Secrets of the City

Mmmmm. Truck stop dining. Love it! Locally, there is Stockman’s in South St. Paul. Just east of Hudson off I-94 is a TA that is more family-oriented. Real stick-to-your-bones meals and never outrageously priced. At one time, Stockman’s had on their menu the “Mongo,” an all-you-can-eat steak dinner priced (in the mid-’90s) around $10. (”Mongo” was the name of the oafish jock in Revenge of the Nerds.) It ain’t glamorous food but it’s good, fast, and filling. And the people-watching may still be worth a look.

any recommendations for Truck Stop Dining between Albert Lea and Des Moines?

Albert Lea has 2 truck stops — Trails (which is a TA) and a new one I believe. Both are at I-35 & County Rd. 46 just south of I-90. Trails has decent food and standard truck stop prices.

noodleman…correction:
“Mongo” was Alex Karas’ character in Blazing Saddles.
The oafish jock in ROTN was “Ogre”

I’m sure the dinner will taste even better know that this has been cleared up.

Mongo likes candy!

Mongo just pawn in game of life….

Liked Deb Rybak’s sassy media slapdown, as reported by the Mole’s Steve Perry. No love lost between these two and their former employers. A taste:

“Within a matter of months, the Star Tribune turned from a respectable paper owned and helmed by seasoned media professionals to a leaky, listing sloop piloted by a bunch of greedy private equity stooges and publisher Par Ridder, who apparently never met a proprietary piece of information that he didnt feel entitled to steal. He successfully turned the Strib from a go-to media source to a staff-starved purveyor of high school prep scores, local crime stories, and wire copy. It took a judge to topple Ridder. Its hard to say whether the paper will ever recover from his brief, brutal regime.

City Pages flipped from a smart alt weekly to frat boy snark sheet and lost most of its staff in the process. Two of the three biggest TV news operations in town lost their news directors and Clear Channels local radio station cartel lost Mick Anselmo, who had brought some local humanity to the faceless conglomerate. In the process, local medias institutional memory took a hit of Alzheimers-esque proportions.”

Please, don’t hold back — tell us what you really think, Deb…

I love truck stops. One can find the weirdest shite. The first road trip I took to Mississippi exposed me to the plethora of confederate tchotckes that exist. I was oddly mesmerized by it all. Prolly out of disbelief that it was all so, um, public.

Oh, and that it’s true that you can take anything healthy and fry it up.

If I could put finger on the Strib’s demise, it started with Pam Fine. This Ridder fellow may have kicked it over as it was tottering, but I couldn’t really say since I’ve long since lost interest.

The demise of the Strib happened long before Ridder or Avista came along.

I still have an awesome cassette from my spring break trip to Arkansas in 1992. It’s called the Best of Southern Rock Part II and has some really odd stuff along with the stuff you would expect. It has this Elvin Bishop song called Strutting My Stuff that is hilarious.

Is this truck stop sort of a ironic thing. Like hipsters drinking skunky tasting Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer.

Would a self-respecting truck stop throw all you asses out?

It’s kinda like The Rat opting to leave his usual gym to work out the tattooed denizens at Rice Street in St. Paul.

“Hey, Yuppie Boy. Hear you like to fight!”

I miss their old design. You remember? Back in the 70s? Back when they used grids and sans serif fonts? It looked really futuristic, in a 60s way.

I still have an awesome cassette from my spring break trip to Arkansas in 1992. It’s called the Best of Southern Rock Part II…

Whatever, Kid Rock.

Like hipsters drinking skunky tasting Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer.

um…Heineken is skunky…PBR is lightly hoppy.

Is this truck stop sort of a ironic thing.

I think its more of a nostalgia thing. Remembering roaming through the icy oasis of the truck stop as Dad refilled the station wagon on your way to the country for vacation. Finding all sorts of odd things that you didn’t have at home, like racks of trucker porn and 1000 different kinds of air fresheners. You could spend hours looking at the rack of 8-tracks. At least until you got left at the station and had to sit on the curb until they found out they left you.

Agreed, Grote. Heineken and Rolling Rock win the skunky tasting beer awards.

Like hipsters drinking skunky tasting Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer.
That shit gets you hammered like nobody’s business, though, and it’s dirt cheap.

Add Amstel Light to that list grote and tara.

marsh did a funny piece on The PBR…somebody link it, plz.

I’m with Simpleton on it being nostalgia. It’s like entering a time machine when you walk into some truck stops. Plus the trucker dudes are some of the coolest guys in the world. Not only will they give you the best route to take, but tell you all of the cool things to see.

Oh yeah, and the food is rockin’ comfort food.

I wonder if people really use those shower facilities I sometimes see at truck stops…

I think Heineken tastes good when it’s on tap. Those little glasses they pour in Europe and they scrape off the foam. Nice little bit of flair.

The company has developed a tap that really chills the beer down to about 33 degrees.

They finally started listening to Americans. Beer tastes good cold.

I also always had an odd fascination with the showers in Truck Stops.
Maybe this explains some things.

