The Ute Tribal Museum in Montrose, Colorado
Our next stop was the Ute Tribal Museum in Montrose, a two-hour stop in a museum full of meaningful information on Ute daily life, the long history of the Utes on this continent, and the shameful treatment they received at the hand of our government, cynically breaking treaties and steadily eroding Ute territorial holdings.
There are all kinds of educational segments using materials to give a hands-on understanding of how teepees were raised, for example, and how beading was accomplished.
There were weaponry displays and best of all, there were many short visual film segments on a variety of topics, including a 22-minute film on the Bear Dance, which was absolutely fascinating. They had a gift shop full of wonderful jewelry and art pieces, as well as the usual books and souvenirs.
The Ute Museum was one of the highlights of our trip. It came at just the right time, as we were still at the beginning of our trip, and could relate much of what we learned to what we saw along the way.
Montrose, Colorado and Starvin’ Arvins
One of the best parts of this trip were the people we met. We heard so many great stories, and we listened! Mother’s Day in Montrose, we ended up at Ted Laurence’s Steakhouse where I had a beautifully grilled salmon and my husband had soup and a big salad.
It was a good meal, but the best part was our waitress, Maria. We talked with Maria and discovered we had both lived in Monterey, CA. They had left a year ago; California was just too expensive, and rents, like everywhere, just kept going up. She and her husband are hard workers and took a chance that Montrose might give them an opportunity to save, buy their own house and maybe even start their own restaurant. She mentioned a restaurant where she meets up with friends once a week, Starvin’ Arvins. After looking at the planned route for the next day, we decided to give Starvin’ Arvins a try for breakfast the next day.
Back at our large, beautiful, and very empty B&B, we slept fitfully and were happy to pack up and leave the next morning. We never saw or had any contact with management other than the message giving us our entry codes.
We headed back into Montrose for breakfast and gas. Starvin’ Arvins was definitely the place to be.
They had a menu that was a hungry man’s dream, with all the usual suspects, but we went with Cat’s Head biscuits, a huge cinnamon roll, and the oatmeal came with a huge bowl of blueberries.
We were lucky to get there when we did; the place filled up quickly.
Service was fast and friendly; once again we had a wonderful waitress who took really good care of us and carefully boxed one of the gigantic cinnamon rolls to take with us – it will last for several days, and will be happily dunked in my coffee if it gets a little stale.
(We were never able to finish the cinnamon roll, it was so huge.)
As we are leaving, here is our view to the South.
The Old School Lodge
Our first goal when we get to Montrose is to find where we are staying, not that hard because I use Google Maps. Just about when we get there, we get a text with the combination that will let us in the front door and the combination to our room. Nothing about this is odd; we have done this before.
The place is beautiful. It was an old schoolhouse, and the former auditorium is a grand room with tables, while the guest rooms are off in hallways and up stairs.
This was the only welcome we got.
Everything was immaculate, comfortable and beautifully kept. There must be eight to ten guest rooms. We were the only ones there. We never received any kind of greeting, other than the combination. There were no other guests. As beautiful as the place was, it felt creepy, and we will never stay there again.
Four Corners: Hiking and Petroglyphs
I used to be such a good blogger. I’d take a trip, or have an interesting experience, and I would sit right down and write all about it. It took me a couple months to write up the Barcelona to Abu Dhabi Trip and now – it is August, and I am just now getting to May in Colorado. The focus of this trip is family and hiking, and the map is below:
We love flying into Denver; my niece, Little Diamond (now Professor Little Diamond 😊 ) lives there with her twins and husband-soon-to-be. More and more we choose to rent with Hertz; they have a special relationship with our insurance company and we get good deals. This time, we rolled in and they said “pick any car in this row” so we chose a beautiful cadet blue Suburu Forester.
After an evening of family fun, we headed out early next morning for Montrose, CO, and took a beautiful drive with snow and the early signs of Spring through Ute territory. You’ll see a map of all of that later – it’s astounding.
We’re having a lot of fun with the Subaru; it drives great but we are having to get used to the motor turning off every time we stop. It starts up quickly enough when we press the gas, but it is unnerving at first. I also was confused about what the temperature was; it went through wild fluctuations until I discovered that what I thought was the temperature gauge was in fact the miles-per-hour reading.
