mmm-yoso!!!, food blog. Kirk is working some heavy overtime hours while Ed(from Yuma) is busy planning a Thanksgiving feast, so Cathy is writing about food and things today.
It is only a few days before Thanksgiving. I read that 43.9 million people will drive more than 50 miles from home for the holiday (defined as between Wednesday and Sunday this week). In light of that, I think it's a good time for this conclusion post of our Summer of 2016 Road Trip from San Diego to Detroit and back.
We left home and took the exit to Ann Arbor, where The Mister and I met decades ago. Pizza Bob's was a favorite place for us. We enjoyed the unique Chipati, invented when we were students. 
West on the 94, we stopped in Jackson to drive through a former Hot 'n Now building which is currently a nice, local owned coffee shop, Jackson Coffee Company. No indoor seating, no wifi, just coffee (they roast their own), beverage concoctions, some sandwiches and hot pretzels.
Chicagoland is about five hours from Detroit. An easy drive.
Kirk wrote about Buona Beef, a Chicago area Italian Beef joint which some people like and other people avoid. A simple sandwich here is sort of like an Arby's roast beef and is tasty on the fresh French roll.
Buona Beef Restaurant 1170 N Arlington Heights Road Itasca, IL 60143 Website
Kirk did enjoy his dog from Gene and Jude's back in 2010 and not much has changed (the price has gone up 61¢). It's good.
Gene & Jude's Red Hot Stand 2720 River Rd River Grove, IL 60171 website
After a while, we were in the Quad Cities area 
and stopped at the Moline, Illinois Maid Rite location.
As a side note, all restaurants and businesses in the Midwest have a small vestibule area-a double doorway where you can step inside and stomp snow off your boots, shake off/take off your coat or close your umbrella before walking inside a main building. Even Costcos have vestibules. 
We sat at the counter at this location, because we could.
The 'traditional' toppings for this lightly seasoned loose meat burger are mustard, onion and pickle. Ketchup is available, but it's for the fries. The burgers are all served with a small teaspoon as your only cutlery…so you can scoop up any meat that falls out when you lift the soft bun. Maid Rite is a true midwest tradition.
Maid-Rite Quad Cities website
We stopped for fuel and looked for a place to eat in Richfield, Utah.
The signage on Main Street brought us in.
Clean, simple, family run and very good. 
Light bites and ice cream, unphotographed. This was a great find.
Ideal Dairy 490 S Main Street Richfield, UT 84701 (435) 896-5061
There were unplanned/non-food stops along the way.
A tourist trap.
The original Pony Express station, in the middle of a park in a residential neighborhood. 
The birthplace of President Gerald Ford.
Themed rest areas (this one was windmills-old and new blades).
A giant Golden Spike…but this one is in Omaha, Nebraska. It is where President Abraham Lincoln declared the joining of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific railroads *should*occur, but it didn't happen here (Promontory, Utah is the 'official' location). This is where the largest train yard in the USA is, so if you are in North Platte, Nebraska, stop here.
If you are driving across the USA this holiday season (or anytime), do enjoy our wonderfully organized highway system as well as the National Park System signage and stop to enjoy the local people and places. Safe travels!
Just nice to hit the road.
It was fun seeing all of the different local eateries you went to and learning about vestibules! They definitely don’t have those here in SD, haha. The loose meat sandwiches (served with a spoon for stray meat) looked good. It was also cool seeing the roadside stops you took. What an adventure!
It is, Bill. There wasn’t an urgency when leaving, so the drive back was filled with more stops and exploring, which was vacation-like. Wish we were on the road right now, even with the snowy weather.
Coney Islands (the storefront)also serve loose meat, but served in a steamed hot dog bun, since a true coney is a hot dog, cc. The texture and flavor of a Maid Rite is unique-and the tradition is strong: any player who was on the Iowa football team that beat the University of Michigan two weeks ago gets Maid Rites for life. The trip home allowed for a bit more time and not having done that ‘northern route’ because of weather(I remember one year, traffic was detoured from Colorado to New Mexico), going both ways in the summer was so nice! I’m so glad to see you click the links: wanting to write and teach or learn with reading is how I roll.
I’d pass on the snow.😀
Man, Gene and Jude’s….has it been over six years already?
The Mister and I both learned to drive in snow, Bill, plus we each grew up walking to and from school in it, so that kind of weather is missed…for a brief time each year…
I was surprised your post was back in 2010, too, Kirk. Crazy how time flies.