Happy moments on the road

I’m back in the US, motoring across the Northwest towards a family reunion in Wyoming.   Beautiful, hot, sunny weather, open roads, miles humming by, conversational catch-up.

  Roadside signs like “Sweet, fresh, Porn” (a defaced farmer’s roadside stand, I think)

Discovering that, for the first time, I qualify for the Senior’s Menu choices at Denny’s and AJ’s.  Despite being pressured by my daughter, I resist the discount and order real food, in adult portions.

Roadside diners (and the daughter)

Time to catch up with Excess Baggage on BBC4, listening to North American correspondent Jim Webb marveling about how empty the United States is once you leave the coasts.  And, looking across the dry expanse of desert and tumbleweed, thinking of corresponding Netherlands flatness, it really is unpopulated by comparison.

…and teasing an idle thought for 100 miles: is it better to spend time with someone well-traveled, well-read, well connected, or well-bred?  After 158 miles, I conclude “well-travelled”.

and of course, there’s  a bit of Dutch almost anywhere you look…even in La Grande, Oregon or Coulter BayVillage, Wyoming.