Also, there weren’t nearly enough people wearing bandanas.

I have dreams, you know. Big ones. Like, explore the Great Barrier Reef. Tour Hagia Sophia. Return to Paris and prove to the French once again that it is possible to eat one’s body weight in crusty bread.

I also have little travel dreams. For instance, someday I plan to drive cross-country and find me the World’s Biggest Ball of Twine, stopping along the way to gaze upon towering fiberglass statues of Paul Bunyan and that Enormous Potato Drive-in Theater in Idaho.

Thanks, RoadsideAmerica.com. (Best. Site. Ever.)

I love kitsch. Some kitsch has a lot of heart in it, like homemade potholders or an especially earnest garden gnome. Other kitsch is just crap, like, say, historical-figure bobblehead dolls. Except for one I saw of Jane Austen, which honestly was downright enchanting. Creepy, but enchanting.

Adam doesn’t understand my fascination with the kitschy. He sees it and his innate snobbery kicks in and suddenly he’s bellowing about the HORROR OF CASSEROLES and how COOL WHIP IS A CRIME AGAINST NATURE and don’t forget MOST PLAID IS ALWAYS BAD. But Aura? She understands. Or doesn’t at all, actually, but is happy to come along for the ride.

This past Wednesday’s ride:

I’ll admit it: I was morbidly curious. Would it be Bad-Bad, or just a little bad? How stringently would they push the “country” theme? Would there be gingham? As we pulled in, I began to worry. There was nary a tractor in the parking lot, but there were two hybrid cars. “I don’t like the looks of this,” I murmured to Aura.

But then we walked onto the restaurant’s porch.

“That’s much better!” I declared. “Rocking chairs are VERY country,” I explained authoritatively to Aura, also giving an approving glance to the oversized checkers set and Sunbeam Bread sign.

We nipped into the ladies room, our lengthy drive from the Big City warranting a brief bathroom break. As I swung the door open, my recently raised hopes were quickly dashed.

I sighed mightily. “Look at these…these utilitarian sinks!” I spat, sending Aura scurrying to the other end of the bathroom. There wasn’t a stick of knotty-pine paneling to be seen and the toilets flushed themselves and THERE WAS RUNNING WATER.

“This place had better get worse or we’re LEAVING,” I told Aura. But as we approached the hostess stand and I peered into the dining room, I could feel my muscles relax. There was the paneling. And a cookstove! Even a man in suspenders!

We ordered and the food was okay. For a treat, we got ourselves the fried apples, which, while tasty, had never seen the good side of a fryolater. “Can’t be too disappointed,” I shared with Aura, poking a syrupy apple with my fork and popping it into my mouth. “People in the country don’t always have electricity. This is about as crispy as an apple gets when you’re cooking over an open fire.”

After the meal, we ambled around the Cracker Barrel Country Store. If you made your eyes really wide so that they unfocused, it was much like being in the holiday clearance section of Target. “Pumpkin salt and pepper shakers!” I muttered dismissively, sorting through the rack of Christmas dishtowels with something bordering on disdain.  “Where’s the real kitsch?” I asked Aura, who was beginning to look attached to a giant lollipop she had just spotted. “WE CAME HERE FOR COUNTRY.”

Then I saw it.

A cinnamon broom. A completely unusable broom, scented with the most disgusting cinnamon flavor known to man. “Aaaah,” I said, breathing in the odor and gagging. “Fanciful and useless crafts, right next to a rack of Elvis movies. This, my dear, is kitsch,” I informed Aura.

And so we left, fairly sated. And because we love him so much, we even brought Adam back a photographic souvenir.