Route 66 can't dead-end if there is a Whataburger just over the horizon

I'm sorry I have been gone so long. The office got my attention first and now it is family matters. But I did find one of my pictures which will make a good blog. Just talk among yourselves while I deal with this latest interruption.

So what is your favorite burger? I first found Be Bops. Their burgers got me through some serious IBS issues. (if you don't know IBS is a series of undiagnosed symptoms which may be treated but not cured.) And the fries are notoriously good. In KC, we pinned our hopes on Back Yard Burger and their onion rings but it went all McBK on me. CaDiva introduced me to In-N-Out Burger...the double double will eventually send you to cholesterol Hell I imagine but you couldn't complain about the trip. On the way back from The Brother's wedding we discovered Whataburger and found a new meaning to having it your way. I even tried out Jack in the Box for breakfast-all-day but found the meaty delight between soft white bread buns just as enjoyable.

Lately, however, with no roads to travel, I am limited to national chains and Saturday lunch with the ladies. The Tavern Burger at Red Robin has tickled my fancy of late. It is smaller than their normal burger and I actually have room to finish my fries (if I don't order the mushrooms or rings.)

I'm still dealing with family issues (keep a good thought for The Brother and The Mother please) and you can discuss among yourselves which is your favorite burger. I'll be back soon.

What should we talk about next

I haven't traveled lately, not since the girl trip to Coralville. I don't know what to tell you about next. I'll admit my old friend IBS has been visiting for a long time, so I haven't been terribly motivated. But one name does keep coming back to me, Best Western.

Oh, I have several hotels on my top list. I sleep well at almost all Hampton properties. I have had some of my best meals at Marriott hotels. I spent three glorious weeks at a Double Tree in Sunny Isle, Fla. I even had one nice long stay at a Westin in Jacksonville. But one of the most surprisingly consistently hotel chains I have stayed with is the Best Western.

It started with the cross-country drive to bring CaDiva to Iowa. We made it to Cheyenne. It was dark, rainy and we were very tired. But we were also a day behind schedule. We got a late start leaving Santa Rosa and I got us lost in Sacramento, so we only made it to Truckee that first night. CaDiva wanted to stop in Cheyenne but HRH and I said we should push on. CaDiva's argument was the darkness and rain. I pointed out we were driving into western Nebraska, what was there to hit? During the course of later trips we would learn that rainy nights were not so bad that I couldn't drive us, especially in mountains. But that is a different story.

We discovered many tricks to traveling cross-country but this trip we were still learning. We would drive until we were within an hour of wanting to stop, then pull out the AAA tour books and look for the mile-marker about 60 out then look for a hotel. This particular night we found the town of Ogallala, Nebraska. And I just loved the word...O-ga-lla-la. You can't really beat that. I wanted to stay there just so I could tell people I had spent the night in Ogallala. Oh, the Nishnabotna River is good too but that night we picked Ogallala and the Stagecoach Inn.

They had a King on the ground floor and a Queen on the second floor. Since the Stagecoach didn't have an elevator CaDiva and I took the lower level and HRH took the upper room. The rooms were clean, comfortable and came with a continental breakfast. I learned not to eat the Cheerios since they had Honey Nut in the little dispenser and I can't do sweet first thing in the AM. But we needed to get a start in the morning anyway. We were one day from Des Moines and I would be sleeping in my own bed that night.

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After that, we stayed at the Stagecoach every time we could. There was one trip we had to stay in Kearney instead because of some sort of state tournament took up all the rooms for 100 miles. By the way, it is apparently pronounced Carney even though they spell it Kearney.

We got to the point that we looked for Best Westerns.  We looked forward to a night in Newport, Oregon. But I took a miss turn and we drove two extra hours in the dark, through the mountains, and the woods. And no matter what she tells you, CaDiva did not see a jackalope as we rounded that one curve. Anyway, we didn't get there in time to luxuriate in the hot tub or walk the beach before our whale watching trip the next day. The hotel was under renovation but it was comfortable and welcoming as all the others we have stayed at since.

We stayed at the Best Western Canterbury in Coralville, Iowa for our first not-quite-annual Hahn Women girl trip. I fantasized about the tower suite there. Although the stairs would be have been too much for CaDiva and I. But it was a two story suite on the second story of the hotel. It had a hot tub on a private terrace. I originally proposed we rent it (way too expensive for just one of us) as a party suite for all the ladies. We still had a great time but when I get the oomph to plan another I think I'll take a few clues from that first trip and keep us with more time to bond and a little less free schedule time.

