I never thought pea soup would feature prominently among my biggest
unfulfilled travel regrets, but life is strange and full of surprises. Also, I
am very susceptible to the power of suggestion.
Richard and I were taking our first road trip down Highway 1.
I had completed the Big Sur Half Marathon in Monterey the day before, and we
were on our way to Los Angeles. It was mid-November, but warm enough to have
the top down on our rented Mustang convertible.
As the landscape changed from sandy beachfronts to spacious
vineyards and farmland of the 101, we saw the first billboard: 110 miles
to the home of split pea soup.
“Did you just see that sign?” I asked the hubby.
“Pea soup? Yeah, that’s random.”
But the billboards continued—one, then another and another
counting down the miles to supposed culinary bliss. The conversation understandably
turned pea-centric, both of us drunk with conjecture about the nature of this
unassuming and usually dull soup… And the nature of a region
that would prioritize pureed legumes that much.
The anticipation built until the moment of truth: an “Exit Now” command that if followed, would
take us straight to Andersen’s in the little town of Buellton and a steaming
hot bowl of pea green delight.
That morning I didn’t want split pea soup. In fact, I wasn’t
interested in soup of any sort. But suddenly, we were in crisis. Should we take
the detour and satisfy our curiosity? We weren’t even hungry, but this had to
be one hell of a soup to warrant not one, but several, billboards.
As you can probably guess, we didn’t take the road to split
pea nirvana, and we had good enough reasons. Responsible reasons. Most
importantly, we were meeting friends for dinner in Venice and were already
running way behind schedule.
That didn’t stop us both from giving the cartoon chef on the
Andersen’s sign one last wistful look as we continued on to Santa Barbara.
My thoughts remained back in Buellton for the next hour
afterward, and my regret only intensified when I finally googled Andersen’s,
which has been “splitting peas since 1924.”
“We’ll be back,” Richard said, consoling me. “We’ll go next
time.”
Next time hasn’t happened yet, but I have to wonder if the
soup would live up to the hype if we planned a visit to the roadside
restaurant. I believe the magic of the inspired road trip detour is that you
have to act on your intuition the moment you feel it. If you ignore it, that
moment is gone and can never be recreated.
Can planned pea soup be magical? I don’t know, but I doubt
it. No, the magic of the next detour is unknown, but next time, I’ll take it.
