On Friday evening we took off for Akron, OH to attend Lisa's cousin's graduation party. We got to take two of the Great American Roads, the Indiana Tollway and the Ohio Turnpike. This was the first time I was on these roads since I was a kid, and aside from the fact that I didn't have any comic books in the car it was pretty much as I remembered it: straight and flat.
One of my favorite memories of this road was when my family was returning from a trip to Canada, and we stopped at a Howard Johnson's at one of the waysides. This wasn't a regular restaurant-- it was kind of a lousy cafeteria with all sorts of prepackaged sandwiches and whatnot. I remember as we were leaving my oldest brother got a comment card that we filled out while riding in the station wagon. We couldn't wait to get home so we could tell the Howard Johnson people about their "raunchy pizza."
"You never know when you're making a memory..." as Rickie Lee Jones once sang. A bad lunch experience actually wound up a happy memory.
We had the chance to almost re-live this moment as Lisa, Emma, and I had some über-average Uno's microwave pizza at a stop on the turnpike on the way home. It wasn't Dondi's, but Emma said "it's okay for road-trip pizza." What a trouper.
The nice thing about the trip was the fact that the weather held out and the six and a half hour ride went very smoothly.
We returned late Saturday in time to prepare for a great Father's Day celebration with the family.