Baker’s Ribs and Fried Pies
Texas is a lot of fun! As we are driving through Ft. Worth and Texas, very early on a Saturday morning, the highway closes and all the traffic is diverted off, and then back on. Time for some major work, I guess, and early Saturday morning is probably one of the best times to do it.
Around mid-morning, we start seeing signs for Fried Pies. I have no idea what a fried pie is, so AdventureMan explains it to me, it is a round pie crust with a filling, usually fruit, folded in half, crimping the edges, and then deep fried.
Sounds like a lot of calories, LOL!
Then we start seeing more signs, and we decide it is a good time for a stop at Baker’s Ribs and Fried Pies.
We have to walk through the barbecue section to get to the pie section. Our downfall.
There are a million kinds of fried pies, so we buy an apricot, a peach, and a cherry, and we take a few bites, but we don’t want to eat the whole thing because it will spoil our lunch. Lunch . . . we can’t resist the barbecue. We buy a couple of smoked turkey sandwiches for later, the smell is just irresistible.
These girls were just so nice, and helpful. 🙂
This gal is making the pie crusts:
And this lady has just pulled out a batch of the fried pies (to the right)
Fried pies are delicious, and I learned you have to eat them fast or the liquid in the fruit makes the crust start to crumble. The smoked turkey was even better, maybe the best smoked turkey I have ever had. The sandwiches were a wonder.
Update: AdventureMan says choosing to eat fried pies is part of How Do You Want to Die? and that he is willing to sacrifice the few minutes those bites of fried pie might have cost him. (We don’t eat fried pies; this was an exception. Don’t do this at home!)
Wyoming to Colorado Springs
We are eager to get going, but oh, we are shivering, and happy we brought a little fleece with us:
It is a glorious morning, bright sunshine, clear air, a day when we are glad to be alive and on the road.
Across South Dakota and Montana, we saw the huge round rolls of hay that we saw in France and Germany, but across Wyoming, most of the bales are the old fashioned square ones. We are thinking square is easier to store, but there must be some advantage, also, to the round ones, as they seem to be the latest invention. Anyone know why?
We find a rest stop so we can change drivers, and there is a set of sculptures there called The Greeting and the Gift, just as you are exiting Wyoming and entering Colorado:
I love this one. It looks noble. The First Nation (Native American) is offering a pipe of water. When I was a kid, I would have thought it was a peace pipe, but the explanation says otherwise. The Greeting statue I don’t like as much for two reasons – his hands seem out-of-scale large to me, and the hair does not look like a mountain man or explorer (to me) but looks sort of Hellenic. What do you think?
At the end of a very short drive is a city I love, Colorado Springs. I love it because (most of the time) the air seems clear and clean to me. I love it in the winter, when it is cold, and in the summer, when it is hot, it is dry heat, like Kuwait, but not so hot, so it doesn’t bother me. There are a million quilt shops here, all of which I intend to hit today while AdventureMan does some consulting and I drive the gypsy-mobile. There are also Macy’s department stores, which Pensacola doesn’t have, and Sephora, which Pensacola may be getting soon but did not have when I left.
We went to see George Clooney’s new film, The American, which gave us hours of conversation, and on our way to our Marriott home picked up a feast from Whole Foods – all vegetable! Balsamic grilled brussel sprouts, marinated grilled beets, a vegetarian meatloaf that really tasted like meat (!), guacomole, a pico de gallo with some bite, pita bread, sauteed garlic spinach, and some wonderfully tasty olives. AdventureMan picked up a really good bottle of Colorado merlot (yes, it exists, and is called Two Rivers: Chateau Deux Fleuves Vineyards.
Crowning our day was a sunset over Pike’s Peak. I don’t like a lot of drama in my life, but I love a lot of drama in a sunset. I loved this one so much that I am going to show you three different shots, because I can’t choose the one I like the best.
The Bad and the Good in Rawlins, Wyoming
“Reservations?” the desk clerk snapped at us as we walked in, and almost speechless, we said ‘no’ and he machine gunned “the-rooms-are-one-twenty-nine-a-night-plus-tax.”
