July 22, 1977, Fri, Cavatini and Busch Stadium
“Woke up slowly at 4:50 am. Had eggs once over lightly, bacon, hash browns, Frosted Flakes, an orange, orange juice, glazed donuts, and grape juice. Ate lunch at “The Hut” at 1:00 pm. I had cavatini. Ate dinner at Ponderosa and I had a #2. Saw a fat guy who ate like a snapping turtle.”
“Went to the Astros-Cardinals game. Kids were cheering for the Phillies, booing Templeton, giving Bigfoot yells, and yelling obscenities. The final score was Houston 4, St Louis 2. We sang trucker’s songs on the way back. Took a shower, then played foosball on a rotten table. Went to bed about 11:00 pm.”
2017 Commentary
> “I had cavatini.”
There’s a story here. Cavatini was the latest gluten, tomato sauce, meat, and cheese concoction from Pizza Hut in the summer of 1977. I didn’t watch an unusal amount of TV as a kid but Pizza Hut broadly advertised cavatini before I left on the trip.
Freeze-dried food wasn’t particularly tasty in 1977. So one of the most debated topics on the trail was what meal to have once we got back to civilization. I craved cavatini even though I had never tasted it. Other guys would be in the mood for one thing one night and something different the next night. I never wavered from cavatini and talked it up enough that the whole bus descended on Pizza Hut for lunch.
I have fond memories of the anticipation around ordering cavatini at a Pizza Hut in a rural setting at a random highway exit off I-70. I ate the whole thing but it wasn’t anything special. It was just cheesy spaghetti with meat in a different format. In the end, Pizza Hut Cavatini was added to a long list of things such as Slinky, Kenner Smash Up Derby, and Electric Football that were better on TV than real life. Chalk it up as another lesson learned on this trip.
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