{"id":866,"date":"2012-07-22T13:44:10","date_gmt":"2012-07-22T17:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/?p=866"},"modified":"2012-07-22T17:27:03","modified_gmt":"2012-07-22T21:27:03","slug":"disappearing-diners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/22\/disappearing-diners\/","title":{"rendered":"Disappearing Diners"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

From the time I first started bicycle touring back in the mid-90s, my\u00a0modus operandi has always been to eat a small breakfast in camp when I\u00a0wake up, then ride 10 or 15 miles until I come to a town and stop at\u00a0the local diner for a big breakfast. Breakfast is about the cheapest\u00a0meal you can buy on the road, and it’s a great way to get to talk to\u00a0the locals.<\/p>\n

But over the last few years I’ve noticed that fewer and fewer of these\u00a0diners exist anymore. On this years trip we several times rode all day\u00a0looking unsuccessfully for a place to eat. On the second day of our\u00a0trip we rode clear across southern New Hampshire looking for\u00a0breakfast. We actually passed two diners, both of which were out of\u00a0business. We didn’t find a place to eat until lunch time, 47 miles\u00a0later. We had similar experiences on several days of the trip.<\/p>\n

My first thought was that diners have been replaced by McDonalds, but\u00a0these little towns don’t have a McDonalds, or anything else\u00a0apparently. My current theory, based on absolutely nothing but\u00a0conjecture, is that most people who live in small towns don’t really\u00a0live in small towns anymore. They sleep there, but every day they get\u00a0up and drive to a larger town for work, and stop at the fast food\u00a0place in that larger town on the way to work.<\/p>\n

But whatever the reason for their disappearance is, the lack of diners\u00a0has complicated the logistics of bike touring, and has also removed\u00a0one of the most pleasurable elements of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the time I first started bicycle touring back in the mid-90s, my\u00a0modus operandi has always been to eat a small breakfast in camp when I\u00a0wake up, then ride 10 or 15 miles until I come to a town and stop at\u00a0the local diner for a big breakfast. Breakfast is about the cheapest\u00a0meal you can […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bicycle_touring"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":869,"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions\/869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/allenf.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}