A Little Travel-Inspired Love For . . .

After our recent Philadelphia trip, my thanks goes to the following:  

Fort Worth Tire & Service. I needed to get the car worked on before departing. My daughter has been a satisfied customer of Fort Worth Tire & Service for many years so I brought it to them. The first thing I noticed about FWTS was their novel order entry system for incoming customers. You tell the guy at the counter what work you want done, and he asks you to write your name and phone number down on a piece of scratch paper. That's it. I knew right then that I was at the right place. When the work was completed I was handed an itemized invoice. I never did ask for an estimate, I didn't think I needed one, and I was right. The price was fair.

The boys at Fort Worth Tire & Service know what they are doing and got me to Philly and back with no problems.

Our car, a 2002 Lexus RX, deserves a little loving recognition, too. She (it's kind of curvy so it's a she) crossed the 200,000 mile mark on this trip and never skipped a beat. Since Toyota is getting a fair bit of un-love these days I thought I'd give it the honor it is due. Every once in a very long while a product is made that just fits into the world comfortably. The Lexus RX is one of those products, in my opinion.

Keeping on the car related theme. Have you ever tried Rain-X? Rain-X is applied to a car's windshield and reduces the need for windshield wipers. My sister told me about it. It makes the rain drops kind of slide off the windshield instead grabbing on. I guess windshield glass is porous enough for a water molecule to grip because when the Rain-X liquid is applied, and buffed in, the water just slides off. Weird. Besides working beautifully driving through snow and rain the "Rain-X effect" was a continual source of amusement and conversation to my wife and me.

Finally, I now have a man-crush on my GPS. Is there a more helpful travel tool these days?

In the "what went wrong" department, I have no love going to: Shoney's Restaurants. We must have passed 50 Cracker Barrel restaurants in the 3000 mile round trip. I have been to a Cracker Barrel once and that was enough for me. So we tried Shoney's. They too, are everywhere in Tennessee and Virginia. It may be difficult to ruin a plate of eggs, bacon, and hash browns, but Shoney's succeeded in serving the worst breakfast I have had in years. I understand the need to pre-cook the bacon and hash browns but serving brick-sticks of bacon and textureless, tasteless potatoes is beyond my acceptance level. So, Shoney's sorry, you get no love this trip.

Fortunately, failure is half the fun of travel. And there you have it.