Monthly Archives: November 2010
Good Soups and Great Pie . . .
First off, I added a subscription link to the top-left of the blog so you can now get a email whenever I post a new blog. Let me know if you have any problems with it.
We got our 1-1/2 mile walk this morning about 10:30, taking about 35 minutes for the walk. Hopefully not too shabby for us old folks.
Right after we got back, the RV park called and ask if we still wanted our old site, since the guy is finally leaving on the 24th. Jan said we’ve been here for over two months now, we might as well stay. So I guess we’re here for the duration.
About 1:30 we headed up the road to Webster to have lunch at King Food, our favorite Chinese restaurant for a big bowl of Hot & Sour Soup.
Then after dropping off some things at our storage room, and stopping off at the bank to make a deposit, we did some shopping at HEB, a great local supermarket.
Next, Jan wanted to stop at Carter’s, a baby clothes store, to pick up some new outfits for Landon, finally, we stopped by Half-Price Books where Jan was looking for some books by a new author she likes, but had no luck.
We got home a little after 5, and that was it for the day.
I did come across this great archive of color pictures. These are amazing. Check them out!
Captured: America in Color from 1939-1943
But in looking thru the photos I noticed a number of them taken in Pie Town, NM. This brought back memories of our stop in Pie Town this past June.
Apparently Pie Town was a lot bigger back in the 30’s and 40’s. Now there’s just a couple of stores there.
Thought you might want to check our visit there.
Long Goodbyes…
Posted on June 13, 2010
We finally left the Elk’s Lodge in Show Low, AZ about 10:30 am after dragging out our goodbyes with Nick and Terry as long as we could. It will probably be the first part of August before we reconnect with them in Elkhart, IN for the next Gypsy Gathering Rally. Once again it’s going to be real boring without them around.
A little over an hour later we crossed into New Mexico, heading for Magdalena, about 115 miles away. This is kind of a short day for us, but I wanted to be able to stop and see the Very Large Array (VLA) radio telescope facility about 20 miles before Magdalena. Plus I knew we would lose an hour crossing into New Mexico because, even though Arizona and New Mexico are both in same time zone (Mountain), Arizona doesn’t observe Daylight Savings Time, so we still lose an hour.
Once again we were treated to some great scenery along the way. Rolling hills and sweeping vistas, punctuated by even larger hills jutting up from the terrain.
A little before 2 pm we started seeing signs for Pie Town, NM, and specifically The Pie-O-Neer pie place located there. So we decided we had to stop.
I mean it’s pie, right.
In a place called Pie Town.
It had to be good, right.
But it wasn’t just good, it was fantastic!
And it didn’t hurt that we we hungry.
And, although the place didn’t look like much on the outside, the inside was a complete surprise. It was bright, colorful, and tastefully decorated, with a lot of homespun touches.
The Pie-O-Neer got its start in 1995 when Kathy Knapp and her family drove 150 miles from Albuquerque to have pie in Pie Town.
What they found was The Old Thunderbird Trading Post..
Here’s what Kathy said about that visit. “Crossing the steps of the frontier-style porch we were anxious. "What kind of pie would they have?" Much to our dismay, NONE. The owners were old and tired and had a sign on the door that read "There used to be pie in Pie Town, but there ain’t no more — FOR SALE."
So she bought it. She said a place called Pie Town should have PIE!
And it used to. Here’s a little bit of the history of Pie Town.
The small menu, which seems to only exist to give you an excuse to come there for pie, consists of two sandwiches, a Deli Sandwich and a Grilled Cheese with Tomatoes and Green Chiles, (sometimes three on BLT day. Don’t ask), a Spinach Quesadilla, and two soups, Green Chili Stew and the Soup of the Day.
And today the Soup of the Day was Carrot-Ginger. Huh?
Jan had to try a cup of the Carrot-Ginger and I got a cup of the Green Chili Stew. And we split the Grilled Cheese.