No smile. No welcome.
We mentioned we are seniors, military, AAA and lots of other things and he sighed and said the lowest rate was $125.
There isn’t a lot to choose from in Rawlins, Wyoming, and Laramie is another hour and a half down the road. We agree to take the room, but we are appalled at the clerk, and his idea of “Welcome” to the Hampton Inn, part of the Hilton Hotel Family. We are particularly astonished because we have had great experiences in other Hilton Hotels, and we have friends who swear by the Hampton Inn.
Our room is nice, but . . . somebody has smoked in this room. The pillows reek, the linens reek and the bathroom reeks, while the hotel appears brand new.
We had seen a sign for a barbecue restaurant, so we asked the clerk how to get there and he wrinkled his nose, waved his hands in front of him and frowned. He told us that many people had gone there and found it unclean, hairs in drinks, etc. He recommended the Aspen, and told us how to get there, but . . . it was closed.
Just down the street, however, in Rawlins, Wyoming, was Anong’s Thai Cuisine.
The food was wonderful. We had hot tea and salad rolls, which came with a thick, spicy peanut sauce. I had the tofu in spicy basil sauce, and AdventureMan had spicy vegetables and cashews, and both were excellent. The service was prompt, courteous and helpful. It was a total surprise to find such excellence. They were doing great business, too, and we know why! The food was delicious!
The great food cancelled out the shock of our disappointing welcome in the Hampton Inns.
Update: AdventureMan talked with the day manager this morning who laughed and said that ‘Nate’ had put in his 2 weeks notice the night before and was unusually surly, but that at his best, he was always shoddy and unprofessional. We believe it is a very good thing that he find work elsewhere, and not in the hospitality industry. So don’t hold our experience against the Hampton Inns – it was a disgruntled employee we were dealing with, with many, many complaints against him.
Day Two, Mostly Missouri
Day two started early in Arkansas, and I cajoled AdventureMan into telling me university stories as we drove into Missouri, where we stayed the entire day, driving north, driving west, and driving north again, the whole day. AdventureMan spent a lot of time in this area around Memphis while at university, and hung out at Beale Street with his other music and blues loving friends. The early morning highways were a delight:
Just outside St. Louis, we crossed the great Missouri:
We like to stop at least every couple hours, buy a coffee, stretch our legs, take a rest stop. Around lunch time, AdventureMan saw a sign for 2 Dudes BBQ, and we couldn’t resist the name and the fact that it was only two blocks off the interstate. We found it without a problem:
It had our kid of menu – simple, and the food was the same – simply GOOD.
AdventureMan had the pulled pork sandwich with cole slaw and beans – ALL good:
I ordered the smoked half chicken (that was the smallest chicken they had) and it was smokey, cooked, and moist – it is really really hard to get all three. Plus, while I normally go for the really spicy sauce, the Two Dudes normal barbecue sauce was both vinegary-tangy and sweet, and knocked my socks off. (I didn’t eat the bread) and the cole slaw was apple-y tasting with poppy seeds – oh YUMMMM.
Outside, I caught one of the dudes grilling up some ribs, and he laughed when I asked if I could take his picture, and said “sure” and even arranged the ribs for me:
If you are driving on 1-70 between St. Louis and Kansas City, you will find the Two Dudes BarBQue at exit 193, in Warrenton, MO. You will see signs, follow those directions. 🙂
About an hour up the road, in Fulton, we saw the Visitor’s Center across from where we were buying gas, and AdventureMan had a burning question he needed answered: Was this where Winston Churchill had made his “iron curtain” speech, and was this why they had a museum devoted to Winston Churchill? The answer, from the delighted and helpful ladies, was ‘yes’.
Fulton also has this moving and meaningful monument to fallen heroes – one of my weak spots.
We skirted Kansas City, zipped past Fort Leavenworth, where we had a wonderful year back a long time ago, and landed in St. Joseph, birthplace of Jesse James, where we found a hotel with a great pool so we could kick back and kick some laps, kicking out all those kinks and aches that driving all day can bring.
