“I’m so hungry I could eat a sandwich from a gas station.” &045;Chevy Chase in &uot;National Lampoon’s Vacation,&uot; 1983

Convenience stores, truck stops and travel centers are highly underrated. Whenever I travel, I find that the journey is as enjoyable as the destination. These places have everything, and you may notice some oddities if you take the time to browse.

Convenience stores are the best kind of place to buy soft drinks. Besides tasting better than canned or bottled pop, fountain-dispensed soft drinks also offer much larger sizes, oftentimes for less money. And they keep getting larger. I remember about 15 years ago a 32-ounce cup was the largest size available. That was twice as much as one of the bottles and almost three times as much as in a can. But it didn’t stop there. Someone crusading for refreshment came out with an unprecedented 44-ounce cup, and the whole thing snowballed from there. The largest size I’ve seen recently is a 64-ounce cup, but the 96-ouncer can’t be too far off.

Besides soft drinks, there are also quite a number of bizarre drinks available in the cooler. Ginseng seems to be a trendy beverage component these days. Energy drinks containing ephedrine are also popular. Bottled water itself is nothing new, but for a while they were actually selling a product called &uot;Water Joe,&uot; which was water with caffeine in it. It made me wonder what the effect would be if someone made a pot of coffee using it instead of regular water. Hilarity would ensue, probably. I’m not sure if they still sell it, but I have heard that Big Tobacco is trying to launch a bottled water with nicotine in it, for people who work in a smoke-free environment.

Another thing convenience stores have is an abundance of microwave-ready sandwiches unavailable anywhere else. How many restaurants offer something called &uot;Dub-L Beefy Cheez Stacker,&uot; &uot;I Can’t Believe It’s Not Ham,&uot; or a &uot;Chik-N-Licious BBQ Grinder?&uot; None of them. You can only find them in a refrigerator for $2.49. If you read the package from one of these sandwiches, you’ll notice that they have so many artificial ingredients and preservatives that they’re probably not even perishable. They seem to contain more chemical compounds than a can of Black Flag.

Along with the sandwiches, they always seem to have the requisite hot dogs cooking on a roller grill. They’re pretty cheap too &045; $1 will usually buy three of them. Granted, they are the color and consistency of Play-Doh, the flavor of heated Crisco and only about the diameter of a dime, but otherwise not bad. Besides, they may serve a dual purpose. Have you ever noticed how they tend to get all wrinkled up if they’ve been sitting there all day long? I think at the end of each shift they wrap up all the unsold ones and sell them as Slim Jims. They seem to have added a few items to the roller grill lately, by the way. They now also offer bratwurst that looks like it was made from particleboard.

Food isn’t the only thing available at convenience stores. They also have CDs and cassette tapes, most of which you won’t normally find in music stores. How do they do that? Is there some special truck stop/convenience store record label? It seems like they all have the same titles. Where else can you find &uot;David Allan Coe: Live from San Quentin,&uot; or &uot;Mosh Pit Metal?&uot; The best part, though, is how they somehow have &uot;greatest hits&uot; compilations of artists or groups that only released one album.

Besides legitimate pharmaceuticals, they also have some amusing items in the health and beauty aisle, sold mainly for staying awake. You won’t even find most of these things at any drug store. I once saw an item called &uot;Coffee Blasters.&uot; It was basically a little pouch of caffeine that you poured into your coffee. The package claimed that the product would &uot;double the caffeine in a twelve ounce cup.&uot;

The next time you go on a trip, make sure to stop at several convenience stores. With some of the unusual items available, it can sometimes be more interesting than any roadside tourist attraction.

Dustin Petersen is an Albert Lea resident. His column appears Tuesdays.