One Headlight

I saw The Wallflowers perform at Hollywood Casino at Charles Town Races last month. It was an odd concert and an odd venue. Let's back up a little. For those of you under 35 (and I completely understand that no one under 35 reads this blog unless one of my kids stumbles on to a post), The Wallflowers are a band that had several massive hits in the mid-90s, and their lead singer is Jakob Dylan, son of Bob Dylan. 

The Wallflowers are touring to celebrate the 30th (30th!!!!) anniversary of the release of their album Bringing Down The Horse ("BDTH"). Although I never actually bought the album, over 4 million people did, and of course I knew all of the band's big hits from that album. For this tour, The Wallflowers performed all of the songs from BDTH in order. Unfortunately, the album is extremely frontloaded. One Headlight and 6th Avenue Heartache are the band's biggest hits, and the first two songs they played. After Bleeders, the band performed Three Marlenas and probably my favorite song, The Difference. 

Those were the first five songs. I honestly could have gone home at that point. The band played the remaining songs from BDTH, and I barely knew many of them. 

Before the show, I listened to some of the more recent Wallflowers songs to try to familiarize myself with their later work. I didn't need to. I completely missed the fact that The Wallflowers were going to perform the entire Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' album, Long After Dark. I like Tom Petty. I mean, everyone likes Tom Petty. However, except for You Got Lucky, I didn't know any of the other songs from that album. No I Won't Back Down, no Runnin' Down a Dream, no American Girl, no Don't Come Around Here No More. The Wallflowers closed with I've Been Delivered (a song of theirs that I didn't recognize) but never played Heroes and finished with two Tom Petty songs that I knew, Refugee and The Waiting. 

Overall, such an odd venue. I mean look at it.

This looks more like a large hotel ballroom than a concert venue. On the positive side, if you can make it through the smoky casino floor, they have free soft drinks. And horse racing is always fun. And there was a Waffle House just down the street. You can go there with Cinderella and put it all together. And after that, you can drive it home.

Driving From DC To Atlanta And Back*

For Spring Break, we decided to visit family in Georgia. I had the brilliant plan of driving through the night, so we got the kids bathed and ready for bed and then loaded them into the car in their pajamas. The idea was that we would avoid any traffic, particularly in Northern Virginia, and allow the kids to sleep during the drive. Turns out that the plan wasn't so brilliant. Although we left around 8:30 and didn't hit any traffic during the trip, driving through the night is tough. Basically, if life is a highway, I learned that I do not want to drive it all night long. I had to stop twice to take power naps while the kids (ages 8, 5, and 19 months) were all awake for the majority of the drive. At some point, we didn't even fight it and just put on some videos for them to watch. While I'll write about the trip home momentarily, here are some notes from the drive:

We ate breakfast at Cracker Barrel in Chattanooga, but it was sad and discouraging to pass so many Zaxby's and Waffle House restaurants and not stop.

By the way, major props to whatever marketing person came up with this billboard:

Can I just share that I'm not a big fan of crosses on the sides of highways. Crosses on church property are fine, but it seems out of place and a little intimidating to see a cross or group of three crosses on the side of the road or on a hill adjacent to the highway in seemingly the middle of nowhere.

Although Virginia is only the 35th state in total area, it takes forever to get through it. I'm looking at you, I-81! Yes, I know that you're going to be on I-5 in California or I-10 in Texas for many more miles, but it just felt like I'd never get back home. It's almost exactly 300 miles on 81 from the southern Virginia border to I-66. Then, it's another 50 or so miles on 66. Of course, it didn't help that a tractor trailer overturned on I-81 on the way home adding at least 60-90 minutes to the trip as we just sat on the highway with the oldest (The Moose) regularly asking how long we would be in traffic.

Eventually, we made our way to an exit several miles beyond Natural Bridge (which I would like to check out some day) for dinner. In looking for food options, we saw that The Red Hen, a restaurant somewhat famous for denying service to White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. This brings me to an important question. The Red Hen is a good 3 hours from the White House and could be even more with DC traffic. Assuming that you're going somewhere only for the purpose of a meal, how far would you drive? I don’t think I’d go more than an hour away.

