Sunday, May 24, 2009

Listen up, restaurants.

Dani is happy to see Uncle Ronnie! (Now, I will rant.)

Hey, McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy's and various other restaurants, rest stops, etc., throughout the nation, how hard would it be to have a baby changing station in your bathrooms? And if you do have one, would it be hard to keep it somewhat clean? Well, I'd settle for a dirty one. We just took a road trip, and it's not done. We left from Amsterdam, NY, to Buffalo, NY, through Canada, to Grand Rapids, MI, to Chicago, to Metropolis, IL and back to Chicago.

Not so fun to try to change your baby in many, many places.

Hey Wendy's in Mt. Vernon IL? I changed my baby on a bench in the middle of your very busy restaurant. She had just eaten, and so had we, and we had no choice. Hope you didn't mind that my baby's ass was where your patrons were going to be sitting. Maybe that would have compelled you to install a changing table. You too, McDonalds-Love's along Route 57 in southern IL. An entire truckstop designed for travelers and no changing table? You even had showers! Hope you didn't mind my baby's ass on your bench either. Oh yeah, Love's, would it kill you to offer magazines? You had NONE; and you had two book displays, "war stories" and "Louis L'Amour". Thanks for nothing. No magazines or books at the big BP gas station store in Metropolis, IL either. Maybe people in southern Illinois can't read. I think that is the only reasonable conclusion since I couldn't find anything to buy to read. But I digress. At the Wendy's in Mt. Vernon, IL, there were 3 little babies there when Dani was--surely my kid can't have been the first who needed a diaper change?? (I must confess that it was the most efficient Wendy's I've ever been to, service wise. My local one could take a lesson from them.)

A big shout out to Meijer's--changing tables in men's and women's restrooms at every location we saw!!! Also, Burger King seems to be pretty family friendly as well, if only for the free crowns (they were pretty good with the changing tables).


But, those nice folks in Canada--Tim Horton's takes the cake--changing tables with the liners! Only place I was able to use the throw away liners! Awesome! (Fully anticipating that American rest stops would never bother to refill--I pilfered about 3 from good ol' Tim's, and it made the trip bearable. Thanks Tim Hortons!

So, Metropolis, where they actually have a huge Superman statue. Even the police officers have Superman on their uniform. They have a casino too--which I did not visit. I did, however, inform Big Man that during our next visit we would be staying there..



So, we were Metropolis, IL, the home of Superman. Dani had fun checking out the huge statue. I got to meet a ton of folks in Wes' family. It's just been so much driving. I'm so tired of driving.


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