A dinosaur by the bridge near Little Italy in Cleveland

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There’s a dinosaur mural near the bridge near Little Italy in Cleveland. Mayfield Ave.

Cleveland Dinosaur Mural in Cleveland

The last time I was in Cleveland, I decided to check out Little Italy. It was hot – almost 90 degrees. 3o minute walk. When I arrived in Little Italy I was a hulking, sweaty mess. I paced Mayfield Ave, trying to decide which restaurant or pizza parlor to pick. I chose the one with a visible bar. The bartender looked at me with wide-eyed panic. I imagined he was thinking I was about to have a heart attack. I ordered a pizza and a large beer in a large glass. We both relaxed. Beer, pizza. I was happy.

Homosassa & Spring Hill Florida

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While I was in the Weeki Wachee area for the Mermaids, I decided to stay an extra day and check out other local attractions.

My hotel was kind of crusty, kind of weird. Red/orange carpets. Stucco & a spray-on ceiling to cover stains, leaks, & burns. Cigarette burns on the sink countertop in my room. I shared an elevator ride with a brunette woman in a crimson nightgown, holding a lit cigarette. She said, “God bless you”. I did not sneeze. I don’t remember the hotel room having lights, except in the bathroom. The air conditioner was making a racket. I tried to fix it. The filters were caked with gray-brown filth. I rinsed them off in the shower. The noise persisted, but the room smelled better. I looked out the window. Old gray macadam, Florida vegetation, saw palmetto, anole lizards everywhere. There was a bar & bowling alley across the highway. Why didn’t I go? I’m a fool. Instead, I watched videos on my phone. Watched the trailer for Wonder Woman 1984 — the one with music by New Order — and thought “that looks good”. The front desk clerk was sassy, humorous — the kid needs to get out of Florida and move to LA or New York. Be a stand-up comic, find more people like you “sassy front desk man”! Plenty of local magazines featuring gun ranges & stores. Good bedtime reading to remind me where I am.

Some of the local sights:

Bubbles the Manatee. Bubbles the Manatee resides at the entrance of the Homosassa Springs Wildlife Park, which I recommend you visit. They have actual manatees.

Bubbles the Manatee

The Manatee Tours – Weird Statues as Roadside America calls them. They have a great white shark, mermaids, a Mer-Goofy, a collapsed dragon, a giant mushroom — and mermaid tours.

Manatee Tours Weird Statues

Pepto-Bismol Dinosaur. Big pink dinosaur outside a massage parlor. I did not partake. The dino was decorated for Christmas. Nice pink sunset to compliment the pink dinosaur.

Pink Dinosaur

I stopped at a Checkers fast-food joint. I got a chili hot dog, a fish sandwich, fully loaded fries, and a Mr. Pibb. Enjoyed a sunset over a fan store that shares my name.

Dan's Fan City

What else?

A shack that sold mullet fish and boiled peanuts! Yeah, I wanted some. Yeah, showed up after it closed. I’m not happy about that.

Mullets and Boiled Peanuts

There were these mysterious places like Spinners & Fish Games.

Surf the Web and make friends? Fish games? Go fish?

Spinners Fish Games

I kinda didn’t want to leave.

Peach World

Peach World is Fantastic

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Driving through Georgia on a major interstate road you’ll likely see dozens of signs for Peach World. Like the signs for Florida Citrus Centers in Florida, or South of the Border signs in South Carolina, the repeated Peach World signs form a mantra in the mind — billboard hypnosis that compels the curious to eventually stop at one of these roadside markets.

Peach World

Georgia, of course, is known for its production of peaches, and Peach World is an orange shrine to peaches and peach-based foods.

I visited my first Peach World in December of 2019 returning from a road trip to Miami. To be honest, it wasn’t Peaches or the hypnotic, meme-mnemonics of seeing a Peach World sign every mile — it was Boiled Peanuts. Throughout my travels in the South, I saw hundreds of signs for Boiled Peanuts. Peach World had them, and that was enough for me to stop.

