Next stop, the "maple sirup" shop near Funks Grove IL. This is in back of the owner's house, amongst a stand on maples squeezed between I-55 and old US-66. Maple syrup is not exactly in season, but they did have a few ½-pint bottles, perfect size for me as I rarely have pancakes or waffles at home but like to have real syrup around for when I do. Continued on to south suburban Saint Louis, first feed-the-truck stop. Big tank, but also big appetite, for the Ford truck would get 12 miles to the gallon at best.
To this point, had been on every road before, and as such in every county, though there were a few stretches of I-55 where this had been the first time I'd been behind the wheel. From here to the west end of I-20, all but a few of the counties would be new, and the only repeated roads driven would be a few miles near Little Rock this night, and about 30% of the miles driven on the 4th.
The remainder of Day 1 was spent on or near US-67. With a 10' truck, especially one loaded with personal possessions, U-turns at county lines are nearly impossible. Plus, with the above-noted gas mileage, a few miles' detouring here and there can sure add up fast! The one side-trip I made this night was on Hwy. 142 for Ripley County. Had I known there would be 4 (or was it 5?) one-lane bridges in the 3.5 miles to the county line, I would have saved it for a car and the daylight. At least I found a small rural warehouse just past the line for a relatively easy parking lot U-ie, then on into Arkansas.
A college station from Jonesboro was running Public Radio Internationall's Halloween special all evening, some good listening there, and I found Dr. Demento on the 920 in Little Rock. Not that I needed anything scary, as from just south of Newport until the fringes of suburban Little Rock, the rain was coming down quite heavily. Had I been able to see enough ahead in advance of an exit to spot a motel, I would have given up for the night. Somehow made it to the Rock safely just as the rain finished up there. Just before the exit for the southside Motel 6, there was a Red Roof Inn billboard plugging a lower rate. However, as happens only about 99.999% of the time in such instances, the story was different at check-in. In this case, the excuse was "all those rooms are already taken, and all we have are double rooms!" Hmmm, can't figure out why a motel would have a rate for one person/two beds?? As often as I grumble about Motel 6 anymore, at least it's rare that they pull the Bait & Switch fraud on billboard prices, and they usually charge by the person, NOT by number of beds. The 6 here was 3 stories, with all indoor entrances and an elevator, pretty nice even if the view was of the dispised Red Roof. Had a late dinner (or incredibly early breakfast) next door at the Waffle House. For some unknown reason, instead of waffles I ordered an omelette. This one was as fun to watch being made as it was to eat...she whipped up the eggs in a shake mixer, making the fluffiest omelette I've ever had.
Which was the largest city I had so far missed that was not in Hawaii, North Carolina or Texas. Even then, I first stopped in companion Bossier City, for my 2nd annual CiCi's Pizza Buffet lunch. About all I saw of Shreveport itself was a bunch of oil refineries, with a large football stadium next to one. Strange, was about 10º cooler there than it had been the previous morning near Chicago. The local paper said it had been the same situation the previous couple days. Double strange, the Louisiana state fair was going on that week, in Shreveport at that! Top station in town was KWKH, with country oldies.
Texas would be almost all I-20, with one brief county detour west of
Longview. I took state highway 42 up to US-80,
but traffic and the sun's alignment conspired to prevent a photo shoot.
US-80 was as busy as I-20, so I stayed on it only to just past Mineola.
And only that far because there was a Sonic Drive-In for a liquid break.
Gotta tell you, Sonics and trucks do not mix! The passenger cab is
more like a van and fit under the awning, but the cargo section is a foot
higher. In two Sonic stops, I got the truck to within an inch of
the awning, but it still meant getting out of the truck to push the order
button. Yes, the Cherry Limeade is worth the trouble.
