Thank you for not stopping

On our recent driving trip to Indiana, Joe asked if I'd ever be interested in driving across the country. "You know, take our time, see the sights, do some adventurous things," he said.

Sounded great, except for two things. Most of our "adventures" when we drive somewhere are centered around looking for places to 1) eat and 2) use the restroom. There are probably not more than three places in the entire country that meet our standards on these two factors.

Note that I said "our" standards. I'm sure you are all thinking that these standards, whatever they are, were the idea first and foremost of the Prissy Princess. This is not true. On this particular trip, we drove by more than one gas station because of Joe's insistence that he wanted a place with nice bathrooms. We call this the "pretty potty" standard. Of course, if you have ever used a gas station or fast-food restroom, you know that very few of them can be characterized as "pretty." But we still hold out hope that something out there will remotely resemble what we are used to at home.

Which explains why, on our trip this weekend, we wasted quite a bit of time and gas driving up to a potential pit stop, giving it a once-over, and driving off.

Finding a place to eat is no easier. It's not that we are so picky about our food, mind you. We are not food snobs; the faster, the better. It's just that, again, we prefer to find a restaurant that might, in some small way, resemble our own kitchen.

So we rejected one place to grab some food because it was "too dark." There were also a large number of large semi trucks parked facing the entrance, in ominous formation, and we felt that if we got out of the car they might attack us. Another Subway was in a dying strip mall, and although the Subway was probably fine, by association it just didn't meet our standards.

Also, if there are fewer than five cars parked outside a restaurant, we drive right on by.

Another of our standards for both food and restrooms is that the facilities must be clearly visible from the highway, preferably from at least a mile away so that we have plenty of time to 1) decide that, yes, this is where we want to stop and 2) get over four lanes and make the exit. We do not want to get off and have to drive to Montana before we find the place. Sometimes the restaurants or gas stations are right off the highway, but to get back on the highway you have to drive to Montana. That happened to us on this trip, after we had finally stopped at a gas station that didn't quite meet the "pretty potty" standard but that we had to make do with because we were running out of options (and out of time, if you know what I mean.)

Once we drove by an exit that we had wanted to take because we thought it was exit 39, and we wanted 40, where there was reportedly food. As we drove by, in the far left lane, we could see that it was exit 40. There is nothing quite like the feeling of seeing exit 40 flash by at 70 miles an hour and knowing that the next exit with food will be exit 785.

In West Virginia we got off the expressway in hopes of finding some dinner fare, but while we were still on the exit ramp we could see that we were in the heart of the city and not likely to find an easy-to-get-to place to eat. We stopped at the stoplight and decided to get right back on the expressway. "This completes your tour of Wheeling," I intoned as we drove straight up the entrance ramp. "We hope you have enjoyed your drive-through."

It's a pity we couldn't stay longer. They probably had some pretty potties.