It’s a mixed kind of day for our first drive, lots of sunshine, but also enough clouds to give us some drama, once even a brief snowstorm, and stunning contrasts between late winter and the first signs of Spring as we roll along. All in all, it’s a glorious day.
We arrive in Gunnison at lunch time – a great Western Town.
We chose the W Cafe because, as you can see on the sign, this is where the locals eat. It’s Mother’s Day and we got here just in time before the after-church crowd arrives. I asked the cashier if I could take her photo. I thought the owner of this cafe showed genius. All the waitresses were local. They were all pretty, and they all knew all the people who came in. No wonder this is where the locals eat! The food was pretty good, too. We didn’t expect a lot of salad and/or vegetables out here in hiking country, but to our surprise, we were able to find them with almost every meal.
We head on from Gunnison to Montrose, where we have reservations at a B&B. The scenery makes a dramatic change.
These are the Collegiate Mountains.
Hidden Gems in Pensacola: Update 2023
It’s July in Pensacola, hot, humid, and lazy. The beaches are crowded with vacationers, mostly from landlocked Southern states; most of the international visitors head for Miami or Tampa/St. Pete where there is a more active beach life. Pensacola is more laid back and likes it that way. The boat launch parking lots are overflowing. The bridge to the beach is at its busiest. The Blue Angels flew this weekend to thrill the hearts of thousands of viewers.
Things change slowly in Pensacola, but they DO change. One of the things that change is restaurants. In the midst of COVID, in 2020, I wrote Hidden Gems; Restaurants We Love in Pensacola. It still gets a lot of hits from beach-goers, but it needs to be updated.
These are our go-to restaurants in Pensacola, for people who love eating out. Even our dearest friends and family have other preferences, restaurants they like that we find are not for us, so there is no objectivity whatsoever in our choice of these restaurants, only that we find ourselves choosing them over and over – mostly because their food tastes really good, and that matters to us. Most of them are very very casual.
My all-time favorite, Siam Thai, is closed until later this month so the staff can “honor their ancestors”. I love the freshness of their food, as well as the tastiness of each and every dish. Some days it will be their Steak or Chicken salads, another day it will be chicken and basil or Swimming Rama. It’s all good. They expect to re-open on July 23, 2023 but check online because they are family owned and operated and not always open just because we expect them to be.
Our next very favorite is Kingfisher. Again, not fancy. Pensacolians tell us it used to be a famous sandwich shop. Now, they have some of the best, most creative food in town. I would call it a Michelin red R, good local food at reasonable prices. You can’t go wrong with their chowder or their gumbo. Their hamburger is astonishingly memorable. Their fish platters are always good, and they do a winter squash salad that I cannot resist (in season). Our son loves their Alabama White BBQ chicken (so do I). You can have sandwiches, or you can have salads, or you can have full platters; they are all good. (Edit: To our horror and grief, Kingfisher closed in October 2023. We can only hope it’s because they are negotiating another location.)
Sometimes Kingfisher gets really busy and we can’t get in. Our next choice is nearby, Nick’s Boat House. It has a great location, right on the water, with pelicans, herons, and an occasional Blue Angel flying by. Their food is standard Pensacola fare, Oyster or Shrimp Po’Boys, seafood platters, gumbo, a really nice lobster bisque, several main course salads, and a dynamite Salmon Piccata that draws me to Nick’s every time.
Also on the map above you will see Jaco’s, also good for seafood, and charcuterie, and is probably the best restaurant location in Pensacola. Outdoor seating is available and gives you time to spend with the gorgeous view. Jaco’s is a happening place. We love their salmon burgers.
I love the tuna at Fin and Fork, probably the only place in town where I eat mashed potatoes, because I shouldn’t, but the Fin and Fork mashed potatoes, served with the seared tuna, are too delicious to resist. They have really really good oysters, and a creme brulee, also irresistable. Their gumbo and bisque are exquisite.