After our recent trip to California where we stayed at the Best Western Plus Bay View at Carmel by the Sea I learned there are three classes of Best Westerns. The Plus is obviously elegant but I still got a good price. It had a lovely balcony. You have seen it before. I posted a couple pictures of me and my sea gull friend, discussing who got my bowl of Cheerios. The room had a fireplace in a corner and a grand view of the bay.

We ate at Clint Eastwood's restaurant, of course that was before the empty chair incident. There was a cute little mini mart next to the hotel where we got sandwiches and drinks for noshing in the room. We took another whale watching trip and drove the 17-mile drive to CaDiva's brother's wedding.

I think there is a way on this blog to attach that map application where you can track your favorite hotels. I have had some great nights and and longer stays at some hotels. I would love to share them with you here.

HRH says I'm afraid of Birds

If this is true, then why do I have so many pictures of birds?

She got this outrageous idea eight-years ago when we went to California to move CaDiva to Iowa. I may have mentioned this before, but I talked a lifelong Californian into moving to Iowa. Generally, I alert people to take this as an indication they shouldn't doubt my ability to persuade. I haven't, however, been able to convince HRH I am NOT afraid of birds.

Breakfast with a friend in Best Western at Carmel by the Sea April 2011.

We have a tale we tell that usually takes about 20 minutes if you don't count the interruptions from HRH and CaDiva in their attempts to insert false memories into my story.  We generally title this story The Three Fat Chicks, Gay Guy, Great Dane and a Boat.  But, as usual. I'm starting this blog quite late on a Sunday and I doubt I have the time to tell the entire tale. So I'll pick up somewhere between "Are you eating something?" and "About that time, someone started to hum the theme to Gilligan's Island."

Seagull at Goat Rock Beach, Sonoma County

As you can imagine, CaDiva had a lot of friends in California. And each one of them begged for one last visit before she left so he/she could say goodbye. She had a dear coworker who lived on a man-made lagoon. He wanted her to come to lunch and a quiet boat trip down the Petaluma River and invited HRH and I to join them. In addition to a beautiful harlequin Great Dane, our host and his partner kept an aviary.

This was taken when we were on the Seventeen Mile Drive in Monterrey.

Inside a converted garage they had canaries and a feather-footed pigeon but the backyard and sheltered crawlspace hosted sparrows and other outside winged guests. We were touring inside home of free-flying orange and yellow canaries. We each held a lovely glass of wine, although CaDiva and I had also enjoyed a tasty  cold hors d'oeuvre of hard cheese and carpaccio. HRH, as I may have mentioned before, is not so adventuresome in her palate.  So she was on her second glass of wine on an empty stomach. I mention this only because it could explain her misunderstanding my position in the aviary.

This was the gull who was interested in our Egg McMuffins before we took our whale watching trip.

While I very sensibly kept a close eye on the bits of fluttering color as they attempted to dive-bomb me and my wine glass, HRH stood with her arm extended and glass uncovered, asking questions about the birds and their breeding habits. HRH took the fact that that I occasionally adjusted my head position to avoid in-air collision with the inhabitants of the aviary to mean I was afraid of them.

Off HRH's deck - sometimes you just get lucky.

After the rescue from the lock (I'll tell you about that one another time) I repeatedly attempted to point out that I was covering my glass since the birds didn't have a separate toilet area and ducked my head only to ensure none of them became snared in my magnificent mane of only slightly graying locks. HRH has always been known to have a judgemental streak so she still believes this was me being afraid of birds.

We were promised the best sunset view in the world off this beach on the Oregon Coast.  I haven't  seen them all, but this one has to be right up there.

 

I don't mean to indicate I have no fears. In fact, I have five.

1. Small things that scurry.
2. Sudden stops at the end of free falls.
3. Veins and eye balls.
4. Tall hills (which is actually part of #2 because the car will pinwheel over and over until it makes a sudden stop at the bottom of the hill)
5. Mammalian flying cousins to small things that scurry - which is not the same as a bird. (I'll tell you one time about the day I had to call in bat to work.)

Coming in for a landing in along the coast in Oregon.

I could hear them for a half mile, "This way, over there...I see a restaurant."

