Tank Quest

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Episode 32: There's One Every Twenty Miles

Torrie

on June 14, 2009

True story. When I was sixteen, we went to northwest Scotland to see an annular eclipse, and twenty miles since the last road turn off, we decided to stop. Beautiful forest stretched out as far as we could see in every direction. A huge river trickled under a bridge then doubled in size. The light from this early morning eclipse made everything look beautiful. It was four in the morning and since we'd set off from London at ten the previous morning (we were in a skoda, and we'd had to do a detour to Stoke for a court appointment), it hadn't gone dark overnight because it was that time of year where it stays sort of twilight all night in the distant north. I went down to the river and picked up so many rocks of different sorts (and my mother made me leave most of them there *surprisingly*). We rounded up the dogs, got back into the car and drove up the road a bit, to find somewhere to turn around.
Literally round the corner from this idyllic retreat was a Little Chef. Whilst this isn't surprising from a globalization point of view, one has to wonder who stopped there. Ever. And yes, the sausages bounce, because (as we learnt when I asked if I could just have egg without bacon or sausage) their food comes pre-packaged and they just microwave it! I shit you not.