Table for Two?
Or zero. Does zero work for you?
The best part about being empty nesters is not caring if you ruffle a few feathers. Yes, I know that’s a tragic sentence, but stay with me. There will be no more bird metaphors winging your way, I promise.
Chris and I have been alone again naturally since 2022. While it’s definitely bittersweet to have your kids living elsewhere, there are also considerable perks. In our case, roadtrips. Now that it’s just the two of us, we can travel a lot more lightly. No more packing multiple suitcases, or coming up with fun car activities, or planning places to stop to “burn off some energy” before we “kill each other in this Love’s Truck Stop shower stall*.” All we need now is a full tank of gas.
Well, gas plus hotel reservations made in advance using Bonvoy points, with special requests for non-feather pillows and a room on a high floor that’s not next to an elevator or a drunk family reunion. I may be traveling light, but I'm not traveling idiot.
So far this year, we’ve driven from Austin to Albuquerque and Santa Fe and to the Texas coast. Those maybe don’t sound like long trips, but anyone that knows Texas knows it takes eight hours in any direction just to cross the state line, and that’s starting from the middle. I’m pretty sure you can drive through the entire other 49 states in the country in that same amount of time. (#NotGreatAtGeography)
Last weekend, we had a bit of a hybrid road trip. We flew to Omaha, Nebraska to pick up a new car Chris bought, then we drove it back home, stopping in Kansas City, MO, Bentonville, AR and Tulsa, OK on the way. I called it the “Places That Are Not on My Bucket List” trip.
It might sound fancy to fly to another state to buy a car, but what we bought is a used Alfa Romeo and for some reason, Omaha has one of the biggest Alfa Romeo car lots. I guess their two main exports are Italian sports cars and corn? Tutto bene. It’s a really nice car, although it took me a while to get used to having it. We were driving through a parking lot looking for a space, and Chris started yelling, “Move it! Get out of the way! Alfa coming through! Here comes the Alfa!”
Because this is America in 2025, I heard it as “Alpha coming through!” and then immediately lectured him for acting like an entitled white guy, even snarkily suggested he start a podcast, until I realized there was no “ph” in his Alfa, and we had to have another lengthy talk about Why Wendi Needs a Break from Social Media.
But let me get to the biggest perk of being empty nesters on a road trip: table dashing.
I’m not talking about the classic dine ‘n dash that everyone tries at least once in high school, where you run out of Applebee’s without paying the check. That’s the second worst thing you can do to a server. The first worst thing is telling your date, “Here’s her tip”, then putting coins in a glass of water, a menu on the top, and flipping it over so she gets a fun $.75 surprise. Ah, Jerry Mertz. The one that got away.
Chris and I don’t ever set out to table dash, but it happens on roadtrips because we don’t always pick the best restaurants despite me Googling “guacamole near me,” then trying to decipher the map while we bomb down the freeway at 85mph. So at least once or twice per trip, we find ourselves wandering into a bar or restaurant, sitting down, and then, finding either the menu or the ambiance wanting, we give each other a “let’s blow this pop stand” look and leave before we can be told about the special of the day.
I guess it’s a little rude, but it’s not like any of the employees are running after us, screaming, “Wait! Come back! We want to hear all about your special dietary needs! We love having AARP members in our leather bar!”
This, of course, doesn’t happen if we can look at the menu in advance. Specifically, a menu that lists the prices, so we don’t sit down in a bar in Santa Fe and discover that guacamole and chips costs $25. “I could buy an avocado tree for $25,” I hissed to Chris, right before we stood up and left that place. “They grow on trees, right?”
During our recent stay in Kansas City, we wanted a cozy hotel bar to have a cocktail and maybe some snacks after a long day of driving. Most of the bars near us were sports bars, but then we found one that looked promising. Yes, it was in the back of an ice cream parlor, and yes it had a big drain in the middle of the floor like the Waffle House, and yes, the only two other customers at the time were wearing hot pants and mesh shirts at 5pm, but so what. That could work. But then after a few minutes scanning the drinks menu, we realized three things: 1) The bar was blasting all Katy Perry songs because 2) there was a Katy Perry concert that night at the arena down the street and 3) it was about to be filled with more mesh shirts and hot pants and … people that paid for a Katy Astronaut Perry ticket.
“We’re too old for this shit,” Chris whispered as we stood up. “Want to drink beer in our room?”
“Yep,” I answered my Alpha Male. “I’m buying.”
Nobody even saw us leave.
*I have never showered at Love’s Truck Stop
Thanks for reading!
—Wendi
OTHER THINGS:
My friend Johanna Gohmann and I wrote this funny salute to mothers over on McSweeneys.
Thinking you had showered at Love’s Truck Stop nearly gave me a heart attack.
I need more Road trip stories with you and Alfa/alpha male please. Jerry sounds like a real gem. I support the table dash.