I would like to believe this is a Condor but I know it is over the Grand Canyon.

But I am not afraid of birds. While I'll never go birding like our good friends in California. I will make every effort grab other great pictures of birds I have captured over the years. I have a long winter coming and a lot of disks, thumb drives, and boxes of pictures I need to snag and put into one place. When I get those pictures I'll add them under this label. 

Another picture from outside HRH's house.

 As I have always said at work, I only steal from the very best. But I'll keep the pictures of birds I post to ones taken by HRH, CaDiva, The Daughter, and me. I hope you enjoy them.

Cardinal at HRH's bird feeder.

Same bird feeder - different season.

HRH got this one outside her house.

This pushy fellow stalked the picnic lunches up and down the beach  at Bodega Bay.

It was near this statue, you see...

I told you we got lost almost every time we left the motel. I also told you we rented a fire engine red 1978 Mercury Cougar in which we got lost most every time we left the motel. I even told you we were there for a March on Washington during which we drove a fire engine red 1978 Mercury Cougar in which we got lost most every time we left the motel. What I haven't told you is that we were too sophisticated to notice he was naked when we were marching on Washington in a fire engine red Mercury Cougar in which we got lost most every time we left the motel.

So let me fill you in on the bits and pieces I may have left out. I was young and politically naive which made me marvelously certain of my position. I joined the National Organization for Women and I participated in marches and campaigns and consciousness raising groups. This particular march was to extend the deadline by which the Equal Rights Amendment must be ratified. 100,000 women, men, and children dressed in white with yellow banners in the heat of east coast July celebrating our right to assembly and freedom of expression. This is something everyone should experience at least once in his/her life. Years later, I knew a woman who resigned her post as a federal employee as a matter of conscience and traveled to Washington to march in protest. She returned home and took her job back. I asked why.

She explained she had gathered with a group of people determined to tell our government that they were wrong and it was the intent of these people to run them out of office if they didn't change what they were doing. And that government put members of the armed services along the path of their protest to protect the protesters from anyone who intended to interfere with their demonstration of free assembly and speech. She said she could disagree with that government and work to change its policy. But she had no problem being employed by a government who protected it citizens even as they declared how much they disagreed with it and intended to vote every member out of office if they could.

In short, I'm just saying you need to vote, but voting isn't always enough. But I digress.

HRH and I found a parking place that wasn't in Virginia and we hooked up with the Iowa contingency. It was a long hot day and seemed to take forever before we began to move. Frankly, since Iowa was the third state to ratify the amendment I was thinking we should have gotten to be closer to the front but those who had water shared it and we sang all the songs and chanted all the chants as we waited. Finally we began moving. The energy was almost enough to dispel the onset of heat exhaustion, but more about that later.

We waved our banners and chanted, "What do we want? ERA. When do we want it? Now!" down the Mall, swept along by youthful enthusiasm and the swell of humanity when HRH turned to me and said, "Do you remember where we left the car?"

Well, that puts a damper on a middle-aged woman's enthusiasm. However, a 20-year-old, not so much. "We'll worry about it after the March." I'm not really clear on what else happened after that. I remember finishing the March. Well at least we were near enough the end that I could hear the speeches. But HRH was leading me to a place to sit down where she could splash water on me. Ok, it was the Reflecting Pool. In any case, she found a place under a tree and a lemonade vendor and got me cooled, rested and hydrated before we thought about the car again.

We weren't really worried. I mean how hard is it to find a 1978 fire engine red Mercury Cougar? Even in 1978 I knew it was a big-assed car. Besides, we remembered a lot about where we parked it. First, you could see the Washington Monument from where we parked the car.
  And it was near a park. And there was a statue in the park. The statue was of a naked Man, a Woman, and a Boy Scout. So we hailed a cab and asked the driver to find our car with this description. We didn't mention the naked part because we wanted him to think we were too sophisticated to notice. This good man drove us around and around the Mall five times before one of us called out, "There it is."

DC Cabbies didn't use meters back then. You paid them by zones and he didn't leave the zone. But we didn't balk at the $10.00 fare and even tipped him a couple of bucks, even though we never heard of anyone who ever had a fare of TEN DOLLARS.  But it was worth it just for the fact he didn't laugh at us until he got home that night. 

It just goes to prove my old saying, there is nothing so bad that can't be made better by having a good story to tell afterwards.