After dinner, mostly lettuce (LOL) AdventureMan helped me get a photo of this wonderful ice-cream vendor; I adore this old fashioned kind of commercial art:
And then we had a great adventure, trying to find the historical center of St. Joseph. We found the center, full of stately and gracious mansions and impressive and imposing old buildings, most in fairly good condition, and we found a lovely city park, down by the river, where the sun was setting . .. and you know me, and sun, and water . . .
Too soon, we had to leave, the mosquitos were eating me alive. I actually bought repellent today, but did I remember to put it in my purse???
The Camel Bookmobile by Masha Hamilton
It took me a while to get into this book, because it is, in my opinion, badly written. The characters are thin, the story is thin, and yet . . . it is a book I will never forget.
Masha Hamilton writes of a girl with a dream of going to a faraway place; she writes a grant proposal for a Camel Bookmobile, to take books from a remote library in Garissa, Kenya, out to nomadic groups in even more remote locations. As it turns out, the book features a device I like very much – a discussion of what is knowledge, what is learning, what happens when cultures clash and how in every interaction, there is something left that changes those interacting.
As Fiona (“Just call me Fi”) McSweeny follows her dream, there are her actions, how she sees her actions, how her actions are seen from an alternate culture, and how Fi feels she may be missing something in the interaction.
Anyone who has tried to finesse their way living in an alien environment knows that feeling, and the disasters you can bring on with only good intentions. Words, tone of voice, body language – all can be interpreted in ways you never dreamed, blinded by the wisdom of your own culture.
The star of the book is the Kenyan desert. While we do get to know the characters in the small arid desert village of Mididima, it is the way of life that Hamilton captures and which captivates us. The traditional ways are already passing, and the village elders are fighting a losing battle, trying to maintain their old ways. At the same time, there is a lot of wisdom to be learned and stored before the old ways pass, if there is anyone to document, to capture the details.
How can a book be both badly written, so badly written that you are constantly aware of it, and so breathtakingly vivid, so unforgettable?
There is a real Camel Bookmobile, started in 1996, and after visiting, Hamilton began a Camel Book Drive which garnered over 7000 books for the nomadic library. You can visit the website and learn where to donate books for other schools in the Garissa area by clicking here.
Rainbow to the Rescue in Pensacola
This post is about an amazing blessing. You won’t think it is a blessing at first, you will think it borders on disaster, but stop. Think about it.
Late this afternoon, our contractor friend was in putting bars in the guest suite that people can use to help navigate around, help lift themselves off the toilet, etc. We were busy looking for a stud for the shower bars when it started raining.
“That’s raining pretty hard.” he said.
“It rains like that all the time,” I said blithely.
But it really was coming down, and it wasn’t just for a few minutes, it poured, and it kept pouring. The lightning was really close and we heard a loud CRACK! and then BANG and the power transformer on the post near my house was hit, but my power must come from somewhere else because, by the Grace of God, we didn’t lose power.
“Oh no! This has never happened before!” I exclaimed as I saw water seeping in the guest suite where we were working. (This has been cleaned up a little bit for this family blog.)
I thought it was coming in under the French doors, but when I grabbed the old towels for soaking up purposes, I saw that there was more . . . coming from under the walls! Horrors! I was almost stopped still in my tracks – there aren’t enough towels in Pensacola to handle the amount of water seeping in!
“This is a task for Rainbow!” my contractor said, and ran for his truck, to exchange it for his Rainbow truck (he is both a contractor and a Rainbow franchise operator).
While Dave was gone, his assistant, Bobby, used their wet vac to get as much water up as he could, dumping the full tank several times out the window as we struggled. Finally, the rain slowed, and we could mop up the remaining wetness. He started a fan.
