Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
I can remember when we didn't even have TV on Sunday mornings; that's how old I am.
You would turn on WOI and all you would get was a test pattern and you would sit there
and watch that because there was nothing else. Then after a while they would take off the
test pattern and show “Sky King,” which was an interesting and exciting program, at least
compared to a test pattern. Nowadays they don't show test patterns at all on American TV,
whichisashamebecausegivenachoicebetweentestpatternsandTVevangelists,Iwould
unhesitatingly choose the test patterns. They were soothing in an odd way and, of course,
they didn't ask you for money or make you listen to their son-in-law sing.
It was just after eight when I left the motel. I drove through the drizzle to Devils Tower,
about twenty-five miles away.Devils Towerwasthe mountain usedbySteven Spielbergin
Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the one on which the aliens landed. It is so singular
and extraordinary that you cannot imagine what Spielberg would have used as an altern-
ative if it hadn't been available. You can see it long before you get to it, but as you draw
nearer the scale of it becomes really quite awesome. It is a flat-topped cone of rock 865
feet high, soaring out of an otherwise flat and featureless plain. The scientific explanation
is that it was a volcanic fluke-an outsized lump of warm rock that shot out of the earth and
then cooled into its present arresting shape. Inthe moonlight it issaid toglow,thougheven
now on a wet Sunday morning with smoky clouds brushing across its summit it looked de-
cidedly supernatural, as if it were placed there eons ago for the eventual use of aliens. I
only hope that when they do come they don't expect to eat out.
I stopped at a lay-by near the tower and got out to look at it, squinting through the drizzle.
A wooden sign beside the road said that the tower was considered sacred by the Indians
and that in 1g06 it became the first designated national monument in America. I stared at
the tower for a long time, hypnotized both by its majesty and by a dull need for coffee, and
then realized that I was getting very wet, so I returned to the car and drove on.
Having gone without dinner the night before, I intended to indulge myself in that greatest
of all American gustatory pleasures-going out for Sunday breakfast.
Everybody in America goes out for Sunday breakfast. It is such a popular pastime that you
generally have to line up for a table, but it's always worth the wait. Indeed, the inability
to achieve instant oral gratification is such an unusual experience in America that lining
up actually intensifies the pleasure. You wouldn't want to do it all the time, of course, you
wouldn't want to get British about it or anything, but once a week for twenty minutes is
“kinda neat,” as they say. One reason you have to line up is that it takes the waitress about
thirty minutes just to take each order. First you have to tell her whether you want your
eggs sunny-side up, over easy, scrambled, poached, parboiled, or in an omelette, and in an
