The first stop on the road is for pie. Our young waiter sets down five glasses of water on the table before taking our order. The navigator gets antsy.
"Guys, guys -- don't drink the water here. You'll get sick."
The waiter, who is standing right there, reassures us. "You won't get sick from the water," he says.
"Nah, nah -- we're from New York. The water's different out there, it's the pH or something. It ain't the same."
I take a loud slurp from my glass. The waiter looks satisfied for now and leaves. I picture him chatting with the line cook about the Yankee tourists at Table 2 who are taking close-up photos of the hot sauce and are afraid to drink Arizona tap water.
Behind us, at the table by the gift shop, is a family of seven (including a little girl), all dressed in camo fatigues. They are here for the chicken and biscuits, not the pie. I remember the first and only time I fired a gun -- long ago in the basement of my neighbor's house, shooting BBs at a plastic lemonade scoop that hung down by a string pinned to the ceiling. What does this family think of when they see someone like me? When they see a group of five like us?
The five plates arrive: peach crumb, apple, mixed berry, rhubarb, and a J.D. pecan. A la mode is two bucks extra but worth it. We pass around the plates as if they are dim sum. Everyone gets a bite of everything. The ice cream has a calming effect on my travel companions. We will come to rely on it at various points of the itinerary...
Nine hundred more miles to go. We loiter around the gift shop for a bit ("Ho-Made Pies -- Warm, Fresh, Sweet, and Delicious," reads a postcard) and then get back on the road. Will the navigator venture a sip of tap water by the time we hit Utah? Probably not.