Taking some side roads before getting back on to the highway, we passed what turns out to be Hull's Drive-In movie theater in Lexington, VA. It would be fun to go to a drive-in theater again since I don't think I've been to one since the Greater Pittsburgh Drive-In in North Versailles closed at least 20 years ago. There can't be many around anymore.

You’ve seen plenty of movies and television shows featuring heists of armored cars. After passing 4-5 consecutive Little Debbie trucks in Southern Virginia, I think that a robbery of these tasty treats would make a terrific Hollywood plot.

During the drive, we went by Blacksburg, Virginia (home of Virginia Tech) and Knoxville, Tennessee (home of the University of Tennessee), and I wondered why these two schools don't compete against each other in athletics annually. Then, I-81 hit, and I realized that they're not THAT close. It's actually 236 miles. I doubt that there are many Knoxville to Blacksburg (or I guess Roanoke) flights, and you probably don't want to drive that.

There's a several-mile portion of I-81 North where you're also on I-77 South. Conversely, you can be on I-81 South and I-77 North. Yeah, that's not at all confusing.

Despite the tiring first drive and the long second drive, I think I'm ready for another road trip! Just give me some time to recover.

* The drive was actually from Northern Virginia to just north of Atlanta, but DC to Atlanta sounds better.


Interstate photo by jimmywayne on Flickr.

Potato Pancakes For Breakfast?

Potatoes can be a big part of any breakfast. You regularly see hash browns or home fries on any breakfast menu. At Waffle House alone, you can get hash browns covered, smothered, chunked, diced, capped, topped, and/or peppered or some type of combination of any or all of these.

With Hanukkah starting next week, Safeway is selling potato pancakes at these discounted prices:

The only problem is that the potato pancakes are in the "Breakfast & Cereal" portion category on the Safeway app. Despite the fact that potato and pancake are in the food's name, I've never seen or heard of people eating potato pancakes for breakfast. Have you?

(Please don't mind my terrible attempt at crossing off the address of my local Safeway.)

Notes From Tucson

I spent the past few days in Tucson, Arizona, so I thought I would share my thoughts about the trip.

- Everyone said that even though Tucson would be hot, it would be a dry heat. Well, there was actually some humidity since it is Monsoon season. There's also a southern Arizona city named Dragoon, so yes, there was a monsoon in Dragoon.

- Why do flight attendants feel the need to announce that flights are very full? Is there really a difference between a full flight and a very full flight? If every seat is taken, it is a full flight. In my opinion, the only way it would be a very full flight is if they seated passengers in the bathroom or the aisle.

- I visited Old Tucson Studios where countless Westerns such as The Outlaw Josey Wales, Gunfight at the OK Corral, Rio Bravo, McClintock!, Tombstone, and The Three Amigos were filmed. Nearly every Hollywood legend including Clint Eastwood, James Stewart, John Wayne, Dean Martin, Angie Dickinson and Kirk Douglas worked there.



However, the tour guide did not mention one very special project filmed at Old Tucson Studios. A two-part episode of Webster where "the Papadapolises visit Lizard Flatz, Arizona and encounter Dusty, a man with interesting stories, a ranch, and Moonhunter, a horse that seems to be a legend, but ends up a reality after saving Webster from a rattlesnake. Moonhunter gets caught by some greedy no-gooders, and Webster almost gets killed. George wants to live on the ranch, Webster wants to save Moonhunter and set him free, but after all the excitement, they decide to head back to Chicago." I don't remember this episode.

- According to a billboard on I-10, John McCain is "Fighting for a Secure Border." There was no footage of the Senator standing in Nogales actually fighting.

- There were several roads with separate speed limits for the day and the night. How is this enforced? Is night considered the exact sunset time, when there are three stars in the sky, or some other method?

- There is a giant "A" on a Tucson mountain for the University of Arizona. Which came first, Arizona's A or BYU's Y on a Provo mountain?

- Sadly, I did not eat at In-N-Out, Waffle House or Little Caesars, three restaurants that don't seem to be anywhere near Washington DC.

- I read and heard that there are between 900,000 and 1 million residents of Tucson. There are definitely 1 million cacti (cactuses?), but I have no idea where all of these people are. Maybe they're all away for the summer or are hiding in fear of fighting John McCain.