Peach World VW Bug

The exterior of the Peach World was what you might expect: an orange-colored (not “peach”) building (if you think about it, peaches are mostly orange & yellow, not pink/”peach”) with a sign that reads Peach World. Both the sign and the ramp needed cleaning with a power washer. The grounds featured a donkey & pony, which you’re free to feed corn and an eye-catching orange VW Bug.

The interior was very clean (no need for power-washing). One side featured the cash register and various machines to make peach-flavored ice cream and boiled peanuts. The rest of the shop was packed tight with wooden shelves & tables, packed even tighter with so much good stuff — pretty much everything you can imagine that incorporates peaches, peanuts, pecans, and anything you can bake, dry, or otherwise preserve. And a minimal amount of souvenirs — magnets, shirts, glassware. The proprietor was perfect — not pushy, but eager to entertain any question about Peach World and the confections it offers.

Much of the food I encountered was not easily found in New Jersey (where I’m from). New Jersey has its fair share of farmers markets & foods, it’s known for (tomatoes, corn, blueberries, cranberries, pork roll, salt-water taffy) — but there’s nothing like a Peach World or Florida Citrus World in New Jersey — there’s no “Jersey Corn Country” or “Jersey Pork Roll, Egg & Cheese Planet”. I purchased a case of various jarred foods — peach cobbler in a jar, peaches, okra, tiny corn cobs, & quail eggs. They were all fantastic, but the cobbler & quail eggs were a revelation — both I would definitely get again, whether on the road or via mail-order.

Now, onto the boiled peanuts — the reason I stopped in the first place. They’re literally peanuts in the shell that have been boiled. You get a heaping hot bagful — and if you let it be known that you’re eating them on a road trip, you’ll get a plastic bag and napkins so your hands, lap & car doesn’t turn into a swampy mess of hot peanut juice. I recommend giving them a try. They’re warm and soft — almost like a tiny potato — any they taste like shelled peanuts, not like peanut butter.

It’s worth contrasting Peach World with a Florida Citrus World. While I’ve only been to one of each, they’re as different as they are similar. Peach World focuses on preserved foods & baked goods, like Florida Citrus World is more bags of citrus fruit & candy. Florida Citrus World’s souvenir section of t-shirts, glassware, alligator toys & other tchotchkes dwarfs the minimal souvenir selection of Peach World. Both have animals — I’m sure it varies by location — but Florida CW’s got baby gators. I guess, if you’re like me, you have to stop at both, at least once, but because the foods are so good at Peach World, it’s more memorable.

Here’s the Peach World website. If they have it, I recommend the peach cobbler in a jar.

If you visit in person, and you visit the same location I did, be sure to feed the donkey & pony.

Donkey & Pony at Peach World

Last visit: December 10th, 2019.

Oozlefinch or bust

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In December of 2019, I took a few weeks off to drive to Florida, because I’ve never been to Florida before. Never — not even to Disneyland. Along the way, there was one place I wanted to visit more than any other: the Oozlefinch brewery in Fort Monroe, Virginia.

First, what is the Oozlefinch? An Oozlefinch is a cryptid (like Bigfoot or the Jersey Devil) — a featherless bird that was seen, as legend has it, by certain members of the U.S. military, perhaps during a state of intoxication, and was then embraced as a mascot. From Wikipedia:

The Oozlefinch is the unofficial historic mascot of the Air Defense Artillery – and formerly of the U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps. The Oozlefinch is portrayed as a featherless bird that flies backwards (at supersonic speeds)and carries weapons of the Air Defense and Coast Artillery, most often a Nike-Hercules Missile. Oozlefinch has been portrayed in many different forms and artistic interpretations through its history.

oozlefinch

I learned about the Oozlefinch from a tour guide at the Nike Missle Radar Base at Fort Hampton in Sandy Hook, NJ. As part of the tour, the tour guide tells the tale of the Oozlefinch and its importance to the U.S. Air Defence program.  If you’re ever on Sandy Hook, make sure you take the tour and visit the various abandoned military bases there. It’s rad — it’s like something from a Half-Life video game.

