Pleasures of the Road
"I celebrate donuts and sing donuts..."
Note: today’s post is a compilation of photos and captions from Paul’s excellent book “Breaking Gravity” (available to buy here.) In our last excerpt from the book, I chose some of my own personal favorites. Today’s selections are all on a theme close to my heart—the little treats, culinary and otherwise, that could easily become your whole reason for being on the road …TM
Pacific Coast Highway - 2016
If you drive long enough on the PCH, you can subsist entirely on food bought from the back of pickup trucks parked in the turnouts. Most of it is grown or cooked locally. Most is quite cheap, and it’s usually pretty good. On top of that, you get to eat off the hood of your car with a view of the Pacific Ocean and, almost unfailingly, a nice breeze through your hair. What more do you really need in this life?
West Palm Beach, Florida - 2015
Imagine my surprise to find a Carvel ice cream stand in Florida. This store had a shrine to Tom Carvel on the wall, complete with a grainy black and white photo and some shabby memorabilia. I grew up in Yonkers, New York, which was the seat of the Carvel empire. My parents would take me to the flagship store when I was a child. The soft vanilla cone I got at this southern Carvel was more crystalline, a little less creamy than the cones up north, but I can excuse that. It was comforting to get a taste of home. And the chocolate sprinkles were slightly finer and better than what you usually find in the Northeast.
Austin, Nevada - 2010
Austin is a small town on Highway 50. It still feels remote, even though you can now get cell signals in Austin and you can pump gas at night, after the station closes. This was not always the case, even at the beginning of this century. I have a bit of a survivalist mindset. I don’t know where it came from, but I like to stock up on things that I need and stuff that I enjoy. I always like to top off on gas. I could lie about how it’s nice to take a break while driving, how it’s a fun way to see the country and, justifiably, how it’s important to stop often if you photograph gas stations. I could go on like this for a while, finding many justifications for why I like to top off on gas but, honestly, I just like to know that I always have a full tank of gas.
I ran out of gas once, with my father, when I was 11 years old and we were in a rental Ford Pinto on the New Jersey Turnpike. Things were looking bleak and there was no place to go. My dad and I climbed down a steep embankment and ran into some junkyard dogs. We had to scramble back up. We were finally saved when a kindly plumber in an ancient van stopped for us. He had a gallon of gas in a plastic jug and gave it to us, refusing any money. My dad, a true child of the Great Depression, could barely fathom this guy’s charity and generosity, but he did recognize it. “Can you believe it? That guy stopped for us,” he said.
I cannot pin my compulsion to top off the tank on that one episode, even though it made a big impression on me. A full tank just makes me feel secure. THAT BEING SAID, Austin is so remote that, even if I have half a tank left and I know that Fallon is 2 hours west and Eureka is only an hour to the east, I still breathe a sigh of relief and stop for gas every time I arrive in Austin. The station I use is almost always THIS station, on the western edge of town, at the top of the curvy hill where they shot a sequence for the original version of the film, “Vanishing Point,” in 1971. That was always a favorite movie of mine and, when I realized one day in the 1990s that they had shot the scene in Austin, it made me smile. There’s another station in town, but I’m loyal to this one.
Arizona - 2012
I was once unable to pass any “Indian Souvenir” tourist trap without going in and looking around. I knew they were full of fake stuff, but they held a weird psychic pull on me. I can glance and keep driving now, but still cannot resist the billboards. This was recently repainted, but the message is vintage, straight out of the 1950s. Clear, direct and to the point. It’s brilliant. Who wakes up in the morning and thinks “I need to get moccasins for my entire family?” Yet, who can pass this sign without at least considering the idea? I am sure that, more than once, a mini van has pulled out of their parking lot with the entire family happily wearing new moccasins and singing road songs. Do families still sing songs together while they roll down the highway?
Beatty, Nevada - 2015
Beatty is “The Gateway to Death Valley,” among other things. I stay in Beatty often, even though it’s not a great place to buy provisions for a trip. It’s simply convenient, another one of those towns that always comes along at the right time after a long day’s drive. This sign is 7 miles north of Beatty proper. It’s what remains of the old sign for Bailey’s Hot Springs and RV Park, a semi-grassy patch of desert that sits on a hot aquifer. Just down the road is Angel’s Ladies, a brothel with a broken-down plane out front. I love to soak in the water at Bailey’s, which happens to be near the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Depository. The water is fantastic, although you have to pay a small fee to use it.
You soak in a small, corrugated tin structure that could make some people feel as though they are in a flooded prison cell. I like the privacy, though, and, in the colder days of winter, I appreciate the shelter. Before Bailey’s was sold, the place was manned by, alternately, an old German gentleman and an old Native American, who lived in a trailer below the soaking sheds. You would roll up, give one of them five dollars, then grab your towel and soak.
This sign is a remnant from when the restaurant there was open. It was never open when I passed through but, the last time I went by, it looked as though the new owners were trying to raise it from the dead. Even though “Cocktails” and “Hot Baths” make eminent sense when you’re standing there, with that hot Great Basin breeze slapping you in the cheek, the combination sounds decadent from the confines of the East.
Inglewood, California - 2009
Every town has a donut shop. If they’re too small to have a donut shop, you will still find fresh ones every morning at the mini mart, sitting in a particleboard and plexiglas case under hot lightbulbs, with a little box of wax paper sheets sitting below, maybe a pair of plastic tongs, and a few urns of coffee steaming next to it.
Any crappy day is a little easier to bear if you start out with a good donut and some coffee. That’s simply a rule of the universe, fixed and immutable. Please don’t lecture me about fats and sugars, about health and sickness, about body mass index and diabetes. I know we all cannot eat donuts. I have reached my limit on other things in this life. I know about excess. I have paid the price and I stay away from certain things but, when it comes to donuts, you’ll have to pull the last one out of my cold, dead right hand. A blueberry muffin will be in my left hand and, most likely, I’ll have a quesadilla wrapped up in my pocket and an empty pizza box in the back of the van, along with a receipt from the drive-through Dairy Queen 50 miles back on the highway.
To paraphrase Walt Whitman:
“I celebrate donuts and sing donuts,
And what I assume, you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as donuts belongs to you.”
Here, then, is the true heart and soul of America.
These photos and the accompanying captions appeared in the book Breaking Gravity, available here.
Paul Vlachos is a writer, photographer and filmmaker. He was born in New York City, where he currently lives. He is the author of “The Space Age Now,” released in 2020, “Breaking Gravity” in 2021, and 2023’s “Exit Culture.”
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Oh this was grand. And the donuts. I can't argue or chastise. What's the point! If we're all going to die someday, let's make it 'by donut'. It's civilized. And if there are no donuts, eat a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup to sustain you until you can get to the donut shop.
By the way, I loved your homage to the Austin minimart. It's the only sane and safe place in that town to eat these days. Of course, there's a nice little park at the east end of town and maybe the toilets will work on the day you visit.
Thanks, C! I am basically off donuts now, but still think about them fondly.