Travels in a Tin Can

Deep South there was not a lot that took our fancy. Unless you are into cows
or oil there is not much on that route to take anyone's fancy.
We got up quite early – though not as early as for departure day Family
Thomas style - on those days when we had a lot of ground to cover and were
usually on the road by 8.30-9am. Breakfast normally consisted of just coffee
at that hour partly to save time but largely because our stomachs rejected
anything else. We would then try to eat up a couple of hundred miles before
our first stop around 11am. This would be a food break and the timing was
normally dictated by when we saw a Denny's sign. This was our favourite
eatery for brunch and was a treat that we generally saved for road trips.
Early on in our travels we discovered that we could get good value and
decent food from this chain of diners, and it certainly beat McDonalds or
Burger King. There was nearly always one in the groups of restaurants and
petrol stations that sprung up beside the road every 50 or so miles,
shimmering like a mirage in the distance. In fact, the only areas where we
struggled to find them were the Deep South and parts of Florida. There we
had to settle for Waffle House, which always seemed a bit grubbier and less
nutritious, and where the presentation of food followed a bizarre system with
every item of breakfast arriving on an individual plate. The waffles were lovely
though.
Denny's offered novelty value, because we had never come across any
restaurants in the UK that were similar, the closest equivalent being Little
Chef. We are talking vinyl covered booths and metal and Formica tables here,
sure you can find these in countless other diners in the US, but there was
something about the Denny’s atmosphere that drew us back time and again.