Chinese in Wytheville, VA c/o Peking Restaurant

On Tuesday I left Philadelphia and started my drive back down to Tennessee. In the past (mainly during college) I regularly drove on I-95. But, seeing as I've been in Chicago, I haven't been on that particular interstate in quite a while...and I forgot how scary it is...or I used to not find it scary but now I do...especially around Philadelphia. I'm also struck by how everyone, for the most part, is going the speed limit on 95. In my day people would be going 80 even though the speed limit was 55 (I never did this...I'd stay at respectable 65). A few thoughts about driving on highways...

1) 95 is boring and terrible for the most part. While I-66 and I-81 are very pretty. If I stopped every time I saw a pretty piece of scenery on 81, well, I'd still be there.

2) I have never quite been on a meandering road trip. With one notable exception my freshmen year of college...my then friend S. and I decided to drive from Maryland to college using no major highways. That was fun...until we got lost for the tenth time...and went crazy...actually it was fun. I always love the concept of just getting off the main highway and seeing what there is to see. I know if I think it's pretty on the interstate that it must be far prettier off of it, past all the Bob Evans, Shoneys and gas stations. Unfortunately it's hard to get yourself to do that when you're the only driver. Similarly I will see signs for Andrew Jackson's birth place or some other historical site and I'll think about getting off but being just one person, well, somehow I can't quite manage rationalizing the time, gas and distance lost. This bums me out.

I broke the trip in Wytheville, Virginia after about 7 hours of driving. I stayed at a muoy funky Budget Host Motel on a hill. As I drove up the hill I saw, at its base, a Mexican restaurant. I decided I would go to this Mexican restaurant, El Puerto, for dinner. But first I needed to see a little bit of the town and buy cigarettes. So I drove into the main part of town and then to a gas station. When I got out of the car some skinny tall southern dude asked me if I knew where the Mexican restaurant was. I did. So I told him. But then, I realized, that now, if I went to the restaurant, he and his buddies would think that I went there because I knew they were going there. I couldn't have lied and said I didn't know where the restaurant was because they would have asked someone else and they, then, would have found me there and been even more convinced that I had some strange desire to hang out with them. Which I didn't. So, even though I had gotten myself pretty revved up about enchiladas and a margarita, I had to come up with an alternate eating solution. This alternative was Peking Restaurant, very close by the motel and the Mexican restaurant.
My server was a teenage boy who kept calling me m'aam and telling me it was all no problem (this was in response to my thank yous). It was a funny thing, I think, the women at the front of the restaurant were Chinese but all the waitstaff were 16-18 year old white kids. I ordered a Tsingtao and had the Kung Pao Chicken combo.
The egg roll was nice and hot. And, actually, better than many I've tried (I have no true affinity for them). Their menu was funny in a lack of appetizers...rangoons, egg rolls, ribs and that's about it...no wontons, dumplings etc.

The egg roll was encouraging. I was excited to eat my entree, which is too bad since it wasn't all that great. It wasn't terrible with a capital T but it wasn't at all memorable. The fried rice (another thing I have never really cared for) remained mostly untouched after the first bite. The chicken, which had been classified as 'spicy', was not very spicy and vegetables far outnumbered chicken chunks. Though the chicken chunks present were moist, not rubbery, and I can appreciate that. I liberally used their spicy mustard to give the dish some kind of kick but, overall, I felt let down.