Life on the road is never boring; often challenging, but never boring! After a day of driving from Massachusettes to New Jersey (with a few stops along the way), we finally arrived at our hotel. We were starving and across the street was an enticing little place called MOM’S DINER. Who can pass up a diner??
We all jumped out of the truck and took off that direction. But first, we wanted to make sure that no one would park around our rig in the hotel parking lot and trap us. We have an early morning load in (7:30am) at the Mount Burke Theatre and didn’t want to run the risk of not getting out of the parking lot. There were these big orange construction barrels stacked by one of the light posts in the lot so we put them around our truck and took off for the diner.
What an experience! This is one of the greatest things about being on the road! We all ordered some authentic Greek food from the menu (the owner, George, and our server, Steve were both Greek). The meal was amazing and then came baklava for dessert. For those of you who know me – way too many carbs! But delicious!!
After some casual conversation with our server, Steve, everyone became aware that we were the illusion show at the theatre on Sunday. At the request of the owner, George, David went back to the truck to get an 8 X 10 glossy to add to the collection of autographed photos they had behind the counter. When David made it back to the restaurant, he was a bit upset. Turns out those nice convenient orange construction barrels belonged to a construction crew staying at the hotel…and they weren’t all that happy that we were temporarily using them. David noticed that the crew guys were standing around our trailer and then George looked over there to see them STILL around the trailer. David and I took over across the 4 lane road and field to make sure they were letting air out of our tires or anything. Once we got there, I apologized to the guys for using the barrels and explained that we just didn’t want to get blocked in and didn’t realize that they belonged to someone other than the hotel. After a brief explanation and apology, the guys were very cool about the whole thing and said they’d take care of it with their boss. We jumped into the trailer, got our own orange cones and marked off the places….then ran back to the diner to finish up the baklava!
Steve sat down with us and talked while we ate. He shared a part of his life with us telling us how he came to America from Greece as a 10 year old boy. It was a really enjoyable evening. Meeting people across America, hearing their stories and seeing the great diversity of the country never gets old or boring.
I’m not a close up magician and never have been. But I decided to do a small – very small – coin trick for the guys. George ran into the kitchen and called out the rest of the help to watch me do the trick. The most fun came when Steve told us all a joke, acting it out as he told the story.
Good food. Great conversation. Nice people. Welcome to America.