Hard to describe, quirky, and in the heart of Old Pensacola is Juan’s Flying Burritos. It’s not Mexican, or it’s sort of a Mexican food format gone wild. If you expect Mexican, you will be disappointed. I have two great favorites, The Three Little Pigs tacos, and the Vietnamese Tacos. The Three Little Pigs are small tacos, filled with three different kinds of pork, each so delicious I cannot pick a favorite. It’s very creative, and if you order the right thing, you will love it.
Pensacola is blessed with some very fine Middle Eastern cooking, code-word Mediterranean so no one gets goosey. Zeytouna makes our hearts sing, especially the stuffed vegetables, the moussaka, the salads, oh my the grilled halloumi. Sister to a favorite restaurant we love in Baton Rouge, Al Basha, a meal at Zeytouna yields two or three more meals at home, so while it can be a little pricey for Pensacola, it dollar cost averages out to be very reasonable – as well as delicious.
When we gather as a family, it is often at Ichiban, on North Davis, because there is something for everyone. Recently, we have also started going to Kalbi Ichiban, on West Garden. While the menus are similar, Kalbi Ichiban has a younger vibe – a bar area, larger spaces, harder surfaces, and more options on the menu. Last time at Kalbi Ichiban, I had their bulgogi, which was very good, so much it served for several meals. At Ichiban, we usually have a bento box, because we love the variety.
For sheer comfort, for the best Vietnamese Pho and noodle dishes, and when I am sick, Tudo’s is our go-to. Always full of local Vietnamese residents, UWF students and faculty, and medical staff from West Florida Hospital, Tudo’s has great summer rolls (sometimes called salad rolls; the uncooked rice paper wrapped noodle and shrimp rolls served with peanut sauce) and huge bowls of noodles with barbecued chicken, pork, shrimp, egg rolls in any combination you want. I swear that if I start to feel sick, their chicken wonton soup, which we buy by the quart without the wontons, heals me almost immediately.
For quick but delicious sandwiches, and for a great choice of salads, soups, and desserts, there is our old favorite, the New Yorker Deli. On Tuesdays, they have Crayfish Etoufee’ which they also might have on Wednesday if there is any left. They always have the irresistible Double Lovin’ Spoonful chocolate cake, The Best Reuben in Town, and other thick, satisfying sandwiches and pizzas. The place is usually packed with locals and their families and all their best friends, so get there early. If the weather is nice, eat out on the deck.
On this same map above, you will also see the Publix Supermarket at Gulf Breeze and one on Cervantes in East Hill. Publix has a huge selection of take-away foods, all prepared, and also makes great sandwiches. You get to choose your own bread and toppings to go with the sandwich you order, and the ladies who make these sandwiches do a really great job.
Shoreline Deli and Joe Patti’s are both along West Main. Shoreline Deli has a great Deli which will make hot and cold sandwiches, and huge delicious salads while you wait. Waiting is the fun part – Shoreline Deli has the best olive oil in town, a huge spice selection, local honey, imported snacks and specialties, and a huge variety of chips and sweets. Joe Patti’s is a self-advertised foodie destination – and it really is. The best time to avoid the long lines waiting for fresh seafood is early in the morning, unless it is Christmas Eve Day, and there will already be a long line when the store opens. They make a lot of great specialties – Spicy Tuna Dip, seafood salad, fresh hot gumbo and chowder, really nice French, Sourdough, and Ciabatta. We all shop at Joe Patti’s!
You will also have noticed on several of these maps the Palafox Market on Palafox Street, which is open on Saturday mornings with featuring local farmers, craftspeople, old folk singers, freshly baked bread, pastries and pies, fresh coffee and homemade mustards (and other condiments) – a great place to browse on a Saturday morning, to people watch and to get a little feeling for the Pensacola Parade Culture – be sure to look up at those trees overhead to see how many beads you can see stranded there from a plethora of parades. Both Saint Michael’s Basilica and Christ Church Episcopal are often open for tours when the Market is open, giving you a chance to take a peek at these two historical Pensacola churches.
El Asador, one of our nation’s best food trucks is still semi-permanently located at the Shell Station at 7955 North Davis Highway. It’s worth the drive, and it’s worth the stand in line. The smell of the grilling chicken is intoxicating. We like to order the chicken platter, but we also love their tacos and burritos. This is some of the best Mexican food in Pensacola.
