westward.