Our waitress told us to go up to the counter and pick out our pie now, because otherwise our selection might be gone. The pies are baked one at a time all day long, and are pretty much served warm from the oven, cause they don’t last long enough to get cold.
Jan picked a slice of Chocolate Cream pie and I got a slice of Pear-Pineapple-Ginger.
And everything was delicious. Who would have thought of Carrot-Ginger soup? And my Green Chili Stew was great, just full of chunks of chicken and potatoes.
Kathy, the owner, says she also uses turmeric, a ginger cousin, in her dishes, because it’s a little more spicy, and slightly bitter.
Jan said the pie crust on her Chocolate Cream was the best she’d ever eaten. Turns out that the secret is to use half butter and half lard in the crust. The butter gives it flavor and the lard makes it flaky. MMMM! Lard!
The crust on my Pear-Pineapple-Ginger was really good. It was like a Deep Dish Crumble crust, kind of crunchy, but melted in your mouth.
Jan ask Kathy if she had a cook book and she said yes. It was a compilation of pie recipes from people in the area, including Kathy, so Jan got one.
Hopefully that means more pie soon.
Leaving (reluctantly) Pie Town, we once again crossed the Continental Divide a few minutes later, this time at our highest point so far, 7796 feet.
No wonder our ears were popping.
About 20 miles out of Magdalena we got our first glimpse of the VLA.
From this distance it’s hard to tell how big the dishes are. Hint- They’re really big.
A sign told us the Visitor’s Center was open until sunset so we decided to go on into Magdalena and get set up.
Ding, Ding, Ding! We have a new winner!
The Western Motel and RV Park is now officially the worst park we’ve ever stayed in. The previous winner, the Casper East RV Park in Casper, WY, that we stayed at two years ago on our way to Alaska, has been soundly defeated.
The things wrong with this park are almost too numerous to mention.
1. They advertise 30 or 50 amp, but only have 30.
2. The hookups are at the front of the site, not the rear.
3. It is almost impossible to maneuver in the park. I hope the guy to my right leaves early, otherwise I might have to back out of here. So much for a pull-thru.
4. The place is a junkyard of old cars, refrigerators, and other miscellaneous stuff, all just scattered around.
5 The water doesn’t work, but there’s no discount for that,
6, Even with 25 ft of sewer hose I can’t hook up because the connection is too far forward. And there’s no discount for that either.
7. The place is Passport American and it’s still $20 blankety-blank dollars a night! So that means some people pay $40 a night? Yeah, right.
The problem is that there is no other RV parks in town. The other two are closed. And apparently you can’t park any where else either. As we were coming into town we saw a couple in at 5th wheel setting up in a wide open area beside the road. When we came back by about 30 minutes, they were almost finished packing back up.
And when we came back from the VLA about an hour later they were gone. We assume someone told them to move on.
About 5pm we headed out to the VLA in our truck to take a look. Turning off US 60 we crossed one of the railroad track arms of the array.
The radio telescope array consists of three arms made up of railroad tracks, each arm 13 miles long, like the letter ‘Y’, but each arm is the same length. The large telescopes are moved up and down the arms, depending on what they want to look at.
When the 27 dishes (9 on each arm) are spread out to the far ends, it’s like a camera lens zoomed in on an object.
When the dishes are brought in close like they are here, it’s like the wide-angle lens on camera, looking at the broad picture.
The dishes are moved around on a regular schedule during the year, from all the way out to all the way in.
Below you can see the tracks and the 90 degree sidings where the dishes are parked when in use. The track itself is kept open so that if a dish fails it can be brought back in for service and replaced with a spare.
The dishes are enormous. They are 96 feet high, 82 feet wide, and weigh 235 tons. Yet they can be positioned to a faction of an inch on the track, and aimed to a fraction of a degree in the sky.
Here’s a shot of the maintenance shed where the dishes can be repaired out of the weather, and a spare dish waiting to be needed.
We got back to the park about 6:45 pm and were in for the night. I didn’t even bother setting up the satellite dish, since nothing much was on tonight. So we just read, computered (Yes, I know that’s not a word, but it should be) and listened to music.
