Deja' Vu

On a recent trip back from a race in Shawano, my family and I stopped for dinner at a truck stop on Hwy 41 in Fond Du Lac called The Stretch.

When I was a kid my family and I would stop there from time to time to grab a bite to eat when driving up to Omro to visit my grandparents. My grandfather always said it was the half way point between Milwaukee and Oshkosh, and I remember my father always disagreeing with him, saying it was clearly alot closer to Oshkosh than Milwaukee. After a few hundred trips back and forth in that direction I've come to know that Dad was right. Sorry Nan.

Next door to the diner still stands a motel. And on the grounds of this motel are a couple of fiberglass sculptures of dinosaurs. Over the years the two of them have weathered the elements far better than the motel has. The building appears to have fallen into such disrepair that it looks like a movie set for a low budget slasher flick. Eerie looking or not, I had to walk over there and have a closer look. Yep' there it was just like they were all those years ago. I still remember my sister and I playing on these things when we were younger and if my parents dig deep enough, I'm sure we have a picture somewhere of the two of us on them. They did seem a lot taller though back then.

So on this last trip I decided for posterity's sake that I needed to click a picture of my two kids in this once familiar setting. Over 35 years later and the next generation is now introduced to this roadside icon. (You can almost sense the excitement and see the look of fascination in their eyes). To most people this is just another truck stop, with just another motel, and not much more than that. And to the masses, they're probably right. What makes it special for me is that it's not only the place where I thought at a very young age that I was going to make my living as a trucker, it was also a point along a journey that I loved as a kid. One that took us out of the city and into our grandparent's home on the river for a few weekends every year. It's just another reminder of a simpler time in life when your parents took care of everything and standing on a fiberglass dinosaur was fun enough.

Who knows, if either of my kids feel the same way in another 35 years I'll bring you shots of my grandchildren on them.