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

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 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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

Heineken / Amstel = Euro Bud / Euro Bud Light

Thought that was Stella.

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

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.

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

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.

Another off-topic inside media tip from Bob:

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

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?

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.

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

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

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

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.

I would steer clear of truck stop showers

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

. . . 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