The Struggle Is Real: Three States, Two Stores, and One Cold Drink

Back home in Georgia, if you want a bottle of wine with supper, you grab one at the grocery store. Walmart’s got a whole aisle of it. Simple.

Then you go traveling and find out that every state has its own idea about how simple it ought to be, and state alcohol laws are just the start.

A Hot Day at High Point

We were camped at High Point State Park in New Jersey, up in the northwest corner where New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania all come together. It was a scorching hot day, and our site had no utilities. We were running on solar, which meant no air conditioning.

So we decided to do something useful and go grocery shopping. The nearest Walmart was just across the state line in Pennsylvania. It had everything we needed, except one thing. In Pennsylvania, you can’t buy wine or liquor at the grocery store. You have to go to a liquor store.

The closest one we could find was across the river in New York.

“This Is New York”

On the way there, I passed a billboard with an ice-cold, dripping bottle of Coors on it. On a day that hot, it was about the most beautiful thing I’d seen. I’m sure the folks at Coors will be glad to hear their advertising dollars weren’t wasted. I told Diana, “I want an ice-cold Coors.”

We walk into the New York liquor store, and I go looking for the beer section. I can’t find it anywhere. I ask the lady behind the counter, “Where’s your beer?”

She gave me a look like I’d just asked the dumbest question ever uttered by a human being. “This is New York,” she said. “You can’t buy beer in here.”

Then she offered some advice. I could go to the Walgreens across the street, still in New York, but they’d charge me a deposit on the bottles. Pennsylvania doesn’t do that, so I’d be better off going back across the line.

We bought a very expensive box of Franzia Cabernet from her while we were there. That turned out to be a smart move.

Pennsylvania’s Turn

Back across the line into Pennsylvania we went, to a beer store. And let me tell you, they had every beer you could ever imagine, none of it cold, plus every kind of tobacco and vape product ever made.

But no wine. Not a drop.

Then Came New Jersey

In all our driving around, I’d noticed gas was a good bit cheaper in New Jersey. So on the way back to camp, I pulled in to fill up. I go to jump out and pump it, and a fella in a reflective vest appears out of nowhere, practically blocking my door, with his hand out like he’s waiting on my credit card.

I must have looked mighty confused, because right on cue, a car pulled up next to me, the lady rolled down her window, and said, “This is New Jersey. They pump the gas for you here. It’s the law.”

So I complied.

“The Struggle Is Real”

Back at camp, we started filming a video, and I asked Diana what she’d learned that day. She gave a quick rundown of the whole saga, then added one more thing we’d noticed on our travels: in some states, every store charges you for plastic grocery bags. Most places it’s a nickel to twenty cents a bag. “But Pennsylvania isn’t one of them, so Walmart gave us the bags for free,” she said.

I tossed out a throwaway line, “The struggle is real,” and it was funny enough that I left it in. It turned out to be the perfect ending, and that little video became one of our most popular.

Want to see the rest of that trip? Read the whole story of our back-roads loop through the Northeast: No Interstates, No GPS: Our Back-Roads Loop Through the Northeast

And if you’re ever camped near High Point on a hot day, buy your wine in New York, your beer in Pennsylvania, and let somebody in New Jersey pump your gas.

I’m just saying.