So I don’t know about you (why don’t you share?), but I love Thai food. It’s really great when they make it super-hot, and it was good this time (waaaaaaaaaay back on October 20, 2009) but not as hot as they’ve made it more recently (honestly, I think my buddy’s crack that they couldn’t make it hot enough for me might have irked the chef, and he decided giant pieces of red Thai chiles and chili oil were the way to go—I suffered for days…but it was a good kind of hurt) …wellllll…maybe not that one…that was really painful! If you like it hot (or truthfully, even if you don’t), Thai Basil is a great restaurant (and even kids can find things they’ll enjoy…I recommend the Satay with peanut sauce…mmm)

Anyway, on this night I’m pretty sure I had Kow Pad Kra Pow, which is a fantastic dish with fried Jasmine rice, basil leaves, and chicken. The rice on this plate wasn’t white like normal…it was pink (thanks to the spices and chiles). I threw on a little peanut sauce (it goes great on just about anything, like Incredible John’s Spicy Peanut Butter Pizza, upon which the sauce is like a cross between peanut butter and peanut sauce). This particular meal was one of the very best I’ve had at Thai Basil (although it’s great food every time…)

Ok, ok, enough about the food. Ironically, all I used was the urinal here, but the bathrooms are clean and inviting. The colors are dark and muted—until you get to the counter, which are a dark blue with seashell-shaped cobalt blue sinks. The floor is done in black and white tiles, and the stalls are a rich dark wood color…four rolls for the stand-out sinks and counter coordinated with the muted dark bathroom.

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Wow…

…just…wow…and I mean that in the absolute best of ways.

Now…this isn’t some crazy kitschy bathroom (though it would be a lot more fun if more were…but I think I beat that dead horse to it’s seventh or eighth death last post).

However…it is a gas station bathroom…and usually that phrase “gas station bathroom” evicts terrible horrible thoughts, thoughts that the toilet might eat you (or at least everything living on it) and the fear that washing your hands might be worse for you than not.

This is the nicest cleanest gas station bathroom I’ve ever been in. Ever. If you’ve ever gone with me on a roadtrip, you know I use gas station bathrooms almost more than professional truck drivers/travellers/college students on road trips. Probably more than some of them do. Yeah, I’m that guy. Seriously, these guys should be on the list of bathrooms gas stations should aspire to have.

Now, you’re probably thinking “Big deal…they’re in Lincoln, CA of all places…how busy could they be?) Well…I’ll answer that for you. With 12 pumps (no, not quite as big as the superstations on Interstates and freeways, but bigger than a lot of gas stations I’ve seen in major cities), they’re almost always packed. They stock the counter with two employees throughout most of the day—and still have a line. They’re right off Highway 65, which is a connector freeway between CA70 and I-80. Nonetheless, they manage to keep the restrooms clean. Much cleaner than many of the smaller and similar sized gas stations I’ve seen do. I was literally shocked walking in…I’ve been to the station before but never had to use the restroom, so I never noticed (gotta buy gas, silly!).

So this is my first-ever four-roll review. You might be asking yourself “Why would a plain gas station bathroom get the first 4-roll review? That’s just silly…” Fair question, I suppose…and of course I’m going to answer it. Like I said earlier…this should be what other gas stations aspire to. In any public place, you have to work hard to keep the restrooms looking nice, even harder at gas stations and fast food places because you tend to invite a greater range of people, including those who care less about what they do behind closed (and locked) doors. The nearly complete lack of grafiti (there were some words scratched on the mirror) and the overall cleanliness of the bathroom means the hard-working people at Chevron at Twelve Bridges Lincoln deserve four rolls.

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So…one of the local “haunts” (I use that term really loosely)…but it’s a solid choice for breakfast when I don’t feel like fixing something here (oh yeah, real tough to put cereal in a bowl…especially since I don’t even add milk!).

I always seem to drop utensils here (nowhere else though…weird); almost hit an elderly couple with a fork one day when I went to pick it up. It literally jumped out of my hand and flew toward the other table, managing to fall short by about a foot. I felt really bad, but the look on everyone’s face was priceless (yes, everyone melds together into a single face…kinda like the police uniforms in A Scanner Darkly…strange stuff). Another time I managed to drop a half-dozen forks in under 5 minutes (I know, I’m talented)…the waitress finally brought a pile of forks for me (I wish I had a pic of the fork pile). If only she were single…*sigh*

Well…no funny or weird or terrible bathroom stories here. They do have a standard non-industrial toilet in the stall which I always thought was kind of odd (it’s not like they’re serving chili beans and curry…hmm…come to think of it, they do serve chili…and ortegas…hmm…think they should switch over). My theory is that the mostly older regulars feel more comfortable with a homey standard toilet (they do have a urinal though, so maybe that theory just sucks lol). Previous experience leads me to believe they really should put an industrial-strength toilet in (they do a really great job of keeping it clean, though). The bathroom is really bright, too…I’d go so far as to say warm…not quite cheery, but only because the walls are in a dull pale yellow, and that doesn’t really scream “cheery!” to me.

Anyway, here’s some photos…notice that as a whole everything is pretty clean. There’s very little graffiti at all, I think one note about how terrible Republicans are or what they should order off the menu (well, I’m at least 93% sure it’s not on the menu…)

After a while, you’ll be familiar with this set of images …the first is the restroom upon entering, the second is the urinal of choice (as you can tell in the first pic, there’s not much choice in this case…it’s urinal or stall), and the last is my feet (I really hope they’re mine ). I dunno why, I just thought it was funny (and potentially entertaining).

So this restroom gets 3 rolls, because while it is clean, I still think they should put in an industrial-strength toilet, and the restroom is just average. There are some pretty crazy restrooms out there…but it’s been a while since I’ve been to ‘em…so I gotta get back there! They can gain half a point for putting in an industrial-strength toilet, so here’s hopin!

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