The ride up to Sugarloaf on Friday, while a long four hour journey, was punctuated with some highlights. The highway was marked throughout with signs welcoming the 133rd home from Iraq including the standard American flags hung from bridges, hardware stores replacing their spring sale promotions to thank the soldiers and cardstock in windows in small towns. We got more connected with the 133rd when two police cars came charging from behind me to scare the bejeezus out of me. They passed the PT Cruiser and then caused a small traffic delay that I contributed to with my own rubbernecking as they removed some well wishers with a large fabric sign standing on the side of the road near their Volvo.

Sarah, the 133rd, and the PT Cruiser all got hungry at the same time so we pulled into a rest stop for some Burger King. Just as Sarah and I got out of our car about five hundred soldiers dressed in desert camouflage gear abandoned their luxury transportation buses and entered into the rest stop. We did the only reasonable thing and joined the parade of well wishing family members at the rest stop in some clapping and cheering.

At first I feared that this could cause a major delay for obtaining sustenance. I wasn’t about to deny any soldier who risked his life for the country and freed the Iraqi people, his right to eat his first cheap hamburger on American soil. But the soldiers were far more interested in the bathroom, the well wishers who were greeting them with the jump and hump excitement expected of a wife with children missing her husband at war, and swarming the pay phones to make calls to co-ordinate their final arrivals. Only a couple of shaved heads hopped into the line at the Burger King with us. I was tempted to give the army folks a congratulatory statement like "We really appreciate everything you have done." or "good work" but I couldn’t find a good opening and I lacked the context to just grab a random soldier to congratulate and thank them. Someone should let the soldiers know that people are thankful even if they appear to be focused on snarfing down spicy chicken burgers. I almost loaned my cell phone to one of the soldiers waiting in line for the pay phones but Sarah was in the bathroom at the time so it was awkward.

The highway itself had some great signage worth noting. I would have taken photographs of it but I was driving and it would have created a real hazard. The first one that I noticed was a road side Applebees on Rt. 4 that advertised the following: "Beer Pong Tournament – Inquire Within". We also passed a small shack about the size of three garages that was in the middle of nowhere in Jay Maine with the sign "Steppin' Out Disco Club". My favorite was a small blue two story house built too close to the side of the road for most people to consider living in it. Where there would normally be a pathway into the house the owner had purchased a gigantic plastic arrow about twenty-five feet long and about eight feet high. The arrow came almost all the way to the door making it appear that you might need to avoid it in order to get in the door. Written on the arrow in replaceable letters was "Jane's Electrolysis".