Rick and Kathy visit | rickandkathy.com

We wound up there for lunch yesterday because we ran out of Batampte mustard.

Rick has a teeny Batampte mustard addiction issue.

This unassuming little deli at Polk and Clay in San Francisco is our closest pusher. In fact, it’s one of the few places you can even find Batampte mustard in the whole Bay Area. It’s not terrifically convenient for us, but when the Batampte Beast hollers, you just ask “How much?”

It’s busy at Miller’s East Coast Deli at 1 p.m. on a Saturday, which notched the ambiance to be as close to a New York deli as I’ve found outside of Manhattan.

The biggest difference is that the staff don’t yell at you if you take longer than three seconds to place your order, and the customers all seem content to hang out if they have to wait a few minutes to get a seat.

It’s nice to get out and people watch once in a while.

There were some real characters on both sides of the counter.

I had no idea that “highway traffic cone” was a popular look, or even a possible one.

Time to order, but what to choose? They have every Jewish deli star on the cholesterol hit parade available. Eventually, we landed on a strategy: If you can’t believe a million bubbes about pastrami, what can you believe?

We ordered the pastrami.

The mustard in the refillable yellow plastic squeezy bottle at each table? Batampte, of course.

We also ordered the sweet and sour cabbage rolls.

And the potato latkes.

I stopped licking the plates when it became apparent I was embarrassing Rick.

We bought three jars of the mustard.

Don’t tell Rick, but I threw two of them out of the car on the way home. I can’t wait that long to have to go back.

Next time? Bagels, baby… bagels.

The road between our two valleys is 900 miles long. This means we have spent a LOT of time on pavement in the last year or so. Yesterday’s post reminded me how many photos I’ve shot in the last year at 65 mph (give or take). so this morning I did a quick zip through the archives with that perspective in mind.

Truly, there are some magnificent vistas along the way…

… with sky and water and land that’s so beautiful and changes so quickly you can’t quite believe your eyes.

But sometimes, it’s just hour after hour of this.

There are places that are so far away from anywhere that, although the locator app gives assurance that you are, indeed, somewhere, it doesn’t want to speculate on the details.

There are stretches where it’s mile after mile of these…

… with a rare shift in artistic impression to relieve the tedium.

It’s always a highlight when you catch a glimpse of a critter (coyote? wolf? Henny Penny?)…

… and even cows can gjve you something to do with the camera.

For instance, I was wild with excitement when we came across this herd next to an off-ramp on the way to a pit stop. For one invigorating moment, I thought they were really large ostriches. In formation. With their school letters proudly on display. In Idaho.

I still don’t know what they are (thrashers? threshers? thrushes?), but I’m pretty clear now they weren’t ostriches.

In an upcoming post, remind me to tell you about my love/hate relationship with Flying J Travel Plazas. For now, let’s just agree that I took a photo of a sign that advertised bratwurst, and this has meaning.

Eating is a great way to pass seven or eight minutes.

In the spirit of a public health bulletin, let me say here that attempting to eat a Carl’s Junior Low-Carb burger while driving is the equivalent of texting, flossing, and dropping a lit cigarette between the seats, all at the same time.

Not recommended, unless you’re the one with the camera and find that kind of thing really funny when it happens to someone else.

Personally, I don’t enjoy having my picture taken after I’ve been on the road for 13 hours, but maybe that’s just me. Rick is a much better sport about that kind of thing.

Note the bare foot up on the dashboard. This is always a clear sign of the onset of NBS (Numb Butt Syndrome), and that I’m likely getting cranky.

I sometimes wonder if these mark the spot where someone died of boredom.

Generally, though, we really enjoy road trips and find them great fodder for our journals, blog, and memory bank.

There’s a ton of good music to enjoy along the way, meandering conversations to start, stop, and rewind, and some stunning scenery to soak in. And at the end of a very long day, there is almost always somewhere to find a pot of gold.