Madison, Indiana
7/11/2009
After our hard-fought chili victory we returned to the Days Inn in Fort Wright, Kentucky – just outside of Cincinnati. When we walked in they had a sign that said, “No refunds after twenty minutes in room.” Sounded promising. The elevator didn’t work. Apparently there had been a fire and the fire department shut down the elevator for safety reasons. Fun. A ceiling tile was hanging down in the bathroom, which added to the décor nicely. The next morning we decided to take advantage of the much-touted “free breakfast.” It consisted of vanilla wafers, stale cereal and an employee who insisted we hurry up because she wanted to clean the coffee pot. Oh well. You get what you pay for. By the way, as an added bonus, Laura broke out in nasty hives that didn’t go away for about two weeks.
Shaking the bacteria from our feet we made our way to the time-locked town of Madison, Indiana. This was a really great town – from what we could tell in our three hours there it really is your prototypical American Midwest small town that we often think doesn’t really exist any more. We were lucky enough to arrive on a day when some sort of town craft fair was going on, where local people were selling their artwork and garden vegetables. Apparently, the town was celebrating its bicentennial. We bought a hand-painted bookmark of the town fountain by a local artist. Schultz recommends eating at Hinkles Sandwich Shop – which was where we were planning to have lunch, but as bad luck would have it, this particular day the proprietors were on vacation. Open since 1933 and we come the one day they’re closed. It was time to improvise. Laura wanted to go to the Hong Kong Kitchen. (By the way, is there a town anywhere in the world that doesn’t have a Chinese restaurant in it?) Much to Laura’s initial disappointment, we skipped the Chinese food and went to Roger’s Diner and Soda Fountain. Apparently, it’s been in operation for a hundred years, initially as a drug store. It looks just like you’d imagine some 1950s-style diner looks like, accept it isn’t put on. It truly is one of those places. We had burgers, of course. They were amazing. You could add flavors to soda, and I noticed they had strawberry, so I had them add that to a Coke. The waitress thought that was weird. So did the cook. This place has been open a hundred-years and nobody ever ordered that before? Maybe I invented it. I took great pride in this for the rest of the trip. Coke a la Oliver. For some reason, Laura wasn’t that impressed.
No comments:
Post a Comment