On my most recent trip across the country – the one that brought me back from L.A. – I decided to swing through Fredericksburg once again for a hearty helping of the best barbecue in the speaking world. The thing was, I was trying to make it coast to coast in four days and Fredericksburg wasn’t exactly on the way. 433 miles from I-40 – the most direct route – to be exact. Yet it was never really a dilemma. I had been craving that sauce, that meat, that cobbler for over a year. I wanted it, and this was as close as I was going to be to it for a very long time. I checked the Rotary website for Fredericksburg and R&L was still listed. I couldn’t fathom the place going out of business. It had had a line out the door the last time I was there. Imagine my surprise when I got to mile 433 of my side trip only to discover that R&L Barbecue had in fact closed its doors.

I had never bothered to look up an address for R&L. I knew I would recognize the light blue building with its front-porch overhang as soon as I saw it. But after driving back and forth through Fredericksburg a few times, I wondered if I was maybe on the wrong street. I didn’t think so. I remembered it being right on the main drag that went through this small town. A couple times I thought I’d spotted it, but it turned out to just be a needlepoint shop. Finally, I pulled into a gas station and asked some old fella where I might find R&L Barbecue. "Oh they’ve been closed for over a year now. Just got tired of it I guess."

Just got tired of it??? That place had to have been a goldmine, and they just… got tired of it? I drove back to where I thought I’d seen the restaurant, and sure enough, I hadn’t been mistaken; R&L Barbecue was now a needlepoint shop. I stared through the window thinking I must be hallucinating or at least gravely mistaken. No way had I driven this far out of the way for nothing. I looked at the building’s façade. Damned if it wasn’t the exact same building, same color, same overhang. But it was a needlepoint shop. A fucking needlepoint shop. For lunch that day, I ate really bad fried chicken from some southern fast food chain. I sheepishly resumed my drive east, trying to make up time and distance the entire way.

In retrospect, this really was an easily avoidable situation. There had been a phone number for R&L Barbecue on the Rotary website. One phone call is all it would have taken. In a situation where I was driving 400 miles out of my way for one purpose and one purpose only, one would think that that would have been the first thing I would have done. Double check to make sure the damn place is still standing. Goldmine or not, fires and tornadoes still happen. I’ve always tended to act first and think second, but even this went beyond my usual lack of prudence. If given a few minutes or hours to mull over my decisions, the flaws in my thinking will generally become quite obvious. This particular expedition had been an entire day’s worth of driving – not counting the several weeks of planning that went into the road trip. Plenty of time to smarten up. Yet I still charged ahead on blind faith. Faith that something would be there in the end.

Do I regret going so far out of my way in vain? Nah. I made up the time the next day by driving a thousand miles in 17 hours. Sure I felt silly, but if faced with a similar situation, I’m sure I’d handle it the exact same way. What if I had called the number for R&L and it had come up disconnected? That wouldn’t have told me for certain that it was closed. I could have called information or the local chamber of commerce to be positive, but I’m still not quite sure I would have believed them. Tell me something is hot, I’m still going to tap it a couple times just to check. Tell me the paint is wet and I’m still going to put my fingers in it. I had to see for myself that there was nothing left for me in Fredericksburg. So often, those little (or long) side trips are worth far more than the time they took. That little bit of wasted time here and there is worth never having to look back and wondering about a missed opportunity. If I hadn’t seen the needlepoint shop with my own eyes, I’d still be kicking myself, wishing I had gone the extra mile (433 of them) and gotten myself some mouth watering R&L Barbecue.