The tour guide (I think his name is McMahon) explained the history of the Nike Missle program and the Oozlefinch:

tour guide sandy hook

Old radar, now a favorite roosting place for vultures (no Oozlefinches):

Radar Sandy Hook

As part of the history of the Oozlefinch, the tour guide mentioned the Oozlefinch brewery in Virginia. At that moment, I got it in my head to visit that brewery. Once something novel or bizarre gets lodged in my mind, there’s no getting it out.

If you’re traveling from New Jersey to Florida, no GPS will take you through Fort Monroe, Virginia — it’s going to take you on I-95S, circumventing Delmarva entirely. Even when you ask the GPS to take you to Fort Monroe, Virginia, it’s going to take you through Washington D.C. — you don’t want to do that — for many reasons. What you want to do is take US 13 South instead — through the guts of Delaware, into Maryland, and then into Virginia and across the Chesapeake Bay. Why? Because that’s the most scenic route. I’m also going to recommend crossing the Chesapeake at sunset because it’s spectacular.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel is amazing. It’s 18 miles of bridges and tunnels over and under the Chesapeake bay — lit by the setting sun, illuminated by cycling rainbow-colored lights — it’s a sight to see.  At this leg of my journey, Spotify was playing Lana Del Rey and Grimes — pretty good, chill music considering the flow and visuals of driving across an 18-mile expanse of water at sunset. To be honest, I don’t pay attention to the lyrics.

bay bridge

I rolled into Fort Monroe right when the sky turned black and rain began. Nestled in the moist darkness of the Virginia milliary base, I found a black cinderblock building, with a beer garden illuminated with large-bulb, festive Christmas lights glimmering in the rain — and there it was: the Oozefinch bird in all its featherless, long-necked glory inviting me in.

Inside, like many brewpubs, there’s massive, gleaming brew kettles, and a medium-sized bar and souvenir area. They have an extensive variety of beers, with lots of fancy different flavored beers. Not basic at all. If you’re into craft beers, you’re going to want to try them all. I tried the hefeweizen — pretty tasty.

oozlefinch brewery

Unfortunately, they didn’t have food — no carbs to soak up the alcohol — and with at least 4 more hours of driving ahead of me, I limited myself to one beer. [REDACTED]. And I bought some souvenir keychains and stickers — in case I ever make it back to the Nike Missle Base in New Jersey, I’m going to give one to the tour guides there.

I hope to visit the Oozlefinch again, hopefully, next time I can get a hotel or a designated driver so I can enjoy more beer.

Oh yeah, why “Oozlefinch or bust”? Well, somewhere in Delaware my windshield started to crack… severely. The whole way I was thinking “am I going to make it without my windshield caving in?” I made it. And because I’m a low-key gambler, I drove that cracked windshield all the way to Miami and back…

B.A. Sweetie Candy Company in Cleveland, Ohio

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I’m a sucker for candy and novelty as much as any American, and that’s why I stopped by B.A. Sweeties Candy Company (6770 Brookpark Road, Cleveland OH 44129) this past summer.

B.A. Sweetie is a massive warehouse of candy and soda. It’s about the size of a large supermarket or Best Buy, but not quite as big as a Target or Walmart. It is entirely filled to the ceiling with candy, gum, and soda. One of their slogans is “$3,000,000.00 worth of inventory available at any time!”, and I know I spend almost $200. If memory serves, I bought Charleston Chews, Cherry Mash, candy necklaces, Sour Patch Kids, DOTS, candy cigarettes, sour-candy-flavored breath spray, Chowards gum and candy, Goldberg’s peanut chews, Good n’ Plenty, and many more. Some of this I could get at the local 7-11, but a lot I cannot. I live in New Jersey, which is pretty much a “candy desert” in terms of good candy selection, so when I’m in Ohio, I stock up.

