Blueberry Muffin

Waking in the morning to the growing light of the new day, thinking of where I was, trying to fall back to sleep but needing to pee. Vladi was nowhere around. I struggled out of the sleeping bag, out of the tent, to stand in the dawn air. Still no Vladi. Walking to a tree. When I came back, Vladi was getting out of the back of the van.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Man, I couldn't sleep in the tent with you. You snore, brother. Jesus, I don't know how anyone can stand it."

"What do you want to do?"

"Let's go get something to eat."

"Should we take the tent down?" I asked.

"No, man, this is a campground. We'll come back."

And so we drove back the way we'd come the night before past the little wooden shack that was still closed. Out on the road, we saw what we hadn't been able to see clearly the night before. The road was a narrow blacktop lined by rocky bluffs and trees. It wound around and around so that each turn was a surprise. Here was a gas station. Further down, a store. When we got to the Blue Moon Cafe, we pulled in. The place was already crowded, the interior warm and cozy. Breakfast smells choked the air.

"I'm having eggs and bacon and pancakes and whatever else they have," I said. Men in plaid shirts chatted with the waitress. The walls were covered with woven baskets and antique metal tools. I'd never really seen anyplace like it. In truth, I hadn't eaten out that much other than at fast food places. My parents were products of The Great Depression and my family didn't eat out often at all, and when we did, it was usually at the diner connected to the Rexall Drugstore where we would get a breaded and fried Salisbury Steak smothered in gravy, mashed potatoes with a different gravy, and some overcooked vegetable on the side with a big basket of white bread and butter. This would happen occasionally on a Friday night, but not very often. And maybe twice a year we would go to a real restaurant. In high school, I would go with my friends to a Big Boy or a Burger King, but I didn't have much in my repository of experience with which to categorize this place. All I could think of was The Hobbit and Bilbo Baggins. We were on a journey. We stopped at an Inn. I don't know.

"I'm having a big blueberry muffin," said Vladi. When he said it, I wasn't sure if I'd ever had a muffin. "Me, too," I said.

When the muffins came, they were big, bigger than a fist by half, and they were still hot so that the Land O' Lakes butter I slathered over mine melted on contact and stained blue from the berries.

"What do you want to do today," I asked Vladi.

"Let's find a trail and go for a hike. Then we can drive over and see what Woodstock is like."

I didn't have any better idea. I didn't have any ideas at all. Everything was new to me. I just wanted to see it all.