The restaurants we have told you about above are not the ones you will find written up in major American travel magazines, but they are the tried and true local places where Pensacolians eat on a daily basis. There are some great higher-end places to eat, also, and below I will share our favorites. True classics – they were on my first list of Hidden Gems, even though they are not so hidden :-).
For steaks, you can’t beat McGuires Irish Pub for a reliable great meal and great service, every time. Be prepared to wait – McGuire’s sometimes has wait times of an hour or more. A local secret – go for lunch on a day when there is a parade or a Blue Angels show, and you can get right in.
Flounders, on the beach, is also a McGuire’s restaurant and has the same kind of high-quality reliability. We go there often; we love their chowder. For a Gulf-coast restaurant, they also do a great job of searing salmon to top a Caesar salad. I love their Baja tacos and just about anything they grill.
For a great night out, for us, it is still The Grand Marlin. We’ve never had a bad meal there, nor had bad service. I go for their TGM New Orleans Shrimp, or for Cioppino or Bouillabaisse when they have it. They do everything right.
For a quiet, private celebration, or when we have special friends in town, we drive out to Fisherman’s Corner; you make a right turn just before the Theodore Baars bridge going over to Perdido Key. There is a huge apartment – or condo (?) complex going up on your right, then a Dog care salon, and then a place that looks like a bait shop, except there are cars parked everywhere and people holding drinks waiting to get in. The food is always fresh. If they haven’t been able to find it fresh, they’ll tell you when you sit down that it is not available. We have never had a bad meal here, and we have had some good wine.
If you took a look at the previous hidden gems, you will see that these last four were on that list too. A classic is a classic. These four restaurants thrive because of their focus on the entire experience. They make people feel welcome and they take pride in serving the best food.
Bon appetit!
(Suggestions and recommendations are always welcome 😊)
Demise of Errant AirTag
After months of sailing the seas without me, my AirTag landed in Venice on May 8th and has never moved again. Maybe tossed into the Venetian Canals? Maybe hidden in a crevice of an unused suitcase? I will probably never know for sure. I keep checking. Just wanted to update you on the current immobile status.
I want to be in Venice, too!
We are getting ready to take a journey to a whole new set of petroglyphs, so I have activated a new AirTag. I love these things. I am taking a checked bag this time, for a stop in Denver where I will initiate my niece’s twins into the art of quilting. Just basic stuff, rotary cutting and beginning piecing, and the idea of a quilt. I’ve had a lot of fun planning this, and I have a suitcase full of resources for their exploration.
The set-up is so easy that a technologically impaired elder can do it in under a minute. How cool is that?
So as I set up, I also checked on independent AirTag, the one that disappeared in Barcelona, traveled the Med, crossed the Atlantic, went up the Amazon and crossed back the Atlantic to Barcelona and is now in Venice. Venice! I love Venice. AdventureMan loves Venice. We find Venice endlessly interesting.
And the Villa del Geologia. Wow. I don’t think I even knew it existed. I love that this little AirTag has this fascinating life of its own.
We are taking our son and his family on a trip next year, and I think I will gift them AirTags, for their luggage, for their backpacks, maybe even for their kids. How handy it would be to be able to keep track of all the individuals traveling together as they scattered out in an airport! Of course, you have to get their consent, otherwise, as the instructions tell you, it would be stalking, and against the law.
Spring Break Getaway to New Orleans
Heading to New Orleans over Spring Break with the grandchildren has been a tradition for us for about ten years. We love watching them grow and become adults, and at the same time, as their peers become more influential, we know our days of traveling with them are limited, so we are determined to enjoy every minute.
I’m not very good at selfies. We’ve been taking pictures at this rest stop every year, and this is the first year we were able to get all four of us into one photo. Sorry, granddaughter, if I cut off the top of your head. 😒
First stop, our granddaughter chose Origami for lunch, one of our favorite restaurants in New Orleans for Japanese food. Lots of small plates, a great variety of fresh made sushi rolls, and always a great experience.
Next stop, the Audubon Zoo, another tradition, where we buy a Krew membership every year so the whole family can go when the spirit moves us. I didn’t think my granddaughter could fit into the monster’s mouth anymore, but she assured me she could.
