It doesn't follow him to his new location either! Which is to say, a Denny's parking lot in the wee hours of the night, under a flickering streetlight. The Denny's is open but nobody's in the lot right now besides him. He's between an Escalade and a hedge.

As places on Earth go, Denny's parking lots in the middle of the night aren’t his favorite, but you know what's great about them? They've got street addresses. They've got cell service. They're definitely an Earth thing, unless some jotun has set up a weird theme park, which would honestly be pretty cool. So while he wanders around looking for street signs, he -

- okay, he can't get his dad's attention by praying. That's weird. Whatever, they both have phones. He might have service here. Maybe his phone even knows where "here" is.

The phone has no service but can pick up the Denny's wifi signal. It has a password.

...Does it seem like this Denny's could be in the Black Hills - no, because it's not nighttime there. Maybe he's lost time. That's creepy and way more concerning than just being at a random Denny's.

Maybe it's just an Earth-themed park. Denny's is iconic. Maybe when he walks in the person at the counter will obviously be a jotun and that will explain everything.

He walks into the Denny's.

The people in the Denny's are all humans! The hostess gets up from where she's on her own phone and grabs a menu for him. "Hi, welcome to Denny's on behalf of my corporate overlords since I personally don't have any emotional reaction to people showing up anymore, just you tonight?"

Aww! "Sure. I'm lost and my phone doesn't have service here, can I have your wifi password?"

"Yeah-huh, it's 'I patronize Denny's', with the apostrophe and spaces and capitals."

This Denny's is 100% more charming than the average Denny's. It had better not be some kind of trick.

He'll take a menu and a seat and email his dad before ordering. Or he won't, if this place isn't actually on Earth and doesn't have his email provider, and then that'll be enlightening.

He cannot log into his email account from here nope!

Weird Earth-themed park. Mayyyyybe the humans are all really well-disguised shapeshifters. Whatever. If he's nowhere on Earth they probably live longer and they might keep to the old ways with respect to, say, how you treat people sitting down to eat under your roof. Maybe not if they're really committed to the whole Denny's thing, but an authentic Denny's would also serve hearty non-toxic food and not tolerate violence inside.

So. What's on the menu? Is it normal Denny's stuff?

Pretty much, yep! Breakfast, grease, sugar, caffeine, a notice that ordering off the senior or kids menu constitutes an assertion that the item is for such a person.

He orders a strawberry banana pancake slam and, just because he's so much older than fifty five that it's downright funny, a senior salmon. That should be a decent snack.

They don't card him! The waiter blinks a little when he gets a senior item but says "I'll go put that order in, sir" and goes.

And while he waits for his food he browses the internet. There are some sites, like Google and Wikipedia, that load from most of Earth most of the time. There are similarly diagnostically useful sites for Vanaheim. Jotunheim doesn’t have just one internet but a lot of the friendlier parts of it can be identified that way.

This is Earth's internet, except his Google account doesn’t exist. So probably a mockup of Earth’s internet, but... why. Ugh. Thor hates mysteries like this.

Where does "Google maps" claim he is?

It thinks he is in Columbus, Ohio.

Thor does not think he is in Columbus, Ohio.

When his food is brought to him he says, "Excuse me. I didn't mean to end up in this town in the first place and after I've eaten I need to make it to a meeting with the High One, Óðinn, Lord of the Aesir and father of Baldr and husband of Frigg. Can you tell me how to leave town and get back to somewhere I recognize after this?"

"Wow, that sounds important! I don't know where any of those people live though! You can take the highway in a pretty straight shot to Cincinnati or Pittsburgh or Cleveland or Indianapolis if any of those are better for you?"

"Yeah, okay. I know how to get home from there. Have you been that far?"

"Not since high school. I had a track meet in Cleveland. I threw up on the bus both directions."

"On the bus, huh." Okay, the good option here is that the highway leads out of their LARP set and this is just so far out in the sticks that there's no access to any other internet here. (Kind of annoying of them not to properly drop out of character, in that case.) This is starting to sound a little bigger than is really reasonable for a zoo full of someone's pet humans in a replica of their authentic natural habitat of Columbus, Ohio. They could still just be lying to him, though. (Ugh.) "Thanks. I've got authentic US dollars to tip you with when I pay. Got them in the real US. Guessing you'll be happy to have them here in 'Columbus, Ohio'."

"I'm glad you're not going to try to leave me Canadian dollars but most people don't actually find it notable enough to specify! Anything else I can get for you, sir?"

"This'll do."

He's just... going to eat and pay and if nothing else happens he'll go looking for the highway.

There are signs for various Routes with associated numbers and cardinal directions and stuff. Though normally one needs a vehicle to go on the highway.

The highway is a giant, loud landmark that you can walk alongside. He has feet.

On the other hand, other people have local geography knowledge. He hasn't tried hitchhiking on Earth much - he doesn't like traveling with strangers, really - but maybe if he flags down a driver and explains that he needs to get out of here they'll be more helpful than just following the highway in a random direction. So. Hitchhiking time, if anyone will stop for him.

It takes a while for somebody to stop but then someone does. "Hey, are you stranded or what?"