Lamp. One of five.

Hello from Casper, WY where the venue tonight gave us TWO HOTEL ROOMS which means I AM IN MY VERY OWN HOTEL ROOM. Thank you Jimmy and the Wonder Bar!

Now, we have had a great time on this tour and a lot of fun, but as Suz points out, for most of the days we are a middle car seat apart from each other and a lot of times when we have a hotel room we are a night stand apart from each other. Other times we are put up by very kind hosts and I make sure to be polite in their presence.

However, in my VERY OWN ROOM I have flung clothes far and wide, turned on all five (yes, five) lamps, and am blasting CNN quite loudly. I may have just revealed myself to be a very boring person, but after living out of a bag for 4 weeks, flinging my clothes feels good. Tomorrow morning I’ll pick them all up again and stuff them into my bag again, but for now, roam free little fabrics. Breathe like the cotton you are, the fabric of our lives.

Now, to divert off onto a completely different blog topic because I can…Club Sandwiches.

Mother Clubber

This is the consummate American sandwich. It has some of everything on it, and as I have found wandering the country lately, there seems to be quite a variance in what constitutes a Club. I like creativity as much as the next person, but after a while you can only experiment so much before your sandwich turns into something completely different than a club. Here are my criteria for what makes up a Real Club Sandwich (RCS):

– fairly plain white or wheat bread
– layers of turkey, ham, cheese, bacon, lettuce, tomato
– the important middle layer of bread
– toasted bread (all 3 layers)
– mayo must be present
– toothpicks with colored paper on the top spearing the sandwich (functional and aesthetic)
– CUT INTO QUARTERS BY GAWD!

You can add to this list when creating your sandwich, but you can never subtract. If you take out the middle layer of bread, you have a plain sandwich with a lot of stuff on it. If you don’t toast the bread you have a soggy sandwich. If you don’t CUT IT INTO QUARTERS then…I don’t know. It’s definitely NOT a Club Sandwich. It’s probably not worth eating if you ordered a club and it’s only cut in half. I usually just go ahead and quarter mine anyway if this transgression has been made.

Acceptable additions: avocado, onion, mustard
Iffy additions: fancy substitutions (spinach instead of lettuce, aioli instead of mayo, etc.), roast beef, fancy types of bread (sourdough, rye, etc).
Unacceptable additions: spreadable cheese, pickles, most other kinds of meat, chunky textured meats, tortillas

The Club Sandwich above was from Bones Brewery in Billings, Montana. That was a good one, though I will say it was missing the mayo. The Iron Horse Pub in Missoula served me a club with no middle bread layer, lots of guacamole on it, and only cut in half. It was a good sandwich but something I would equate to more of a “California Turkey Sandwich” than a Club. Even quartering it didn’t entirely cover up the feeling that I was eating an imposter.

The best Club Sandwich I’ve had this tour? Denny’s in Spokane, WA. I guess when you want predictability, go to the predictable.