GADT Day 2 - Pretzels and Back Rubs

Day two of our trip wasn't supposed to be terribly exciting. Driving across Ohio, Indiana and Illinois are old hat for me and there just wasn't much to see or do. We tried to find a branch of mom's bank around South Bend, IN and the GPS led us to a closed up building, but other than that not much happened. By the time we reached Iowa I was tired and we decided to bed down in Bettendorf, IA for the night.

Neither of us were very hungry, having had a big breakfast at a Friendly's in Westlake, OH and lunch at a Cracker Barrel in Elkhart, IN, so we decided to just pick up something to snack on. We briefly discussed ordering a pizza, but decided it would be too much.

I was getting set up for an evening of relaxed writing when mom mentioned that she was actually hungry for soft pretzels. She had seen them at the truck stop where we stopped for gas in Indiana and had been thinking about them ever since. I said, "No problem, we'll just go down to the pretzel store and get some."

"Don't be silly, there's no such thing as a pretzel store," she said.

"Oh really?" I replied with a wicked grin. "With a good German name like Bettendorf, this place has got to have a pretzel shop somewhere."

I dug the phone book out of the dresser and sure enough there was a Wetzel's Pretzels listed. Mom called them and found they were open until nine, so we set out to find hot soft pretzels in Iowa. The place turned out to be in a mall about three miles down the road. They were just putting some in the oven when we got there, so we said we would wait for hot ones.

While we were waiting we decided to walk around the mall a bit. My back was aching from two long days of driving and I guess it showed because when we passed the two Chinese guys at the Comfort Zone massage kiosk, they poured on the sales pitch. One of them offered to give me a little demo and when he touched my tensed up shoulder muscles I knew I needed his services.

While our pretzels baked, mom and I had short but intense back rubs. The guy working on me was really good, his moves precise, strong and very deep. He worked all of the kinks out of my neck and arms and did a serviceable job on my lower back as well. Mom paid them and I thanked them with a respectful bow. We picked up our piping hot pretzels and were on our way.

We stopped at the front desk of our hotel long enough to pick up a couple of bottles of beer. Mom got a Sam Adams and I got a mid-west microbrew I'd never heard of before, Boulevard Unfiltered Wheat Beer from Kansas City, MO. It had a clean citrusy taste that really complimented the pretzels and mustard. It was an unexpected and perfectly wonderful end to an otherwise long forgettable day.


Day 2 mileage: 538