Smokey Valley Truck Stop

Warning: Amateur Restaurant Review to Follow

As I am wont to do at such establishments, I ordered the localest thing: smoked pork chop, pinto beans, real cornbread and turnip greens, with another side of cottage cheese. A lot of food, ridiculously inexpensive, and good, too. The chop was a bit dry, as is all 21st century pork loin, but very tasty. The turnip greens, kinda limp and canny. Pinto beans were great. Cottage cheese was 4% milkfat. I approve. I like a place that has four sides. I wish Zick's place offered four sides. I'll have to talk to the cook.

The cornbread was authentically salty and gritty; the margarine-oleo-yucch spread for it the only disappointment. That's vinegar for the turnip greens. It perked them up.

Because I am a coin-asser of coconut cream pie, and because I'd read glowing reviews, I ordered it. It was a mile high, for sure, just like my waitress' hair. I just want you to know it takes a lotta nerve to set your camera on the table and steal a soul like this. If she knew I was immortalizing her, she didn't mind. She probably sees a lot of geeky wanna-be restaurant reviewers come through her place. We're not hard to spot. The camera is a real tipoff.

Hate to say it, but Smokey Valley Truck Stop's CCP just isn't my kind of coconut cream pie. Though some may consider meringue a fit topping for CCP, I don't. It makes an impressive looking pie, photogenic and exciting on the approach, but there was nothing creamy about it. The whole thing, both filling and topping, had a wiggly, keratiny, Jelloey texture that turned me off. Next time I'll get the peanut butter pie. Oh yes. There will be a next time. How could you go wrong with peanut butter pie? Sadly, there are myriad ways to go wrong with coconut cream. So far my favorite has been at Moody's Diner in Waldoboro, Maine. It takes the "cream" part seriously. Cream pie should be creamy, not wiggly. Bleh.

Still--a feed like that for under $10? Unheard of in my land. And excellent people watching to boot.

I pushed onward. Truth be told, I needed a break from watching for box turtles. The whole weekend was cool and rainy, perfect weather for box turtles to be on the move, looking for mates. I saw probably 30 that didn't make it across the highway on my way from southeast Ohio to western Kentucky. I stopped for several that looked OK, only to find them beyond help. That's hard on the soul. 

This little female and another male were the only two I was able to save. Well, I picked them up and carried them across the way they were headed, if you call that "saving." 

And then had to run the gauntlet to get back to my car, which is hard for me, a primate who can sprint. Imagine being a reptile who can only crawl.

Putting them back in habitat makes it all worthwhile. Pick them up, carry them across.

I had to do something with the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness that seeing so many turtles killed inspired in me, so I wrote a song called "Little Soldiers." I think you'd like it. When it's ready, I'll give you a listen. Until then, you can poke around on our Facebook page, where our recent recording of Bill's song "I Can't Believe" is rumbling around. Check it out.

The Rain Crows will be recording this summer, and I can't wait! CD to come!

More Kentucky Fun

I like taking trips to give talks. It gets me out of the house and out from under all the things I do every day--off the hamster wheel. I get to meet people, and hang out with folks I'd like to know better.

Barbara Kingsolver's parents, longtime stalwarts of the Kentucky Ornithological Association, came to my talk, and (over my protests), bought a copy of Letters from Eden. I wanted to give them one. They said they'd seen it on Barbara's shelf. I thanked them for making my day, week, year. Having met them, nothing about her natural history literacy surprised me any more. I guess I'm always surprised when a Real Writer shows much n.h.l. It's usually in the natural history basics and details that many Real Writers stumble. I think her biological literacy what makes Barbara Kingsolver's work really shine. It was easy to see where it started. O happy day!

You never know who you'll run into at these things. 

On the field trip the next morning, I found a tiny bluet I'd never seen before--Houstonia pusilla.

Tiny and gracile and much more purple than common bluet, it sprawled along in the moist meadow by the roadside. Here's the whole plant.

A white forget-me not puzzled me a bit. It was growing in a not-very-forget-me-notty place; not wet at all, but it checked out in my mental catalogue as a Myosotis. But then again, maybe it was wild comfrey,
Cynoglossum virginianum, just not feeling like being blue today. I guess in a pinch you could call those leaves light blue. Both are in the Borage family.

Too soon, it was time to beat it for home. I had consulted roadfood.com , the premier road-eats website by my friends Jane and Michael Stern, for possibilities, and learned about Smokey Valley Truck Stop
in Olive Hill, Kentucky. It's near the intersection of I-64 and Route 2 in eastern Kentucky.
No sign graces the restaurant; a wooden sign at the entrance road points you in the right direction, and then you see the cars lined up. My dad taught me to judge a diner by the parking lot.

It being Sunday, there was a large after-church crowd, parents and grandparents and kids and babies. Huge long tables accommodated all. I took a booth, to watch.

There was a big ol' bass and a muskie, I think, mounted against weathered wood and a fish net. Good sign. I hear the catfish special is great, but it wasn't featured that Sunday.

To the right of the big fern, you can see one of the waitresses on her break. She's having a cigarette inside the restaurant, just keeping the place honest to its name, I guess. Definitely not in Cambridge MA any more.

Wanna-be restaurant review coming next! Nobody asked me for a review, but I was pretending to be a roadfood expert. You can do that on your own blog. You can be the Queen of the Road.