Tales & Trails of a Traveling Wiseguy

"Where's the beef?" actress Clara Peller famously barked in a series of Wendy's TV commercials back in the 1980s. The commercials were such a success that the line became part of the cultural lexicon for years after. Kids would repeat it to each other and laugh, sort of like kids today do with "6-7", except that "Where's the beef?" had an actual, clear source— one that adults could understand, too. Well, I've been repeating the phrase again this past week, though with a bittersweet chuckle this time. The Wendy's restaurants in Sunnyvale are now gone!

It was in the news a few weeks ago that Wendy's is closing approximately 300 underperforming restaurants across the US. This comes after closing about 150 restaurants in 2024. (Example news coverage: CBS News article, 17 Nov 2025)

The last remaining Wendy's in Sunnyvale seems to have been part of this wave. The restaurant shut down sometime in the past week or two, I think. It's a few miles away and in a part of town I rarely traverse.

For a long time we had a Wendy's restaurant closer to home, just 1 mile away, on a street I regularly drive. In fact it used to be just around the corner from a spot where I worked for a few years!

That shop closed up during Covid, presumably a casualty of reduced business. The property changed hands, and they bulldozed the restaurant and put a bright, new Taco Bell in its spot. I've eat there once since then, just to remind myself Yeah, Taco Bell is kind of gross. 🤣

So anyway, now when I'm in the mood for a Dave's Old-Fashioned, I've got to travel miles to get one. A quick check on Google Maps shows there are four Wendy's still standing in San Jose, a couple in Fremont, and one up in Redwood City.

I'm not going to go that far for a Dave's Old-Fashioned, though. The main reason is they're just not that good anymore.

Oh, I used to love me a ¼-pound single combo years ago. Back in college, for example, a new Wendy's opened on a busy corner near where I lived the last 3 semesters there. It was right on my walk to/from classes. I ate there easily a few times a week. And it was good. Other Wendy's since then just haven't been as good. Even when that other Wendy's in Sunnyvale was right around the corner from my office, I ate there maybe once a month at most. And the one that just closed? I ate there back in March and was disappointed. The food was expensive, employees blocked off the cash register with a self-ordering kiosk, then they made my food wrong, and they barely cared.

Sometimes there's a reason businesses fail. I mean, there's always a reason, but a lot of the time it's not the macro trends that business owners routinely cite— things like the economy, Covid-19, inflation, minimum wage being raised, the skyrocketing divorce rate, or my favorite stupid excuse, "Millennials Are Killing the XYZ Industry". Sometimes, probably much of the time, the call is coming from inside the house!

Oh, you might still be wondering about that Where's the Beef? meme I mentioned at the start. Here's the infamous Wendy's TV commercial from 1984:



Enjoy!

L.A. Trade Show journal #3
Downtown · Tue, 16 Sep 2025. 9:30pm

I'm at my hotel in downtown Los Angeles. It's the Moxy hotel, in one of the newer high-rises downtown. Actually a lot of the high-rises downtown are new to me. The last time I stayed in downtown LA was in the early 00s, and there's been a building boom since then with new hotels and residential towers.

I knew when I booked the Moxy that the rooms here are small. Like, tiny by US standards; and more like what I saw at salaryman hotels in Tokyo. But still I didn't expect it to be quite this small....



I have to squeeze past the foot of the bed to get to the other side. The only furniture in here is two tiny nightstands and a kid-sized chair. One of the nightstands is meant to double as a desk— and that's what the tiny chair is for.

Also, the gal at the front desk who checked me in gushed about my elite status (Marriott Titanium) and the upgrade they had for me. It's an upgrade to a City View room. Except the city view is a view of the convention center, two major freeways, and a freeway interchange.

One big plus, though— and this is the primary reason I booked at the Moxy— is that the convention center is right across the street. I won't have a long trek tomorrow to/from the show, which will especially be good if I need to make the trip twice.

Update: The longer I spend in this room the worse its design gets. It's like the designers didn't even spend 2 hours trying to stay in this room, even as a solo traveler, for even a few hours, let alone a full night. In addition to the problems I identified above, there's pretty much no horizontal surface onto which to place things. Need to lay out clothes to change into? Lay them on the bed. Need to open a briefcase to find something? Have to lay it on the bed. I do not like using my bed as a workbench, but here I have to! Hanging clothes is silly. The only places for hangers either (a) leave my clothes dragging on the ground because they're so low, or (b) have my clothes hanging over the front of the TV because, yes, that's where the hanger hooks are. And the lighting in this room is terrible. It's like living in a dive bar.

