Friday, October 1, 2010

Counts of various kinds

There is just enough time for one of those quick impressionistic posts before we head off on the motorcycle for the first (and hopefully not last) time to explore Raleigh, NC, so here goes:
On previous road trips (i.e., in the 80s) I counted road kill, but we haven't seen a lot of carcasses thus far, and it is hard to see them from our relatively high seats anyway. Once, on a trip to San Francisco during one of those hippie-aesthetic revivals of the late 80s or very early 90s, I counted tie dye apparel. But, based on our last drive from Buffalo to North Carolina 3 or 4 years ago, it seemed best to count Wal-Marts, Adult Superstores, and Starbucks. (Starbuckses?) The idea for the first and third of these did not occur to me until Day Four, so I confess the number will be a little off.

Here's where we are thus far:
ADULT SUPERSTORES: Only one! Day One, at the NY/PA border. (This is not counting any along Niagara Falls Blvd in our home turf.)
WALMART: None! And we actually wanted one in Pittsburgh, when we were looking for a place to stay after the casino parking option turned out to be a bust. (As you may know, WMs, in addition to being the Handiwork of Satan, are especially RV-friendly, letting you park your huge gas-guzzling vehicles in their huge lots in the hopes that you will come inside and buy huge amounts of crap during your stay.) But from what we could tell, all the WMs were almost as far outside the city as the campground where we ended up.
STARBUCKS: I'm guessing we have surely seen at least two in rest stops, pre-count. Surely we will encounter at least one this afternoon in Raleigh.

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