TA Travel Center
October 2, 2009
In the early morning hours on October 2 my husband and I headed out on a road trip to visit our kids. The trip would take us across three US states into a fourth. We planned on leaving their house early Monday morning heading north for another three days of quality down time before heading home. It was dark and cold as we packed the car with everything we needed for the trip. Included in the packing was a case of home canned foods mainly salsa but a few extras. Crossing the border meant I could not pack the cooler the way I normally would for a longer road trip so no fresh fruits for snacking on. We didn't want to use the percolator for coffee as that would mean having to clean it before going and since there is no coffee shop on our way to the border we opted for stopping at a Timmy's on the American side. Sorry guys, the American Timmy's is not the same as the Canadian ones but the double double really hit the spot!
We do a lot of road trips. One thing that is very seldom part of any road trip is fast food restaurants. We would rather pull into a truck stop. According to my husband the more rigs the better the truck stop. Pictured is the TA Travel Center we stopped at en route. The beauty of truck stops is they are very close to your route so you don't have to go more than about a kilometer out of your way. Getting back on the highway is never a problem either.
Truck stops are usually rather interesting places even for browsing through everything the well decked out trucker or traveler needs to the well supplied variety store offerings. There's always a bargain bin for great deals on books, CDs and videos. The washrooms are always quite clean and if you want a shower or laundry both are usually available something quite useful if you are making a cross country trip. Most offer WiFi although it is not always free. Some of them even have movie hour and an arcade to amuse yourself while catching up on laundry or other necessities. The larger truck stops usually offer a choice of a couple fast food restaurant choices along with an actual restaurant that quite often includes a buffet with home cooked style offerings. We have yet to have one of these buffets and been disappointed. The food is considerably better than any fast food meal. The prices are always very reasonable coming in at under $10 per person in most cases. Most truck stops also include 24 hour breakfast complete with coffee for about $5. Now this is just good, home style cooking that can't be beat when traveling!
Both TA and Flying J, the two largest truck stops, have online locators so finding one en route is not difficult. They are well marked as well. At the same time there are many smaller truck stops that offer great food at bargain prices. In general you can locate truck stops along your route using Google Earth, Streets and Maps or your GPS. Planned ahead stops for both fuel and good food makes traveling so much more pleasant.
I used to be on the road 50 weekends out of 52 (no trade shows on Christmas or Easter).
ReplyDeleteFlying J was my where I got home cooking. It actually was very good in a homey way