Receipt!

b.a. Sweetie in Cleveland

With sympathy to those amongst us with Type-2 diabetes, or those like myself, who have struggled with obesity most of their life, here’s a selection of photos from B.A. Sweeties.

Here are some “old-timey” Chowards gum and candy. Their violet-scented gum always fascinated me. Who came up with that idea? Mrs. Chowards?

Chowards are an acquired taste.

Look at all these chocolates! Have you tried a Cherry Mash before? If you like candied cherries and chocolate, you simply must eat an entire box full (in a single afternoon).
So much chocolate at b.a. Sweetie in Cleveland

Necco Wafers! The legendary candies that no one admits to liking, but everyone in New Jersey used to use as Jersey Turnpike toll tokens (according to legends).
Necco wafers at b.a. Sweetie in Cleveland

I love Dots candies. Their fruity flavors are delicious, and never too weird. I love the sensation of biting into Dots, and the sweet resistance they offer as my molars compress and slice into their candy gel.
Dots

Candy buttons! A classic! A little paper with your candy never hurt anyone!
Candy Buttons

I lost 45 pounds this year simply by cutting out sweets, and for the first time in my life, I could see my abdominal muscles. Since visiting Sweeties, I’ve gained back 10 pounds (not the full 45). I’ve found that the key to a happy life is to limit your treats and sweets for approximately 360 days a year, and then for the remaining five days, just do crazy and go on a candy vacation.

Funk n Waffles

Funk n’ Waffles

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Ask people where you should eat in Syracuse, and more times than not they’ll say Dinosaur Barbeque. And when you tell them you went to Syracuse, and you didn’t go to Dinosaur Barbeque, they’ll gasp and sigh as you passed on the opportunity of a lifetime. I am not kidding.

Dinosaur Barbeque must be really good. But I’ve had barbecue in North Carolina, and most southern states. And I’ve never had fried chicken served on a waffle before. So when I was in Syracuse, I opted to dine at Funk n’ Waffles.

Funk n Waffles in Syracuse

Funk n’ Waffles is a groovy little restaurant that serves fried chicken tenders on waffles, with an optional selection of sauces. I think I got the ‘spicey maple’. Soul-warming and unexpectedly decadent. Crisp and tender. Savory and sweet. Recommended. Their logo is a waffle on a record turntable — doesn’t get much cooler than that.

I spent some time wandering around Downtown Syracuse. I walked past Dinosaur Barbeque — it was packed, inside and out. Decorated with cartoon dinosaurs. I didn’t get a second dinner, but I thought about it.

The colorfully illuminated art-deco Niagara Mohawk Building:
The colorfully illuminated art-deco Niagara Mohawk Building:

A road cone with koi painted on it:
A road cone with koi painted on it

A metallic building:
Metallic building in Syracuse

The reason why I was in Syracuse, might be more interesting than this story: 17-year Cicadas.

A Rave about Hunter DineRant

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The diner: that great American species of the restaurant! When I think of a diner, I think of a variety of food, at a reasonable price. Eggs at 2 am. A place where cash-strapped young adults can gather and converse, recovering from or plotting their next adventure over black coffee and fries. A place where laughs, worries, and dreams can be shared among friends.

Hunter Dinerant (I’m guessing Dinerant is a portmanteau of diner & restaurant) is located in Auburn, New York, about 3 miles north of Finger Lake, Owasco Lake. On Google, it’s called “Hunter’s Dinerant”, but the actual signage lacks the apostrophe. The Dinerant seems to hang over the side of the Owasco River.

The Dinerant is what I would call a classic American diner. Not quite the romanticized Hollywood version with a cast of gum-snapping, pomade-greased teenagers bopping about — but close.

