Our travels rarely get us out of North Carolina or Virginia these days. Once in a while I might wander into dangerous territory such as Maryland but usually you can define our travel by a few interstates and the even more interesting side roads.
Taking advantage of the exit ramps is the best way to really understand your surroundings. If you only stick to the big roads, you are definitely missing the best part of the trip.
On Saturday, February 26, we headed down to Charlotte to visit my daughter and her friends. After about sixty miles on Interstate 81, we picked up Interstate 77 towards Fancy Gap and Charlotte, NC. If you have never had the pleasure of seeing North Carolina and Pilot Mountain on a clear day spread out before you as you wind down the mountain, I can highly recommend the experience. When I see Pilot Mountain standing in the middle of the rolling hills of the Piedmont, I know I am about to have some good experiences along with an interesting meal or two. February 26 was no exception.
I have traveled much of Interstate 81's eight hundred plus miles so many times that at least within Virginia's 323 miles, I can usually tell you within a minute or two how long it will be until I get home. Eighty-one is usually where our trips begin. I'm only familiar with a hundred miles or so Interstate 77's six hundred eleven miles but the forty miles or so from Interstate 81 to the North Carolina border are some of my favorite interstate miles. Beside the Fancy Gap experience, there is just a deep beauty in the high hills and open fields that the New River flows through on its journey northward.
Sometimes between Roanoke and Charlotte, you can see three or four climate changes, once in a while you might get multiple seasons. On this trip we were fortunate, no fog on the mountain, no huge temperature changes, and no precipitation at all.
After we had grabbed some lunch with the kids we headed back to see all the changes in the house where they are renting space. I am really impressed with all the work that they done in renovating the place. It's great to see houses get a new life and some sweat equity deposited. Even more fun was the main event of the afternoon. A friend's Jeep needed new brakes. This required some serious consultation, lots of supervision and perhaps even a beer. The neighborhood kids poured in asking for some quick repairs on their toys.
We even got to meet one of Katie's friends who grew up on Chincoteague. She was very excited that we had actually been there and loved the place. She told us that the way you knew a boy was serious about you on Chincoteague's Eastern Shore was if he was willing to take you on a date to Easton, Maryland which was over an hour away. Of course there was nothing for teenagers to do on Chincoteague.
In a sense much of North Carolina in the fifties, as unbelievable as it may seem, was a little like the Eastern Shore of Virginia. I can remember dirt roads, the wonder of driving miles to get to go to a drive-in theater, and almost no restaurants. There was a little grocery store down the road from us. As much as this will date me, the cokes were five cents as were the "nabs." I can even remember them changing over to self serve. There were mosquitoes at night in the summer, and we used to look forward to the spray trucks coming. I'm sure that they used DDT. The only escape from the dust sometimes was when the roads got oiled. The oil also probably had some ugly chemicals that no one knew about in those days. We rode our bikes everywhere and played deep in the woods every chance we got which was almost every day. Our games were whatever we organized ourselves. Choosing sides prepared us for life. Football with three people per team was a standard in our neighborhood. Baseball with similar numbers was the spring game of choice but places to play baseball were harder to find because of the danger of windows breaking. If you had a basketball goal, you were considered really privileged. Sundays were for getting together, watermelon, homemade ice cream and fried chicken. Saturdays sometime brought a chicken stew, especially in the fall.
This Saturday in Charlotte reminded me of those long ago days when people just got together with little planning. There was a need to talk and to interact. The front yard was the place. Maybe it was all the cars in the yard Saturday in Charlotte that got me to thinking back to those times which I miss so much.
Those were the times that when you were just a kid you got to hang around the older kids and their cars. A lot of knowledge was passed along in those family gatherings. Somehow there just aren't enough of these anymore. People are too scattered or living among too many people they don't know. Most are two busy with their own life to help a buddy change his brakes or to talk to the neighborhood kids. We might miss a few ball games or a little television, but standing around in the yard talking with friends and neighbors can yield some wonderful benefits like a closer relationship with other human beings. It would make the world a better place for us all.
As the air started to grow colder, we decided that our help was no longer needed in supervising the new brakes, so we headed back up Interstate 77. We made a quick tour of Troutman which is one of the places my mother lived after she left home as youngster. Urban Charlotte still hasn't taken over Troutman. I bet you might even be able to find a chicken stew there some Saturday night if you looked closely.
I discovered what may be the greatest feature of my new car or portable V6 computer as I like to call it. I can get off the interstate and press a "Detour" button on the GPS navigation system and it will calculate a back roads way back to the next interstate entrance in the direction I was headed. From the look on Glenda's face, I know she has figured out that no exit is safe from me now. No longer will I have to make certain I have the right maps. Now I can just wander off, explore, and press a button and find my way back without having to double back on my trip. Destinations will now take twice as long.
After we got back on Interstate 77, we checked the Zagat listing for restaurants and not surprisingly found none along the route home. We did find that we were not far from Zephyr Road.
Zephyr Road which leads eventually to Dobson, NC has to be one of those places where people still gather to enjoy each others company. From previous trips we knew that within site of the interstate tucked behind a CITGO Station next to the Surry Inn, we would find the Surry Diner. Our expectations that folks might be gathering at the Diner that night were right on the money.
While we were waiting to turn onto Zephry Road, we saw looming in the dark what first appeared to be an unearthly machine more suited for Star Wars. As it came closer and we got behind the glare of its lights, I realized someone had been spraying some crops. Nothing like farm country to remind you that there is whole world outside the city.
The last time we were at the Diner, we were interrogated to make certain that we knew someone in the area so that we could be trusted to behave ourselves. This time the place was so full of people that I guess they let us slip in unnoticed. We did have to switch from the non-smoking section since someone was smoking in there and no one was smoking in the smoking section.
After watching a couple of their burgers come by, we decided it was a little late for several ounces of beef so I decided on the foot long hot dog. Glenda who had decided to go with a safe club sandwich was sold by waitress's description of the hot dog toppings, mustard, slaw, chili, and onions.
Half a Diet Pepsi (this is NC, Diet Coke is a little rare in some spots) and the perfectly cooked hot dogs arrived. The dogs had been grilled to perfection, taken off just before the skins started to burn. There were no beans in the chili, plenty of onions and the slaw was almost like homemade. These were not dogs for the faint of heart or those afraid of red dye since the first bite revealed them to be seriously red through and through. They were messy, delicious, and well worth the stop.
We did find out that our foot long dogs were in reality two regular dogs put in a foot long bun, but that did not spoil any of the pleasure. It was an expensive meal also, something around $7.40 for the both of us. Of course if you consider that just a few miles away in Mt. Airy you can get a dog basket at Odell's with two dogs and fries for $2.25, it is a mite pricey, but this is sit down dinner with real plates as opposed to eating in your car at Odell's so it is not unreasonable to pay a few cents to dine in on a cold night in a building. My friend Bob will be pleased to know I now rank these hot dogs higher than Odell's which considering the Diner is closer to the interstate will save him some time the next time he wanders through NC.
Before we left the Surry Diner, I did ask our perky young waitress the purpose of the suspended bag of water over the door. I was pretty sure my college friend Jon would run into it should he come through the door from New Jersey. She assured me that it kept flies from coming in during the summer.
I remembered the somewhat earthy smell that had hit my nostrils when we came in and decided that bag just might be a good idea just as getting off Interstate 77 at Zephyr Road was.
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Update from July 15, 2006
We had a disappointing experience at the Surry Diner. I suggest reading the post, "Surry Diner disappointment" before trying the Diner.