Dave came back with the big Rainbow truck and an intimidating amount of equipment. Now I will go into a parenthetical gripe about men and their toys. The biggest part of me is incredibly grateful to have this resourceful man who helps us with our construction and renovation needs, and then is there, like Superman, to the rescue, when disaster strikes. Another part of me wishes he didn’t have that excited gleam in his eye. My problem is his challenge – he loves the adrenalin.
Honestly, it’s only a small part, and mostly it’s because I wish I didn’t have any problem at all. Dave has a meter that shows where water is still sitting in the grout between the tiles, and how it has soaked the baseboards and begun to creep up the sheet rock. He explains how in Florida, where the humidity is so high, the sheet rock can’t always dry out fast enough to avoid mold formation, and that even though it eventually may dry on its own, the mold can survive until the next moisture hits. Oh aarrgh!
Hours later, we have huge fans running, and we have dry air in oscilations being wafted into our walls to insure they dry thoroughly, but not too much. We have machines taking readings. Our insurance company says we are doing all the right things and the adjuster will come by on Monday or Tuesday.
This was supposed to be a quiet Saturday night. If it had been a normal quiet Saturday night, we might have been upstairs, watching some TV, listening to the lightening and not worrying too much about it. We would have gotten up in the morning and gone to church. We might not have even known our guest suite was flooded for days!
So honestly, I feel blessed. I am blessed that if this disaster had to happen, I had people with me who knew exactly what to do, and did it.
As they left, the Gulf Power people were out fixing the exploding power transformer, and I thought how many heroes there are on this earth, people who do their job under the worst circumstances, people who leave their families to serve because there are jobs that must be done.
God bless you, all of you, health workers, police, firemen, electricians, plumbers, emergency services, soldiers and sailors and airmen – all who sacrifice and serve. May you sleep well at night, and may God bless you and your families who support you.
I had a disaster, but I was surrounded by every resource I needed to deal with it. Thanks be to God.
If you have a disaster, and you live in the greater Pensacola area, I can recommend:
Rainbow International Restoration Services
David Murphy
O: 850-994-4411
Cell: 850-281-0232
A Wing and a Prayer
We are taught to pray for all things, great and small. I really take that to heart; I pray for the smallest things, and most of the time, my prayer is answered (with a ‘yes’ although sometimes the form the answer takes gives me a grin at God’s great sense of humor.) Today, I had to drive an unfamiliar stretch to return my loaned car – a wonderful Lexus – Little Diamond had loaned me, and that was good for some serious and lengthy prayer, and then I was also praying that the check-in people would overlook the fact that my bag was seriously heavy. Like 60 lbs.
Both prayers were answered. I only got minorly lost and got it worked out fairly quickly, and the guy who checked my bag in didn’t bat an eye, just put a tag on it that said ‘heavy’.
What I had forgotten to pray about was security, but since I was only flying within the US, I didn’t think I would have any trouble.
But here’s the thing. For a long time, I thought we would be retiring to Seattle, so slowly over the years, I would take things to Seattle and store them at my Moms or in a storage locker I rent there. So when I went to my Mom’s this last week, I took few clothes, and a big suitcase, so I can start shifting some of these household items to Pensacola. It wasn’t enough, but I packed it really really full, and then I also had stuff packed in my backpack.
So forgetting to pray about security was a big mistake. The security scanner girl kept squinting at the innards of my backpack, and then called others over, always a bad sign.
Sure enough, they went through my things with the explosives tester and their fine tooth combs.
“Are these silver plates?” the security guy asked incredulously.
“Serving plates,” I responded, and gave no further explanation. I don’t believe in telling people too much, it just confuses them and complicates things.
“What is this??” he asked, holding up two cans that said clearly on the side “smoked salmon”.
“Smoked salmon,” I replied.
Back to the scanner. Twice, back to the scanner. When he brought back all my stuff he asked if I wanted him to repack it.
“No,” I said with sheer disgust. No one can get everything back the way I had it packed but me. Even without the two cans of smoked salmon, which they confiscated. Damn.
Other than that, it was a smooth trip, and my son was there to meet me at the Pensacola airport, and I was home within 20 minutes of landing, how cool is that? Sure wish I had those cans of smoked salmon . . .