The Dinerant has many of the features that every classic diner should have:

  1. It is shaped like a railroad dining car. A single aisle down the center. Curved corners.
  2. It is wrapped in gleaming chrome and detailed with crimson and white stripes.
  3. It has booths for groups and a counter & stools for solitary folks.
  4. Cadillac-pink vinyl upholstery. Pink Formica everywhere.
  5. Meat-pink floors flecked with white and black confetti patterns.
  6. Vinyl-protected menus listings dozens, if not hundreds of reasonably priced comfort foods.
  7. A mini jukebox at every table, with alpha-numeric keypads. You want to play a song just to feel the mechanical pop of those keys.

This type of diner differs from the Jersey Greek diners I’m used to. Jersey Greek diners lack the railroad dining car shape and 1950s aesthetic. Same basic food and jukeboxes though.

The waitress was polite and welcomed me to sit wherever I like. I ordered a coffee, fries, and a grilled cheese on white — my personal favorite diner foods. It’s been 5 months since I was there, but I remember the coffee was strong, but not burnt, bitter, or sour. It was perfect. Nice white porcelain mug. The fries — not too thin, not too thick — I covered with a reasonable shower of ketchup — that familiar micro-moment resistance of the fried outside, giving way to the soft potato fluff inside. The grilled cheese was photo perfect — cut on a diagonal. Each bite was a harmony of buttery, barely-crisp bread, oozing with just hot enough to not burn your mouth American cheese. Delicious. Exactly the lunch I needed to supply the energy for a long day of driving.

Visit the Hunter Dinerant for its classic looks and a perfect diner meal. Marvel at how it partially hangs over the side of a small river.

Interior of the Dinerant — thankfully just one TV, with the volume turned low. So much pink and chrome.
Interior of Hunter Dinerant

The exterior of the Dinerant — see the river below?
Hunter Dinerant

Across the street and to the right you’ll see a large pale red sign for Genesee Beer. It looks like it was once neon, but the tubes have been removed.
Genesee Beer

Monorail

Jungle Jim’s International Market

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Whenever I’m traveling through the mid-west I try to stop at Jungle Jim’s. In the past, I’ve said Jungle Jim’s was the greatest supermarket in America, but up until this spring I had only visited the Eastgate location. This year I visited the original Fairfield location… and I was not disappointed. Jungle Jim’s — no matter which location you choose — is the greatest supermarket in America.

James O. Bonaminio (Jungle Jim) started his business as a humble produce stand in 1971 in Hamilton, OH. Jim opened the Fairfield location in 1975, expanded to 19K sq. ft. in 1982, and added the trademark Zoo animal pond in ’83. By 2001 a monorail was added and the store expanded to over 284,000 sq. ft. — that’s roughly 5 football fields of food, beverages, and fun (source).

Nascar - Jungle Jim's

The big difference between the original Fairfield and the newer Eastgate location (est. 2012) is their layouts — the Fairfield location feels like it evolved over time, which it did, and Eastgate feels like it was planned out ahead of time, which it was. Fairfield has more twists, turns, and bottlenecks, and the Eastgate location is more rectangular. The amazing selection of food and beverages is the same. Both have plenty of safari-themed fiberglass animal attractions, and pop-culture-themed displays — Fairfield has a NASCAR hanging over the Foodie entrance, an animatronic singing bear named Elvis, and a small yacht featuring the cast of Gilligan’s Island, to name a few.

Jungle Jim and his Elephant

While Jungle Jim’s has plenty of vehicles and animals to amuse kids and adults alike, it’s the rare foods and beverages that keep me coming back. Aisles and aisles of food from around the world — particularly candy, maybe the best candy selection in the world. Hundreds of types of hot sauce. Hundreds of types of soda pop. Hundreds of types of beer. All these crazy brands you’ve never heard of before. Yes, they have normal food too. They even have ailes of healthy food! Imagine the selection of Whole Foods, plus the most popular brands, plus an unbelievable selection of novelty food & drinks that would otherwise take a lifetime to find — all in one convenient location.

It’s Disneyland for your mouth!