They finally started listening to Americans. Beer tastes good cold.

perhaps shitty beer tastes better cold, but good beer need not & should not be served @ 33 degrees…more like 45 degrees.
BTW, Heineken / Amstel = Euro Bud / Euro Bud Light

Tap Dancing in the Truck Stop Shower?

Could be a country song.

I did see a dude coming out of the shower at a truck stop in Wyoming he had all of his shower products with him. So not a typical truck driver looking dude. Sorta too pretty to be a trucker.

Heineken / Amstel = Euro Bud / Euro Bud Light

Thought that was Stella.

I’m no beer snob. If I like it, it’s good.

Stella is Hyped Hipster Heineken

my fave truck stop is the Rock Creek Lodge in Clinton, MT. all your normal truck stop gift shop oddities, plus a casino and dive bar which is home to the annual Testicle Festival. Loads of Rocky Mountain Oysters.

So true. Ordered a Stella at the Bulldog because it was the only thing I remembered they have, and immediately regretted it.

don’t worry, max…my wife loves it, therefore I would not judge.

I was a truck driver for a year or so and I tell ya, truck stops look completely different from the other side – they’re almost like going to a mall. And drivers get treated differently, respected.

I think that’s what I loved about truck driving – it was a big family. You’re right there in the middle of everything, bigger then life, but no one sees you. You meet the most interesting people driving too – sure, a lot of your stereotypical beer bellied toothless Joe, but I’ve talked to an ex-physics professor, a guy who had an advanced degree in math, a ton of military guys. A lot of the truck drivers even live in their truck, no real address. When they get their time off (Usually 1 day per week on the road) they just spent it in a hotel.

Hell, I wrote an article called “On Temporary Friends” about some of the touching moments. Check it out.

First off, thank you MNspeak for the link this morning. It was quite the nice surprise. Now, onto truck stops.

The food definitely is some of the best “home cooking” “comfort food” that you’ll find at a very reasonable price. But, as many have alluded to, one of the other fun things about truck stops is the near limitless amount of time one can spend browsing the shelves and walls.

RE: Showers. I can’t say that I’ve ever had the pleasure/displeasure of using a truck stop shower. However, I can tell you there have been several instances where I’ve been on the road and considered it an option when driving straight through to a location and needing to get cleaned up prior to arrival.

Heineken and Rolling Rock win the skunky tasting beer awards.

Thanks to their green bottles. Non-brown bottles let in more light, which causes bad chemical reactions in some of the flavor compounds from hops.

Another off-topic inside media tip from Bob:

Back in the Black: Eric Black is leaving Minnesota Monitor and moving to MinnPost.

Thanks to their green bottles. Non-brown bottles let in more light, which causes bad chemical reactions in some of the flavor compounds from hops.

Hey, you watch Sam Adams commercials too!

Back in Indy, I used to like a nasty little cream ale called “Little Kings,” served in 6 oz. green glass bottles.

What was I thinking back then?

Ooooh, the Rock Creek Lodge. It’s seven exits from where my friend lives in Missoula. How could I have forgotten the Testy Festy? I think I still have a testy festy t-shirt tucked away somewhere.

Hey, you watch Sam Adams commercials too!

I don’t watch many commercials nowadays thanks to TiVo. I do, however, homebrew. Which is a good way to find out all sorts of geeky stuff about beer.

a chick who homebrews…I just got all woody.

Ooops. Mongo make fool of moi.

Speaking of odd truck stops, there was one I visited in Alabama on the way to Huntsville from Mobile. Can’t remember the town but it was small … small enough to be having a Saturday morning parade of town Little Leaguers when we drove through.

The truck stop itself was also small enough so that my credit card had to be carried across the street to a gas station for swiping. The restaurant itself was not equipped for credit card transactions (and wouldn’t take an out-of-station check, of course) … and this was in 1995! LOL

am i not alone with finally deciding that premium grain belt is really crap tasting beer?

baker…premium grain belt is corn laced crap beer. but i’ll drink it in a pinch to enhance my TC street cred.

speaking of local brews, what kind of jagoff pays $142.50 for 750ml of local brew?

grote, i agree completely.
I used to drink it out of respect and all that. Until i realized thatr it just tatstes like piss.

grote, the same kind who is a chronic bidder on eBay beer. Weird.

I would steer clear of truck stop showers, not sure of their set-up but my sister-in-law wears it like a badge of honor that she had sex in multiple truck stop showers while traveling with her trucker boyfriend.

Jason…I’m finding out where that dude lives and raiding his beer cellar.

I would steer clear of truck stop showers

I kind of like them, if you know what I mean…

The truck stop showers are like your bathroom at home, except it gets sterilized (at all the reputable places) after every use, so there’s no need to steer clear of them.

. . . so there’s no need to steer clear of them
It was a night just like tonight, at a reputable truck stop just like this one, that I should have steered clear . . . .

If you do eat at a truck stop. . . order the biscuits and gravy . . . and tell ‘em Large Marge sent’cha

ahhhhh heh heh heh
ahhhhh heh heh heh