Well this post has been brewing for a while, since we took a road trip to Nashville in order to pick up Drew's brother and also visit the closest REI. So.. I love taking road trips... my family always drove to every vacation destination...most of which were to Colorado or other very distant places. I love reading and singing and eating and sleeping in the car all day long!! So I am ready. I have our snack sack full of salty and sweet and a few healthy items. We have waterbottles and I have a soda ready to go. We have a frisbee just in case and lots of tunes.
First thing you have to do on a road trip is make a stop for a beverage of something to eat. There are many favorites to choose from but they have to be quick, something you would not eat normally and definitely not good for you! Top choices usually include Chic Fil A (though we do eat there a lot), Sonic or.... Dairy Queen.
Dairy Queen is known in Texas as the Texas Stop sign. They are going out of business in many major cities but are all too prominent on every deserted high way and small town! I love Dairy Queen. I would never dream of going there unless on a road trip.
My first memorable stop there was with my nana and papa on the way back from a family reunion. We would fight over who got to ride with them b/c you got the whole back seat to yourself and....be with nana and papa! Well, papa insisted that we stop at DQ for lunch on this trip b/c they had "real food" i think... he helped me select my order... a hungerbuster and a real cherry coke... mmmm. What a savory lunch!
My next most cherished memory of this place is driving between Fort Worth and College Station and stopping right before/after Waco is Itasca or something where there was on old DQ. If I wasn't looking forward to returning to school or needed a coke for the exciting journey ahead I would stop and get a real cherry coke. MMM love it
Then we moved to Louisville. A nice big city... but with many DQs... I should've known something was up. These places are not real DQ... they do not say Texas Stop Sign and they are build of brick and stone...nice looking...not DQ... so I have stood aloof from these imposters until our road trip....
We didn't really have time to go out of the way to Sonic and we had recently had Chic Fil A so we decided it would be the perfect time to try a DQ... I mean it is a ROAD TRIP! So we go.... and I am sad to say that some one should sue these people or something because they are not DAIRY QUEEN... no... they are some other fast food chain wanna be Mc Donalds... tear.
First of all... they DO NOT HAVE A HUNGERBUSTER!! no... I know it's unbelievable...they just have cheeseburger...ugh...
Second of all... they do not put their drinks in styrophome cups. I know, I love to save the earth. I ride my bike and buy whole foods and all that jazz when I can... but I can't help loving my condensation free, ice-not-melting cup. (blame sonic if you need to)... I do however save all my styrophome cups and reuse.
Next... they treated me like crazy when ordering a cherry coke
They put mayonaise on my burger... obviously NOT FROM TEXAS! (sorry sick mayo lovers)
They did not give Drew his TEXAS toast with his chicken basket....
All in all..... we left with a sense of adulthood looming over our heads as one more piece of childhood melted away... (so dramatic...sigh)
So long Dairy Queen.... hungerbuster.... mustard only and authentic cherry coke... we did love you!
Okay, I am cracking myself up here... but for real it was a little sad!!!
So here's the deal... if you made it to the end of this you have a mission... all of my Texas peeps... go to the so called Dairy Queen near you and see if they have the hungerbuster....there might still be hope
(ps. they didn't even turn our blizzard upside down!)