Got into the Dallas-Fort Worth Multiplex about 6pm. Despite being that late, and I-20 being theoretically the south bypass, traffic was still fast and furious. I was planning to have dinner beyond it all, at Weathersford or points west, but I gave up, escaping the madhouse to head for the Furr's Cafeteria in Arlington. Turned out there was a Mexican buffet place next door, but I did not see it until after dinner. I made a note of Pancho's, in case I ran into one down the road. Some good radio around Dallas, such as the Tex-Mex "tejano" on 99.1, and classical on 101.1. The latter station, WRR, is still owned by the city of Dallas despite occasional rumors that they would sell it to take advantage of ever-higher station prices.
The KRLD weather forecasts were crowing about high winds for that night, from Dallas all the way to New Mexico. They hit just after I left the western suburban fringes of Fort Worth. The truck only occasionally handled rough, but the big-rigs were wriggling like snakes. I really didn't know how much energy my fight with the wheel consumed until I stopped for gas near Clyde. It still wasn't TOO late at night, but I really felt worn out! There were 2 side-by-side stations, both the same high price so I went to the first. The pumps weren't pumping, and it looked like the clerk and a few of his pals were just goofing off inside, so I went over to the other station, quickly got enough gas and caffienated soda to get me to Abilene.
...Where many of the motels had billboards, with prices on them even. The cheapest was also seemingly the most convenient. No surprise, the posted-price rooms "were already taken" (with only 4-5 cars in the lot?), though at least the available rate was still slightly cheaper than the town's Motel 6, plus it included breakfast so I wound up there anyway. The Budget Host was a former Best Western that had fallen on hard times, perhaps one oil or cattle price bust too many? It had a restaurant and conference center, both long closed. My room had 2 doors, one on the hall like a hotel, and one out to the parking lot (though no parking space near the door?!).
The Furr's in Big Springs had just opened for the day. Where most of the Furr's and Bishop's are dark, often with a pseudo-hunting lodge decor, this one was bright and cheery with lots of neon, more like a phony Mexican bar-restaurant. The Wal-Mart next door had a gas station, with the lowest price I saw in Texas, so it was a good break. The rest of I-20 was covered without incident, and my last new county for the trip (Ward) was celebrated with a Sonic Cherry Limeade in the county seat.
The west Texas badlands did not seem so bad this time. Perhaps some recent rain sprouted vegetation? My other time through, riding Greydog cross-country on I-10 in 1981, it all looked like a dry, barren hell-hole but this time I liked the scenery a lot. Hit El Paso early in the afternoon commute-time zone. Nutty traffic, especially around the exits for bridges over to Ciudad Juarez. Does not help that the tall, steep bluffs create traffic funnels through narrow valleys. Dunno why, but it was not TOO scary? Guess it helped to have some interesting radio to keep me distracted. The Juarez station on 1300, for instance, had 50s and 60s American songs interspersed with similar sounding Spanish tunes, and the El Paso on 93.9 had some hot Spanish dance hits and high-energy announcers who kept bouncing between Spanish and English. I had found a listing for 2 Pancho's locations in El Paso, one on a road paralleling I-10 north of downtown. Alas, found only where it used to be, so instead I wound up at yet another Furr's. By the time I parked there, the 1300 had changed to its evening "Romantica" show, mostly soft love ballads all en español.
Had given a thought to staying overnight in El Paso, to check out all the other stations on both sides of the Rio Grande/Rio Bravo, but the zone of reasonably-priced motels was literally in the shadow of a couple blufftop radio towers, and I saw nothing farther north even around the northern shopping zone near I-10?! Was early enough (especially now being in Mountain time) where I could have easily reached Arizona that night, except any lodgings I could find listed along I-10 had theirhigher winter-season rates in effect already. This might be why the Winnebagos began to outnumber trucks as I hit the AZ line the next morning, but I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, ha. I settled on the Motel 6 in Deming, NM, which I reached at a reasonable hour even with the first of my three "Checkpoint Charlie" stops, this one being the friendly US Border Patrol stop west of Las Cruces. There are many such checkpoints coming up from the border region, something I gotta get used to if I'm to visit San Diego or the Imperial Valley as often as I will be wanting to.
