Buc-ee’s, brisket and the great American road trip

Memorial Day weekend is the unofficial beginning of summer -- but it marks more than a change of season. Even as the price of gas moves closer to $5 per gallon, it signals a time many will start hitting the highways in that time-honored expression of freedom and exploration: the Great American Road Trip.

Count me among them. Not only have I done lots of photo road trips for the newspaper, I also have many childhood memories of cross-country family driving vacations. The destinations were mainly famous landmarks, but the best parts were always the unexpected detours and spontaneous roadside stops, with the many billboards promising the biggest and the best. Wall Drug in South Dakota, Little America in Wyoming, South of the Border between the Carolinas, and Stuckey’s, well, everywhere. Even Pennsylvania’s Roadside America (R.I.P.) and Reptileland.

So when I first saw the smiling beaver face, I had no idea what a Buc-ee was. But, I knew right away exactly why a billboard for something 537 miles away would be on the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

When I finished my assignment in Harrisburg, I did a Google search for Buc-ee’s, and when I got home started inquiring amongst my friends, coworkers and my family about it. Those who had been to one of the Texas gas station chain’s “travel centers” couldn’t stop talking about the experience. I even learned that my own daughter was a true Buckheaded Beaver believer. She started sharing videos with me — many from international travelers visiting Buc-ee’s for the first time.

It was clear to me that Buc-ee’s taps into that very same American spirit as the road trip: the idea that driving should be about the journey (enlightening, entertaining, and enjoyable - with clean restrooms along the way), and not so much just the destination. It seemed like a celebration of road-trip culture itself.

I will use any excuse to get going. (This online column actually began almost twenty years ago in the early social media days as a series of photo blogs as I set out on a different journey each week. The words survived in the internet archives anyway, even if most of my pictures did not).

So after a Buc-ee’s opened last summer some 250 miles closer in Virginia, I could feel this was one journey I needed to do, especially after the overwhelming response when I asked readers here what you thought.

I realized to be different from all the videos my daughter shared with me, this road trip needed more than just my photos. A Buc-ee’s road trip story for Philly readers needed words with just the right voice and attitude. One with enough gravitas to make sense of what the beaver was all about - and how it compared to our own region’s beloved Wawa. Without the right words, I know my photos could look like a big buck-toothed advertisement for a gas station (albeit one with 100 pumps, and really clean restrooms).

There was no doubt the writer had to be The Inquirer’s most deeply entrenched Philly culture “jawnalist”, columnist Stephanie Farr, especially after she told she also had never been to a Buc-ee’s.

I knew she would write in a personal, affectionate way, with a mix of humor, criticism, and hometown loyalty. Even when she and two other Inquirer staffers discussed and debated Wawa’s food quality, she did it with sense of protectiveness, as if she’s looking out for all of us who want anything we love to stay true.

However, with journalists’ schedules being what they are, it took us a few months to coordinate this excursion — and even then, we ended up going to the Mount Crawford, Virginia location separately. You can read her story — with my photos — in Sunday’s newspaper and online now.

I had planned on driving down right after the morning rush hour (with the hope to avoid the looming, inevitable traffic), and spend the rest of the day there, capped off with an overnight stay.

But adrenaline kicked in as I was getting ready for bed, and rather than going to sleep early, I decided to just head out then. I arrived around 3 a.m. (after very little traffic, but lots of coffee and pit stops).

Back when I first came to The Inquirer my wife and I drove to Maine and went to L.L.Bean in the middle of the night on a whim, “just because” there weren’t very many businesses open 7 days and 24 hours in those days (we did other things too, and stayed in nice bed and breakfasts).

Buc-ee’s was deserted. And quiet. Which was kinda cool, except I hadn’t been able to get an okay from corporate in Texas to photograph there.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. I had seen many news photos and TV coverage ahead of my trip — mostly all from store grand-openings, so I assumed they were media-friendly. I had written emails and called trying to talk with someone in beaver headquarters, but nobody had gotten back to me about my visit.

I didn’t know how fast I might get thrown out when I started taking pictures, especially in the middle of the night in an empty store.

I tried not to be too obvious, as I knew there were dozens of security cameras everywhere. A guy walking around with a professional camera would not go unnoticed at 3 a.m., especially when he took it into the “famously spotless” restroom with him.

Nervously, I photographed the Buc-ee statue outside, along with the hundreds of gas pumps with my real camera, but then went inside with only my phone. I set out, acting like I thought a cross-county driving tourist would, looking at everything and taking quick photos of all I surveyed. Nobody bothered me.

I went to my hotel, slept, and came back before lunchtime, where I started talking to people outside and taking pictures with my real camera. That is, until I spotted someone wearing a Flyers jersey arrive with his family. I introduced myself (they were originally from Gilbertsville in Montgomery County, now living in Maryland) and he, his mom, wife, son and I all went inside together. I grabbed a shopping cart and photographed them as they shopped - while picking up merch myself.

Eventually I got brave, but was still under a (self-imposed?) cloud of paranoia. No Buc-ee’s team member (or loss prevention officer / asset protection specialist) ever approached me, and I continuing my acting like a tourist picture-taking.

I got lunch, eating it like everyone else, in my car (just like Wawa, no inside or outside tables anywhere) before heading across the state to another assignment — Monticello, the historic mountaintop plantation of Thomas Jefferson. I had the signature brisket sandwich, featuring smoked beef, sweet BBQ sauce, and pickles on a soft bun. Accompanied with Beaver Chips (thick-cut, in-store-made kettle cooked potato chips) and a cup of banana pudding with vanilla wafers, this was actually a highlight of the trip. It tasted most like the banana cream pie I had growing up in Mississippi.

Since 1998 a black-and-white photo has appeared every Monday in staff photographer Tom Gralish’s “Scene Through the Lens” photo column in the print editions of The Inquirer’s local news section. Here are the most recent, in color: