If you’re looking for a road less traveled, you could start in Selah, Washington, just north of Yakima.

But first, you should stop at The Red Rooster, where you might find a table of about eight people REALLY enjoying their lunch. Don’t be put off by the cracked linoleum, the off-key shout-singing from the drinks-for-lunch gang, or the guy at the end of the bar with a Trump coozie around his Busch beer can. Just order some pulled pork barbecue, with beans and coleslaw on the side.

If you’re lucky, you’ll be sitting next to Robbie, a semi-local, who might or might not be nursing a GOP, with vodka, malibu and strawberry lemonade.

“The food here is really good,” he’ll tell you. “A lot better than you’d think for a place like this.”

And he’ll be right. When it arrives, you’ll be shocked at how good it is. The pork is succulent, the sauce tangy, the slaw fresh and crunchy, and the beans a mix of several in a well-seasoned sauce.

“I like to say it’s a five-star dive bar,” Robbie will quip.

And you’ll take a second look at Robbie, a 70-something throwback to the 1950s, with a short-sleeved plaid button down, complete with pens in the front pocket, and a friendly, very polite personality.

He’ll tell you that his favorite watering hole is soon relocating to better digs.

“Movin’ on up,” you might say.

“To the east side,” Robbie might respond.

While you’re oohing and ahhing over the pork, you’ll find out that Robbie installs floors for a living, but his passion is racing cars, and he’s got one in the hunt for a second hobby car championship this weekend.

“But it all kind of fell apart today. We were ready to put it on the scales but the (something, something) quit working, and we tried to pull the rope for the manual start and it broke,” he might say. (Or that might not be what he’d say at all, because you might have trouble hearing him over the large “Jolene” chorus coming from the table behind you.)

When you tell him, you’re from Arizona, he’ll tell you about visiting Phoenix for NASCAR races and all the places in Arizona he’s been.

And when you tell him you’re retired, he’ll say, “I can’t retire. I like to eat, and I like to drink.”

And, then, he’ll tell you how his grandson raised a pig and a chicken to show at the county fair that’s going on this week, and how his grandson wanted to take his chicken on a ride and no one noticed until the ride was going, and then they stopped it and made his grandson and his chicken get off. And he’ll laugh this kind of happy proud laugh, and you’ll fall in love with him just a little.

And when you leave, you might just buy him another GOP, even if he says, “They’re going to throw me out of here. Maybe I’ll just put it on the wall and have it tomorrow.”

And he’ll shake your hand and wish you, more than once, safe travels.

Then, when your heart is full of love and your belly is full of barbecue, you can drive up the road less traveled, Washington Route 821, through the Yakima Valley, past fields of apples and mountains of apple-harvesting boxes. Past golden hills that will remind you of California. Into the Yakima River Canyon, with signs warning, “Rocks” “Rocks” “Rocks.” Past recreation sites named Rozsa, Lmuma and Umtanum. Past people rafting and fishing and paddleboarding on the Yakima. Past towering, striated rock walls that must be volcanic, and hillsides of cottonwoods with views of far-off purple peaks.

And you will have had a near-perfect day on the road.