48stateroadtrip.com

The whole reason I went to Philadelphia was to knock off another hamburger. I could have knocked off two there, but man: I’m kind of tired of too-fancy hamburgers. One in Philly: sufficient.

The cheese is so fancy I can’t remember what it’s called.

I liked the burger better than Peter Luger’s — the cheese, whatever it’s called, could be tasted, for instance, and the patty didn’t break in half, although it’s the lumpiest hunk of meat I’ve seen in my life and too large to be consumed at one sitting. For as stiff as the bun looks in the photo, the bottom half disappeared pretty quickly And the potato ribbons fries were silly — I think maybe you’re just supposed to look at them. Sure they’re whimsical, but they tasted like over-used cooking oil.

Service was about 6 degrees south of indifferent. Maybe that’s how the waitress thinks service in France is. Or maybe it’s just hip in Philly to avoid eye contact. I should probably just be happy I didn’t get any batteries thrown at me.

And with that, I’m done with the hamburger list until New Mexico (where it’ll make a surprisingly strong resurgence — just wait). So, here’s my ranking of ranked hamburgers that I’ve eaten — the, uh, bottom half is filling out:

1. Miller’s Bar – Dearborn (#8 in GQ)
2. Houston’s California Burger – Santa Monica (#6)
3. Le Parker Meridien Hotel Burger Joint Cheeseburger – New York (#9)
4. Western Cheeseburger, Carl’s Jr. — Western U.S. (Not Rated)
5. Red Mill Double Bacon Deluxe w/ Cheese – Seattle (#17)
6. Poag Mahone’s – Chicago (#18)
7. J.G. Melon — New York (#14)
8. In-n-Out Cheeseburger — California/Nevada (Not Rated)
9. Keller’s Drive-In #5 Burger – Dallas (#10)
10. Rouge — Philadelphia (#4)
11. Peter Luger’s — Brooklyn (#2)
12. Burger Joint – San Francisco (#16)
13. The Counter – Santa Monica (#15)
14. Louis’ Lunch — New Haven (#20)

I threw in a couple of “control burgers” just for reference. I’m probably underrating the Western Cheeseburger, depending on which burger chef is on the line at Carl’s that day.

bkd

That makes three-eighths (3/8ths) of the way there in terms of states. It’s not like I’m excited about blowing through states, just that it happens so I might as well enjoy it.

Daylight! Legible! Huzzah!

Someone on some other website told me I should visit Presque Isle in Erie if I happened to be driving through, so I did and I’d sort of like my 40 minutes back, although I took this photo of a lighthouse:

Bravely warning sandcrabs away from the 25-mph park road!

I’m sure real lighthouse people (they have those, right?) could explain why it makes sense to put lighthouses somewhere other than right next to the water, but it’d probably be a long and boring explanation, so — you know.

I’m also now saying that I’m in the “northeast” and no longer in the “northern states”. It’s a fine line. A fine line that I’ve drawn between Ohio and Pennsylvania. And it was weird starting out driving in Bengals AM radio country and then traveling through Browns and Steelers territory before ending up in Bills AM radio land. It’s also weird how much of AM radio is now on FM.

bkd

And I had this dream last night where I was rafting down a river with members of my family and we got to a spot that looked like a waterfall, but everyone else said it wasn’t, but I was pretty sure it was so I jumped out of the raft and then they all continued and it turned out to be a 20-foot waterfall and I called 911 and couldn’t quite figure out where I was (I thought I was in Central California in a river near a national park other than Yosemite, Sequoia, or Kings Canyon, but I couldn’t think of what that park would be called and then someone helpfully suggested it was “Hehla Park”, which meant “holy” in some unknown language, but that person didn’t know what he was talking about, so I disregarded), but then it turned out that no one got (physically) hurt, so I hung up.