Next up: A Day at the Show.

Canada travelog #12
Dundas, ON · Mon, 25 Aug 2025. 2pm.

It disappoints me when I start a hike, the weather's nice, then it turns sour by the time I get to the payoff vista. That's what happened when I hiked Webster Falls this morning— it got gloomy and rainy. It burns me even more when I deal with poor weather while I'm on the hike, decide to leave, then the weather gets better after I've gone. That's what happened while I was over at Tew Falls— the sun came out. Most of the time stuff like this happens there's nothing to do but accept it. Today, because the hikes were short and close together, I said I'm going back. And that's what I've done. I went back to Webster Falls.



I parked in the lot a second time, paying nothing extra thanks to the good-at-all-local-parks-for-the-day $22.50 toll I already paid. And I walked to the falls on the short trail. And I climbed around the fence and scrambled down to the perch where I could actually see the falls, because fuck this town and its put-a-fence-around-everything-even-slightly-dangerous risk aversion.



I sat there on my perch for a while, making motion-blue pictures with my fancy camera (first frame above) and even a quick video with my iPhone (second frame). This time I even had the place to myself (plus Hawk). It's like the rain earlier in the hour chased off the riffraff. 😅

North Coast Roadtrip travelog #3
Redcrest · Sat, 26 Jul 2025, 9am

This morning we got up around 7:30 at our motel in Garberville. The main reason I picked this particular tiny town for Friday night halfway, as opposed to pushing 30-45 minutes further north to a larger town along US 101, was to do a special drive in the quiet hours of the morning today. The Avenue of the Giants.


The Avenue of the Giants begins just north of Garberville and runs 31 miles, roughly paralleling highway 101. But for most of the drive you can't tell that you're close to a major north-south artery with 4 lanes of cars and trucks whizzing past at 65mph. Instead you're on a quiet country two-lane that winds among stately trees that can reach over 300 feet tall. The oldest of these trees are over 2,000 years old; though most of the trees in these groves probably are just 500-700 years old.

We dropped the top on our convertible, cranked the heat (because it's chilly out this morning!), and enjoyed the 360° view.

In beauty I walk. Even when I drive my car.

Oregon Cascades Travelog #12
McKenzie Pass, OR - Wed, 2 Jul 2025, 7:25pm

After hiking Proxy Falls, Lower and Upper, we thought we were done for the day. We were tired and hungry and both ready to be home. Or at least somewhere sitting down for dinner. In moments where we had signal as we climbed up toward the McKenzie Pass we refreshed our maps to get an ETA for getting back to Bend— or at least to Sisters— where we could find a decent restaurant. It looked like it would be about 8pm for Bend. Hawk tamped down on her usual feelings of carsickness as I hurried through the curves on the twisty mountain road toward home. But then as we crested the mountain pass a strange thing happened. The floor was LAVA. We had to stop and look.


Okay, so this video doesn't show us stopping. Trust me, we did stop to visit that observatory I called out in the video— yes, the one made from LAVA. I'll share photos in another blog entry.

In beauty I walk... even when I drive! 😂

Update: continued in next blog with pics at the observatory made of lava!

Italy Travelog #8
Palatine Hill, Rome - Sunday, 25 May 2025, 1:30pm

Have you seen Caesar's Palace? No, not the casino in Las Vegas; I mean the real Caesar's Palace. The original, in Rome.

Well, I was just there, atop the Palatine Hill in Rome, and I can barely say I saw it, either. That's because Caesar's Palace, called Domus Augustus (the Home of Augustus), which was built almost 2,000 years ago is today in ruins. And even the ruins haven't always been well cared for.



The palace fell into disuse after the fall of the Roman Empire then crumbled. Many of its stones were stolen—or "repurposed" to build or decorate buildings elsewhere, either in Rome or overseas. Plus there was natural deterioration and an earthquake. Together these left the palace not even a shell of its former self; more of an outline of where something amazing once stood. And it got covered over in dirt.

The ruins were rediscovered in the late 17th and early 18th centuries by wealthy landowners. They did some of the excavation and began "repurposing" all over again. They replaced several of the original limestone and marble walls with 17th century bricks, and turned the area into an open-air garden.

Georgia Travelog #18
Helen - Saturday, 12 Apr 2025, 12pm

Another day, another string of waterfall treks here in the Appalachian Mountains of north Georgia. Today I hope will work out better, weather-wise, than yesterday. The forecast shows sun all day.

