Our RV Adventures

Today is our last full day here at the Medina Lake Thousand Trails. We’ve been here for two weeks and it’s time to move on.

Tomorrow we’ll make the 350 mile run to Balmorhea, TX where we’ll be for about a week. On the way we’ll stop off in Boerne, about 30 miles away, to fill up on diesel.

But today was a lunch and shopping day in San Antonio, and the lunch was really special.

In July 2009 we were visiting New York City, and while there, we flew our daughter Brandi, and our granddaughter Piper up to spend a week with us. And while we were there we checked out the two places that claim to be the inventor of New York’s pizza.

The first one we visited was Lombardi’s down in SoHo. Here’s Brandi and Piper there.

BTW Soho stands for South of Houston, which is a major street in the area. But they pronounce it HOW ston.

But if you ask them who the street is named for, they’ll tell you it’s named for Sam HU ston, of Texas fame. Those Yankees are strange sometime.

We thought that Lombardi’s was really good . . . until we ate at Grimaldi’s. Grimaldi’s is located in the DUMBO area of NYC. DUMBO stands for Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass and encompasses the area in Brooklyn between the Manhattan Bridge and the Brooklyn Bridge.

Grimaldi’s is really just a small neighborhood pizza place, and as you can tell from the photo below, not very big.

And Grimaldi’s pizza was fantastic, the best I’ve ever eaten. It’s a thin crust, but not cracker crispy like some. It’s still a little chewy, but with a slightly crispy bottom.

Delicious!

Well, about a week ago our friend Lynn Cross sent us an email detailing good places to eat in the Lakehills/San Antonio area . . . and she mentioned Grimaldi’s Pizzeria. A quick check of the website told me that this was the real deal.

Apparently a few years back they started expanding and now have a couple of dozen stores around the country, including 2 in Houston, and 2 in San Antonio. And they did it right. To keep the quality of the original, they duplicated everything, even the water.

It’s always said of New York City bagels and New York City pizza dough, that the secrets in the water, the New York City water. So every store has a system that starts with distilled water and adds the correct amount of different chemicals and minerals until it is chemically exactly the same as New York City water.

The other secret is said to be the coal-fired handmade brick ovens. So it’s the same oven, built the same way, using the same bricks. And fired with the same Pennsylvania coal from the same mine. In every store.

And of course, they use the same flour and other ingredients. One unique thing on their pizzas is the cheese. Unlike most places that use shredded aged mozzarella, Grimaldi’s uses fresh sliced mozzarella which adds a different taste and texture to the pizza.

What it all boils down to is that the pizza we had Sunday in San Antonio was just as good as what we had in New York in 2009.

And since they have locations in AZ and Las Vegas, we’ll try to introduce Nick and Terry to it too.

The nice thing about the San Antonio location is that it’s a good bit bigger than the original in New York.

asdf

Because it has the same line of people outside  waiting for a table.

asdf

But they do have these nifty pagers for you.

asdf

But the way to really tell you how good this pizza is, is because we had no pizza bones left over.

You know, pizza bones, those pieces of crust that you’ve sucked all the sauce and goodies off of. Those things.

Well, no bones about it, we had no bones left. The crust is so good that you want to eat every last bite of it.

Check out the link, track one down and try it. You want be disappointed.

——————————————————————————————————————–

Thought for the Day:

Life is a bitch. If it was easy, we would call it a slut.

asdf

After cleaning up the RV and getting rid of all the liquor bottles and other evidence of the partying that went on while Jan was gone, I headed out for Gina’s about 11am. Along the way I stopped off at the DQ in Startzville to pick up a couple of her favorite Strawberry Malts to take with me.

I got to Gina’s about 1pm, and after getting all of Jan’s stuff loaded up, we headed out for home. But since Jan hadn’t had lunch yet, we drove over to Milagro’s to have a late lunch of Shrimp Enchiladas for Jan and a Ground Beef Taco Salad for me. And it was the usual great meal we get here.

Then it was back on the road to Medina Lake. Then just after we crossed US281 at Spring Branch, we made a Starbuck’s stop for a couple of Cinnamon Dolce Lattes, our favorites.

Along the way we passed this entrance to a high-end subdivision. Someone really wanted this road cut through solid rock and spent a lot of money doing it.

And from the road you can see it winds all the way up the mountain that way.

$$$$$

Getting into Boerne, I made a couple of quick stops at RadioShack and Home Depot before getting back to the rig about 5pm. And boy, were the cats happy to see her.

And so were the deer. Jan went out pretty quickly and started putting out the food for them, and they came from everywhere. You’d think I hadn’t been feeding them while she was gone.

Jan’s sister Debbie sent over another snow-covered bird feeder photo.

Too much snow for my taste.

Tomorrow we drive over to San Antonio for some shopping before we head out for Balmorhea, TX on Monday morning.

——————————————————————————————————————–

Thought for the Day:

"In the Beginning there was nothing, which exploded." – Terry Pratchett

adfadsf