Jim the Wizard of low prices and finer foods:
Wizard of Food

How many supermarkets have a tribute to Gillian’s Island?
a small yacht featuring the cast of Gilligan's Island

The Massive Hot Sauce display:
Jungle Jim's Firetruck Hotsauce display

Jungle Jim’s has a massive selection of candy from all around the world. These Gummi Snails from Germany and sour lemon candies from Japan were amongst my favorites.

Gummi escargot

Sour Lemon Candy

Elvis

Animatronic Elvis Animal

Info: Jungle Jim’s website.
Location: 5440 Dixie Highway, Fairfield, OH 45014.

Dick's Drive in in Seattle

Dick’s Drive-In and Driving Around Seattle

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The point of this article is to showcase Dick’s Drive-In’s amazing rotating, partially neon sign. Look at this sign. Just look at it.

Dick's Hamburgers

The rest is a ramble about driving around Seattle in a rental car:

The week before last I found myself in Seattle, Washington on a business trip. The rental car was a Toyota Yaris, a peppy sub-compact that gave me the odd feeling of driving while sitting on a bar stool — higher up than expected, never quite comfortable, ever feeling like I could topple off at any moment. I never felt like the Yaris was my car — I felt like Hertz could remotely eject me from the vehicle at will or whim. This is fine. A rental car should remind you that you’re only visiting, and not here to stay (and perhaps not welcome). Yaris — weird, but fun to drive.

Every big city likes to brag about its traffic. L.A. takes an hour to move 5 miles. NYC has its gridlock. Atlanta has drivers who refuse to use turn signals. Seattle has bad traffic for its own reasons. Reason number one: it rains a lot. Rain is annoying as-is, but the accompanying foggy windows and tire-swallowing flooding are even worse. I imagine Seattle’s hilly streets can be quite treacherous on icy winter days. Number two: much of the area looks rural, but it is actually a city; hilly, tree-lined neighborhoods of bungalow-style homes quickly transition to congested highways — unexpected and jarring. Number three: the high-traffic times seem to last longer than expected — like from 5pm to 8:30pm. I wonder if this is due to folks working in the tech industry, where 12-hour days are the norm (Microsoft, Amazon). Think you’re going to avoid traffic by leaving at 7:30 pm — NOPE! Number four: Seattle-area drivers are not courteous. I live in New Jersey — a state that celebrates its rudeness; we call it “unhöflichkeitstolz” — Seattle is just as rude. If you see someone in the lane to your left who has signaled that they want to merge into your lane, give them space and let them in. Combine this set of challenges with an abundance of residents and visitors because of the tech industry, and driving around Seattle can be miserable. Seattle residents seem to take pride in their miserable traffic. “Elendstolz” or “misery pride” in German (I made that up).

Combine Seattle traffic with a less-than-accurate GPS, and a half-hour trip becomes an hour and a half. If you’ve read my Maryland trips this year, you know I enjoy when my demented GPS takes me to places I otherwise would have never known. When time is a factor, however, a GPS that continually thinks you’re driving 1 street to your right can be both bemusing and vexing. You’re going to miss a half dozen exits and make 100 wrong turns, but you’re also going to accidentally see the tent cities, shipyards, the first Starbucks, the Fremont troll, and dozens of other sights the typical visitor will miss.

The Dick’s Drive-In I spied was on North 45th street, which also features the tentacle neon of the Octopus Bar, and the brick and mortar manifestation of Archie McPhee. The Dick’s Drive has no servers on roller skates or food trays that hang on your doors — this is not the 1950s. Instead, you find parking, wait in line, watch workers prepare burgers, fries, and shakes in bright, medically-white clean conditions, place your order, your order appears in about 10 seconds, you pay, and then you leave. Very efficient. No sass or insincerity. After an hour of Seattle traffic, simplicity and efficiency are what you need.

The “B-Side” of the rotating sign.
Dick's Drive-In in Seattle WA