And then, near the “rolling hill,” a little monkeying around.
The hotel we usually stay in, near the Zoo, was all booked up (The Park View) so we stayed in Metairie, where we have another favorite restaurant with char-grilled oysters: Drago’s.
We all split a platter of the char-grilled oysters, and then N. ordered raw oysters as her entree. LOL, when you travel with the grandparents, you get what you want.
Breakfast was also at a familiar restaurant, La Madeleine, this one located just around the corner from Dragos, where we eat their famous oysters. What is not to love – omelettes, galettes, croissants, pastries and for me, good coffee.
Then, because they are older now, we take them somewhere new – the Mardi Gras Museum. It’s a huge warehouse where floats are stored, restored, and created, and where grand parties are held during Mardi Gras. I wasn’t sure the kids would like it, but they did. We watched a short historical movie, learned a lot, and then had a ball self-touring the collection. You can take a guided tour, but we all have short attention spans and headed out to start in the less populated sections.
You might have mixed feelings about Mardi Gras – I know I do. I never know what drunk people might do; things can get wacky in a hurry. There is a tawdriness in the customs. And yet – I love this museum. I love the creativity of these artists who use styrofoam to create the most amazing images. One of them talked with my granddaughter and I and said “I can’t believe I get paid to do this!” I love the inclusivity of the Mardi Gras Activities, and the care and attention that go into creation of so many of the costumes, particularly the African-American Indian costumes, beaded and feathered.
As we are finishing, drips start coming down through small leaks in the warehouse ceiling, and we know we need to head back to Pensacola. My thought was we would try to keep ahead of the storm, but the reality was, we were on the leading edge for three hours, only escaping as we got close to Pensacola. It caught up with us later in the evening.
Jazzy BBQ, a FAO Adventure in Pensacola
We are driving up Davis, because AdventureMan wants me to see a new Halal Market he has found (you can get some wild ingredients in these specialty stores in Pensacola) when he spots Jazzy Bar-B-Q. We continued on to the market, where I found all the exotic and wonderful spices and legumes I used to find in the LuLu and Family Food Stores in Doha, but AdventureMan was still thinking about Jazzy Bar-B-Q, and so today when it came time to think about lunch, he knew just where he wanted to go, and the adventure began.
AdventureMan was a Foreign Area Officer when we were in the military, and to be that sort, you truly have to have a spirit of adventure.
We got to Jazzy Bar-B-Q around noon, but the door was closed and a lady laden with deliveries was just leaving.
“Don’t leave!” she called out. “He’ll be right back. He’s just making deliveries! He’s my son!”
We drove around the block for a better parking spot and she was just about to leave. “Here!” she said, thrusting one of the delivery sacks in our direction, “I want you to have this to nibble on while you wait.”
“Oh no, oh no,” we said, but this dear woman insisted, gave AdventureMan the container, and drove off saying she was calling her son to tell him we were there.
Ribs, chicken wings, greens and mac ‘n cheese. All very tasty! AdventureMan held off, but I had a wing and a rib while we waited.
Very soon, Phil arrived, unlocked and invited us in. In reality, he is a noted musician, and the restaurant was started by his Mama, who also does some of the cooking. For example, for tonight he has jumbo shrimp in an Alfredo sauce for his dinners. He has a lot of customers who aren’t able to get out anymore, and the food he creates is more of a ministry than a business. He cooks with love.
We were the only ones there, and as Phil fixed our meals, he told us about his family (originally from Pritchard, Alabama, then many years as New Yorkers, then to Pensacola) and his customers. It reminded me of the kind of hospitality we often received in the Middle East, listening to stories as food was created.
Phil sent us out with so much food, and a green pepper that after we eat, we are to salvage the seeds and use them in our garden. We brought it home – it was all delicious. I was especially glad he had greens, and they were amazing.
I ordered the rib plate, and I got enough ribs for a week! AdventureMan ordered the pulled pork sandwich, and got two!
(Sorry, we had already tucked in when I remembered to take a photo.)
Long story short. Jazzy Bar-B-Q is more than just food; it is also about those who prepare it and those who are eating it. We loved this experience, and we will be going back.
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