A little later Jan heated up our left-over wings from last night (Still great) and we topped it off with a sopapilla from a few nights ago.
Tomorrow we head out from Fort Sumner, NM, about 215 miles away, hopefully with a better RV park.
Quote of the day:
Give a man a fish, and you’ll feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he’ll buy a funny hat. Talk to a hungry man about fish, and you’re a consultant. – Scott Adams
That’s about it for today.
More tomorrow…
Thought for the Day:
Now that I’ve finally accepted that I’m having a bad hair life, I’m more at peace with the world.
sdfgsdfg
BBQ and Hogsbreath . . .
First off, Jan and I want to give our condolences to our good friend Gina Ellis on the death of her sister Bobbie Slayton. Bobbie was married to Deke Slayton, one of the original Mercury 7 astronauts, who died in 1993.
We didn’t walk this morning because Jan woke up with a neck and back ache. She figured she just slept on it wrong. But we still had coffee, of course. Can’t go without coffee.
About 1:30 we headed up the road to have lunch at Spring Creek BBQ, and had our usual great meal of BBQ ribs and fixings.
Next it was on to the Post Office to mail a couple of letters, one of which was to South Dakota to renew our coach and toad tags.
After that it was off to a client’s to take a look at their malfunctioning CD/DVD Duplicator. This machine can make up to 100 copies of a CD or DVD automatically. This client sets up training courses for large corporations and often needs to make dozens of copies at a time. So rather than have someone set there and make one copy at a time, you just place your master disc in one slot and a stack of blanks in the other slot, and press START. Then come back later and they’re all done.
Anyway, this one is getting balky, and sometimes either slows down, or just stops all together.
But, as it turns out, they had to leave early, and the office was closed when I got there. I used to have a key since they are a long-time client, but I always give it back to them before we start traveling. So I’ll check back Monday.
Heading back toward the rig, we stopped off at Wal-Mart for gas and birdseed.
Then it was home for the night, but with one last chore. I needed to dump the waste tanks.
Luckily, I didn’t have the leak problem I had last time, so it didn’t take long.
More tomorrow…
In the meantime, thought ya’ll might want to check out our visit to Key West last year.
Old Friends and Good Times…
Posted on May 16, 2009
Our friends showed up about 4:30pm after driving down from West Palm Beach with 5th wheel trailer. They’re parked about 3 spaces down from us here at the RV park.
As soon as they got settled in, we headed the 10 miles down the road to Key West and sunset on the historic Mallory Square.
From where we were on the pier we couldn’t see the sun set directly, but it was beautiful, none the less.
After watching the sunset we walked across the street to the world-famous Hogsbreath Saloon. The food was really good and the drinks were great.
Jan had Chicken Tenders and Jalapeno Poppers appetizers, and I had the Grilled Chicken Sandwich. But the drinks were a whole ‘nuther story.
Jan had the GoomBaySmash, which is pineapple juice and coconut milk mixed with Bacardi Coco Rum. It wasn’t long until she feeling very, very good.
And I think my Hogarita was made with rocket fuel. The few times I order a mixed drink I normally complain about the fact that there seems to be little or no alcohol in it.
A couple of weeks before, Jan and I were eating at a Cuban restaurant in Downtown Disney, a commercial shopping/restaurant area that’s not actually part of the Disney theme parks. Since I had never had one, I decided to order a Mojito, a drink made with rum, sugar, lime juice, soda, and mint leaves.
And I would swear that this drink had absolutely NO alcohol in it whatsoever. I mean it was sugar/lime/mint favored, but I might as well have been drinking ice tea, and it would have been a lot cheaper, too.
However I think my Hogarita had my drink’s alcohol in it, my Mojito’s alcohol, and two or three other people’s drinks worth of alcohol. I certainly got my money’s worth.
And I’ll just say that I’m glad I wasn’t driving us home.
More tomorrow…
Thought for the Day:
We’ve all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.
adsf