The Edmonds Market
I made a quick round of the market very early, as I wanted flowers to welcome Mom back. First round – maple bars, flowers, farm grown zucinni and carrots, and some lovely farm-raised lamb chops for dinner.
Later, Mom told me about the wonderful Pear and Gorgonzola pizzas made at the market, and after some grocery shopping, I stopped by and ordered the Pear Gorgonzola and the Pizza Fresca, both vegetarian, and, woo hooo, very thin crusted, and baked right there on the street in a special oven they have created:
Mom was right. The pizzas were really, really good. We also had enough left over to freeze several slices to microwave on a night when she doesn’t feel like a heavy dinner.
While I was waiting for my pizzas, I visited my favorite soap maker. Last year, I asked for clove soap. AdventureMan and I fell in love with clove soap in Zanzibar, and we have used ever sliver and are yearning for more. This year, she had it! And more! Wonderful soaps, but these two are my favorites:
Sorry there is no photo of the gorgeous finished pizzas, but we gobbled them right up. 🙂
Seattle Library Flash Mob
“I knew you’d like a Seattle one, if you haven’t seen it already,” my friend wrote to me. I totally do. Seattle ROCKS! What a great study break, and what a cool library to allow the Seattle Theatre Group to stage it there. 🙂
Margaritaville on Pensacola Beach
The weather was beautiful in Pensacola, all 4th of July weekend to the fireworks. Early Monday morning, all hell broke loose, the heavens opened and it poured rain.
In spite of the good weather leading up to the Fourth, the droves that usually invade the beaches to celebrate didn’t materialize. One restaurant owner said his business was down 80% from last year at this time. We decided, in spite of the rain, to head over to the beach for lunch, do our small part for the Pensacola Beach economy.
LLLOOOLLLL! The first place we tried, Peg Leg Pete’s, (“Our Latitude Will Change Your Attitude”) had such a crowd that the wait was 25 – 30 minutes, standing out in the rain, so we passed. Our second choice, Crabs – We Got ‘Em was closed until 4 pm. Oh AAARRGH,, but there is still the brand new Jimmy Buffet hotel, Margaritaville and we’ve been eager to take a look so in we go.
Bad news is that you can’t use the underground parking lot, even on a rainy day, unless you are a hotel guest. Good news is that if you are dining in the restaurant, valet parking is free, and when you have a baby and car seat with you, valet parking is very very good. 🙂
Margaritaville is beautiful, and fun. As soon as you walk in, it is beachy; beautiful sand and sea colors, a faux straw mat floor and comfy beach-home furniture. Beach music, too.
The view of Pensacola beach, even on a rainy day, is glorious. Please note that the beaches are CLEAN. Come to Pensacola! Save the economy!
Our original plans had been to find one of the beachy restaurants, you know, family restaurants, full of kids, one more little baby wouldn’t even be noticed. The main demographic in the Margaritaville restaurant was couples, mostly 50-ish, women in sundresses they were a little too big for, and men in big bright flowered shirts, drinking fancy beach drinks (There is a whole page of them 🙂 ). There was one baby, and few other children.
We only had to wait about 15 minutes to get in, and there was a nice lounge where we could wait. We had the popcorn shrimp for starters, and we liked it. The bacon cheeseburger was good, according to my son, and the crab cake sandwich disappeared in a heartbeat. Baby Q was good as gold and had is first taste of dill pickle. He liked it! My seafood salad had macaroni in it. Aargh. Service was good, unobtrusive and friendly.
It’s a nice place. I would stay there. I love the clean lines and the sea colors. There are other places I would rather eat.
Recent Comments
intlxpatr on A Lawless, Authoritarian … Kuwait Someday on A Lawless, Authoritarian … intlxpatr on Oh Thank You, Amazon! Rivergirl on Oh Thank You, Amazon! intlxpatr on Give to Those Who Ask Wikipedia Donate Button
Amazina
Early Voting in Florida
Here There and Everywhere 