In May we covered 10 states and traveled 2,781 miles in first going to Logan, OH (Hocking Hills) for the RV.net B5 Rally, then Washington DC, and then back to the Indianapoils 500 Race. As you may note I am a serious road food pursuer in the tradition of Alton Brown
Feasting on Asphalt only in a B and not a motorcycle, and especially a pursuer of the deep fried breaded pork tenderloin sandwich.
http://www.porktenderloinsandwich.com
We headed east out of Minnesota and first stopped at Devil's Lake State Park near Baraboo, WI for the night. Before settling in we had lunch in Wisconsin Dells at the
River Walk Pub.
Sorry to say, we did not start out with a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich. They are rather rare in Wisconsin. More suitably for this north woods atmosphere we had their
Elk Burger with onion rings.
The next day we traveled down I-39 in Illinois and then headed east on I-80. Our next lunch stop was
R Place right on the interchange at Highway 47 in Morris, IL. My wife, determined to eat someway healthy opted for the BLT.
Not me. I went for their
Hubcap Tenderloin.
R Place's booths are interesting. The tables have antique toys under glass like this.
We camped at the Indiana Dunes State Park on Lake Michigan, a park I recommend you try if you ever get the chance. The campgrounds are newly renovated and are very nice.
The next morning we headed for
Nick's Kitchen in Huntington, IN for lunch and had one of their 100th anniversary tenderloins. Nobody makes them better than Jean Anne Bailey (janicks).
After lunch we headed on to the Hocking Hills area in Ohio southeast of Columbus. There we met up with 47 other Class B camping vans for an RV.net sponsored rally. Since we got there the evening before the start of the official rally we headed in to the nearby town of Logan and stopped at
Bush's Restaurant. Ohio is bereft of pork tenderloin sandwiches except in the northwest quadrant. We were southeast in Appalachian territory. However, Bush's had a dinner entree featuring grilled pork tenderloins and sandwiches of breaded and broasted chicken. It was not impossible. So I asked the owner, Lee Howdyshell, if he could make a breaded pork tenderloin sandwich. No problem, and he made a great one consisting of two pieces of true pork tenderloin and not pork loin cutlets most restaurants use.
Bush's Restaurant was our caterer for the rally and provided many excellent buffet style meals. I couldn't help myself. I loaded up with this breakfast.
Our rally group is pictured here. If you are interested in Class B camping vans, you can see all of them here -
http://gallery.mac.com/davydd#100080
After the rally we headed on to northern Virginia to visit our daughter and family. Meals were kind of uneventful and we did not seek out any road food. It was a time to recharge and eat healthy. We did make a trip to George Washington's
Mount Vernon Gristmill and Distillery. It is further down the road from Mount Vernon itself and is an interesting tour.
The Gristmill
The Distillery
After Virginia we headed for Indianapolis. On the way we camped at
Carter Caves State Resort Park in eastern Kentucky. There we ate dinner at the park lodge. It was pretty much uneventful but we did try for the first time, deep fried pickles for an appetizer.
We passed through Cincinnati on our way to Indianapolis. We found a
Skyline Chili on a freeway interchange using our GPS. So we made a quick lunch stop. I had the regular size 5-way pictured here.
Now it was time for some serious BPT pursuing. Our first evening in Indianapolis we went to the
Carolina Grill in the Stonegate area near Zionsville. Indiana tenderloins can be found in all classes of restaurants and pubs even in the more upscale places. Here is the Carolina Grill tenderloin with buffalo chips.
The next evening I attended my annual Speedway high school reunion always held the Friday night before the Indy 500 race at
Grindstone Charley's restaurant in Speedway. Johnny Parsons Jr. was our honored guest. Johnny was a childhood Speedway contemporary who went on to race in 12 Indy 500s. On this night, Grindstone Charley's tenderloin is named after me on the menu. It was excellent as always.
I'm not finished. For lunch the next day we went to
Plump's Last Shot in Broad Ripple for a tenderloin. We sat outside on the patio. It seemed everyone there had their dogs with them. It was interesting. The tenderloin itself was another excellent tenderloin.
Sunday was race day. We sat in the 4th turn Northwest Vista stands. The
Indy Grill concession stand served the Jumbo Tenderloin. It was pre-packaged but not too bad. The idea was to have a tenderloin at the race. I went down midway around lap 100 and was informed by the concessionaire that I got their last one. I took it up into the stands and had my wife hold it up with the backdrop of the race cars coming around the 4th turn.
We then headed home and took a more circuitous route through Iowa adding about 20 extra miles and stopped at the claimed world's largest truck stop, the
Iowa 80 in Wolcott on I-80 outside Bettendorf and Davenport. The tenderloin itself was nothing but average but it made number 8 in four states to end the tour.
On our pass through Iowa near Waterloo we saw an RV dealer lot with RVs stacked on each other, upside down and totally destroyed. We did not know at the time about the Parkersburg tornado the day before just to the west of this when we went through.
Next we headed to Nebraska for the Niobrara BEE Social with more tenderloins in Iowa and Nebraska.
RV.net B5 Rally, Washington DC & Indianapolis 500
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