Our first hike today was Anna Ruby Falls. It's in the Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest, though to get to it we had to drive through Unicoi State Park. Fortunately there's no fee collected by the state for us passers-through. There's just a fee for collected by the US government. I know, *grumble* *grumble*, why's there a fee. Just pay it and be glad you did when you see how beautiful Anna Ruby Falls is— and that there's a big, well maintained parking lot here and a nice visitors center, too.



A paved trail leads about 0.5 mile uphill from the visitors center. Informational signs along the way explain the geology and flora and fauna of the area. At the top of the trail three observation decks provide plenty of vantage points to view the falls. This video is recorded from one of the platforms.

Curiously Anna Ruby Falls is not one but two falls. Two different creeks, York Creek and Curtis Creek, tumble over rocky ledges and combine at the bottom to form Smith Creek. A double falls like this is a rare thing.

Saturday morning we went hiking at Angel Falls. We were already in Oakhurts, CA, having driven there yesterday and staying overnight after hiking in the rain at Corlieu Falls. Hiking in the rain wasn't the plan, though staying overnight always was. Thus it was only a 15 minute or so drive out to the falls in the morning. We could have gone at 7:30am if we'd wanted. It was cold early in the morning, though, like not much above freezing, so we relaxed in the hotel until 9. And even so, we bundled up in heavy sweaters at the trailhead.

One benefit of getting an early start on was that we had the place to ourselves— at least to start. There was one other car at the trailhead when we arrived. Its owners were already well ahead of us; we'd pass them, briefly, going opposite directions on the trail later.

The solitude was a nice change of pace. Later in the day, and especially later in the season, this trail gets busy on weekends. Today we're early on both counts. Not only is 9:15am at the trailhead earlier than most people stir on a Saturday but March, even late March, is early season in the Sierra Nevada. Even in the lower reaches here at 3,500' elevation.



For this trip I've put together a 4 minute video of clips from various places along the falls. This seemed like the best way to share it and to convey the connectedness of the experience. Angel Falls may be the name of just one cascade, but the whole experience here is one of multiple falls—more than a dozen— of different heights in rapid succession. And of being able, in many cases, to simply scramble up the rocks from one cascade to the next. Trail? You seldom need a hiking trail out here, if you're bold and careful.

Non-Vegas Vegas Weekend Travelog #6
Lake Mead National Recreation Area - Sat, 15 Feb 2025, 2:30pm

The Owl Canyon Loop hike at Lake Mead NRA has been a great hike. We started with exploring atop a bluff down in the canyon where we found seashells and gypsum deposits left from a flood over 40 years ago. Then we took a slight detour to the Slot Canyon River Rapids. After that we hiked up through the narrows of an unnamed canyon. It's a good hike already... and it's only about half done!

We topped out of the unnamed canyon, crossed the main road through the park, then continued through a wash to... another road? Yes, there's another road here. An abandoned road. One that's not even marked on the topo map we're following!



The topo map shows that our loop follows in the direction of the road for about half a mile, so we hiked it over the hill and down the far side. There we saw the next canyon our route descends into. At first it looked like we'd have to drop into the canyon then climb back out to the cross the road... but at the bottom of the canyon were a pair of tunnels under the road almost 100' below the surface. And they were haunted tunnels! 😱 Watch the video to see (or hear!) what I mean.

More to come....

Non-Vegas Vegas Weekend Travelog #4
Lake Mead National Recreation Area - Sat, 15 Feb 2025, 1:15pm

After starting hiking the Owl Canyon Loop trail on Saturday and spending a while exploring atop a butte we scrambled back down to the main trail and towards the mouth of one of the actual canyons. This part of the trail parallels the Las Vegas Wash, which drains from Lake Las Vegas, a small reservoir, to Lake Mead, which is a huge reservoir. We could see there was water flowing in the wash. There were also rocky spires, named as pillars on our topographic map, close to the water. Thus when our trail turned left at a junction— away from the river— I opted instead to turn right, toward the river.

Did I mention our map also showed one of these pillars next to a spot identified as "Slot Canyon River Rapids"? Yeah, there was no way I was not taking a detour to see that. And it did not disappoint. Here's a short video I recorded next to the river:



This river is both natural and artificial. It's natural, in that it really is a real river, the Las Vegas River. It drains the Las Vegas basin into the Colorado River. But it's also artificial—or, rather, its flow is artificial— because there's a dam upstream. But today's flow is also natural because it actually rained in Las Vegas two days ago. And not just a quick sprinkle but a full day. Las Vegas gets, like, two days of rain a year. So half the year's rainfall is pouring through this slot right now.