August VA Trip part 2: Here Be Good Food

When I was little, we used to pull the 12+ hour trip to Atlanta in one fell swoop. Several times on the way I remember stopping at a truck stop in Virginia. This is a REAL truck stop. With REAL truckers. Rough looking guys. Lots of trucks.

The cool thing about truck stops is that they serve very good, very hot, very large plates of homestyle food. It is a wonderful thing. If you can ever get to a real truck stop, do. Matt and I stopped at White's Truck Stop on the way down to see Barbara. We'd been stuck in traffic for almost an hour on the highway due to an accident we never did see. We were hungry. It was so funny, I hadn't been there in more than 20 years....and it hadn't changed a bit! Same wooden tables and chairs, same gun collection in glass cases. Same sign. It was a nice bit of nostalgia.

While we were trapped on Rt. 81, the funniest thing happened. We were behind a Toyota Higlander driven by a woman with PA plates. Local to us, actually. She was behind a double FedEx tractor trailor.

The FedEx truck would creep forward and stop.
The Highlander would creep forward and stop.
We would creep forward and stop.
Ad nauseum.

I was driving and I could see the Highlander driver in her side mirror. She was texting on her phone while all this was going on. *texttexttext* *glance at the FedEx truck* *text* and so on. After about half an hour of this the following occured.

The FedEx truck crept forward and stopped.
We crept forward and stopped.
(pause)
The Highlander crept forward...crept....crept....and hit the FedEx truck at about 1mph, but hard enough that the trailor MOVED. She quick put it in reverse and backed up about a foot and a half.....and kept texting. She didn't get out an look for damage. She didn't go tell the driver she'd hit him. We were carrying on about this for the next half hour. We even made up lyrics to Enter Sandman that fit the situation:

Nah nah naah nah na! Hit the FedEx Truck! Nah nah naah nah na!
and
Text with one eye open! Gripping the wheel tight!!
Feeed Eeexxx Truck!! It went THUMP!!!

Anyway, we finally made it to our destination. Barbara always feeds us well. The first evening we had pork barbeque and a fritata. It was divine.

The next day, we made Sage Wine Lemon mustard from the Ball Jar book. The recipe is also available online. She loves the mustard so instead of making it at home I suggested we make it together, and she agreed. She's pouring in the honey above.

Saturday night, she made for us a red curry chicken. Now, I have never liked curry. I had it a few times as a kid and hated it. I didn't tell her this (sorry, Barb).

I LOVED this chicken!! It was to die for. I would happily make this once a week because it is so good. We had a mix of condiments, too, including sliced banana (my favorite with the curry), sliced tomatoes, diced cucumber, shaved cocoanut, a mango chutney I'd made, and some flat bread we'd attempted but didn't turn out quite right.
We also went bean picking in her garden but forgot the basket....so I stuffed the beans in the side pockets of my capri pants. It worked well. See, there is a reason to buy cargo-style pants: picking veggies.