Dinner was at one more Furr's, in Yuma. Had to pass miles and miles of mobile home park-style RV parking grounds on the way, for the snowbirds. On into California just past dark, with checkpoint #2 just ahead. The state of California has its own border stations for keeping out what it considers undesirables...in this case, fruits and vegetables. Continued on to El Centro for my last overnight stop, and my first snooze below sea level. Gas prices REALLY hurt...more so as this is a producing state??
Ran into a traffic snarl on the street from there up to I-10, which threatened to louse up my noon ETA at Riverside. Made up the time on I-10, where I was surprised how many cars I was passing despite only going the legal limit? Wound up a tad "late" anyway, as from the direction I was driving, my friend's street is easy to miss. Oh yeah, coming around the last hill before Riverside, I ran into some really nasty looking air. My friend assures me it's just haze, not smog..."You'll know the difference", like I want to find out, ha.
To thank him for helping unload the truck at his place and (more so) at a storage locker, treated John to dinner. A fitting end to the trip, as it turned out the chosen restaurant had also just been robbed! At least this time it was not a spiteful former employee.
Plan B, try out LA's light-rail Green Line, opened since my 1993 visit, and a slightly easier photo op than the busy Blue Line (Fred Watch the Closing Doors Argoff was having trouble getting any LA zine people to take pictures of any Metro rail line!?). Looked over the AAA maps for the west leg, and noted how close it came to the address of one of the folks I wanted to see. Took a chance Don AudioZineVille Fields might be home and rang the bell...nope, just missed him, but the door was answered by former zine-swapper Marc Camera Obscura Tucker. He'd quit that zine, and had been writing music criticism for various papers until he ran into trouble for actually daring to be less than complementary.
Stopped by LA's new basketball/hockey arena to pick up what skeds they bothered to give me, then walked up the street 3 blocks to the good old Original Pantry restaurant. First time I was in there solo, so no while-you-wait veggie bowl, "just" a good dish of cole slaw. Not that one ever waits long, as I had barely finished reading one page of the LA Weekly and my order was already in front of me.
Gobs of time to kill before the train back to Riverside, but not enough time to really do anything but hop on the Red Line subway to check out most of what had opened since 1993, and of course more pix for Argoff. While the two light-rail lines are heavily used, the full-scale subway still lags behind on use. Has to be either the shorter route, poorer bus connections, and/or a flaw in the line's fare structure (here's a line, and a transit system in general, that can REALLY use a "day pass"!!) Rode out to the current end, Hollywood and Vine...could not believe it could get any drearier, but now even the underside (druggies, whores, etc) has vanished?
The parade crowds were already gathering, but I did find a good viewing spot, the northwest corner of Colorado and Fair Oaks. Was a wacky parade, started 20+ years ago as a spoof of the Rose Parade. Heck, they even had a group of "Dead Rose Queens" marching. Was tough to take photos with so many unsettled spectators milling to & fro, but one shot made sure to attempt was of the "Claude Rains Memorial 20-Man Marching Band". Not sure if we'll be able to see much in that picture though, ha!
Post-parade, I zigged and zagged my way southward trying to get out of Pasadena, winding up way down in Bellflower to seek and find the LA area's lone Furr's Cafeteria. From the crowds and long lines, I would expect this one will survive awhile, though I would've thought the same about the defunct Bishop's Buffets of West Dundee, Janesville, etc. From there, another loooooong march to get back, via I-5 and Hwy. 91. The latter might have been a scenic route when first built, but now it's a 6-lane freeway with a 4-lane tollway squeezed into the middle. Have to be sure to wake up early enough on the 29th to take the train from Riverside to Orange County for the auto club job test.
[* - Have since been to these spots, somewhat....]
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