On our way to Pittsburgh, Katrina and I made a few pit stops to gas up the car and for cups of coffee for me and a few cans of Diet Coke for her.

As many of you know, Pennsylvania is a fairly deep and very wide state. On our first stop, Katrina suggested we stop at Sheetz. It is actually a gas station/convenience store, but nothing like we have in New England and I’d never been to one before.

What should have been a five-minute stop turned into a wonderland of things to eat for me. At one, there were rollers of eight different kinds of hot dogs. The buns were iffy, but the fat German wiener was amazing. There were kiosks of fresh food, from fruit to sandwiches, yogurt and salads. There were so many lattes and cappuccinos and neon colored sodas, along with soft serve ice cream and every snack and candy you can imagine, plus newspapers and books and magazines. I told Katrina I could probably live in a Sheetz happily for at least a week.

Sheetz is a family-owned organization. It employees 17,000 people in 600 locations from Pennsylvania through North Carolina. If you drive through one or more of those states during your vacation, make a pit stop.