Our RV Adventures

When we had breakfast at the park Homestyle Grill the other morning, I bought something to go along with my BBQ Larvets worm larva snacks.

A Strawberry Scorpion Sucker is the perfect thing to compliment BBQ’d baby worms, isn’t it.

Jan and I headed out for Jerome about 1:30, but our first stop was the park Activity Center to drop off a bundle of Gypsy Journals for everyone. I was surprised to see how busy the place was, with what looked like a pool tournament going on.

The distance to Jerome is only about 15 miles, but it takes about 30 minutes since you have to gain over 2000 feet along the way.

After driving the main loop around town, we luckily found a parking spot right at the base of the hill.

And even better, the first store we came to was the Jerome Ghost Pepper Co.

Linda, the storekeeper, give us a number of samples of her hot wares. Then I went back to the truck and let her sample some of my hot stuff. Based on her reaction to one of my bottles,

I won.

As it turns out, Linda is a former RV’er, so we had a good time talking about traveling, and she and Jan really hit it off.

She set us up with a new batch of hot sauces to take with us, including a larger bottle of the Belizean Heat, second from the left. Jan bought a small bottle of this from the iBurn store back in Houston, and was happy to find a refill.

Before leaving, I told Linda about this and Nick’s blogs, and left her copies of the 3 different issues of  the Gypsy Journal that I had with me.

Making our way up the steep hill, we came across the famous ‘Sliding Jail’. Jerome’s first jail was originally built up on the hill right below the upper line of cars.

But during the early years of the town, when the now present road wasn’t there, the constant blasting caused the jail to slowly slid down the hill,

finally ending up about 100 yards below its original location.

As we made our way up the steep hills, I noticed a number of stores had this emblem above their doorways.

This means that these establishments have an Automated External Defibrillator (AED) there. Just the thing for when tourist start dropping to the sidewalk from the steep climbs. Hope I don’t need one.

After Jan hit a couple of gift shops we made our way over to the Mile High Grill for an early dinner. Several friends had recommended the place so we to give it a try.

We both started out with a cup of soup. Jan had the Soup of the Day, Carrot Ginger,

and I had the Rio Verde Chili Pork Stew.

Both delicious. The last time we had Carrot Ginger Soup was in 2010 at the fabled Pie-O-Neer restaurant in Pie Town, NM.

Since today is National Grilled Cheese Day, Jan went with their off-the-menu Grill Cheese Sandwich, and, staying with the Cheese theme, for her side, she had the Nacho Mama’s Mac and Cheese.

I went with the Diablo Burger and the Buffalo Chips

Normally the avocado goes on the burger, but since I don’t like it, I got it on the side for Jan. The green stuff was a delicious spicy chimichurri sauce.

Wrapping up, for dessert, we shared an order of their much-recommended Warm Croissant Bread Pudding. Again, very, very good.

Finally finishing up a great meal, we headed back to the truck for the drive home. Luckily, as full as we were, it was all downhill.

Otherwise we might had really needed the AED.

Tomorrow we’re taking the Verde Canyon Railroad train ride, lasting from 1 to 4pm. We’ve heard a lot about it, and we’re really looking forward to it.

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Thought for the Day:

Procrastination can get you killed, but much later.

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Right before we left Apache Junction, we bought a new Memory Foam Gel-Filled Mattress Topper and installed it on our bed. And as much as we liked our old mattress Topper, we both agree that we sleep better on the new one.

Of course, to install the new topper we had to strip the bed all the way down to the bare mattress, which mean removing and re-installing our Touch of Class Dual Control Heated Mattress Pad. We haven’t needed it since we were in Houston back in February, but since we got to Cottonwood, we’ve had night time temps in the low 30’s. But when we tried to start using the heat again, only Jan’s side was working.

So after a few cold nights on my side of the bed, I decided to take a look at the problem. The first thing I did was to use my ohmmeter to check the resistance at the connectors on both sides of the blanket, and then compare them. As it turned out, both sides read the same 120 ohms. So it wasn’t the wiring in the pad itself, which was a good thing.

So next I swapped the controllers between the sides, and my controller worked on Jan’s side, and her controller didn’t work on mine. So it wasn’t the controller. And then swapping them back didn’t help either.

So it must be the connector at the bottom of the blanket, so I tried plugging and unplugging the connector a number of times, again with no luck. So now it was time to bring out the big guns, Strike-Hold.

So I sprayed both the connector and the plug and let them soak for a while. And plugging in the controller about 30 minutes later, I had heat on my side. Strike-Hold has resurrected a number of my devices, including a Kindle Fire, and a laptop.

As I’ve said before, Strike Hold, The Magic Fluid. Give it a try for what ails you.

I mentioned a while back that when we stopped at the Bowlin’s Picacho Peak on our way over to Yuma to visit our friends, Chris and Charles Yust, I bought a box of these Larvet’s.

Larvets Sampler Gift Pack- BBQ, Cheddar Cheese, & Mexican Spice

Yes, these are BBQ’d worm larva.

Jan finally told me that she was tired of seeing them on the counter, and if I didn’t eat them, she was going to throw them out. So eat them I did.

Actually they were kind of a letdown. There was no taste to the larva, not even of chicken. They were like a hollow crunchy straw that just melted away in your mouth. The BBQ taste was like a BBQ potato chip, but with more heat. I tried to get Jan to try one, but she just shuddered and looked away. Wuss!

Remember, I do these things so you don’t have to. Or want to.

Later for dinner, after my worm appetizer, Jan fixed up some the Rudy’s BBQ that we bought before we left Houston and froze.

So we had Rudy’s Moist Brisket and Jalapeno Sausage, Broccoli Salad and Loaded Baked Potato Salad from Wal-Mart, and Firecracker (Hot) Sweet Pickles from Famous Dave’s BBQ. A very good dinner, believe me.

As it stands now, we’re going to do our Jerome trip tomorrow, but we’ll see how that turns out.

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Thought for the Day:

“The will to conquer is the first condition of victory.” – Ferdinand Foch

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