August 14, 2011 - Bakersfield

Great Googily Moogily, today was a very long day.  After a dismal experience in ABQ, we left town at 6:50 local time.  Breakfast at the hotel was NOT as expected, but after making Jay his waffle, I had a banana with cream cheese.  I'm so used to more protein but did what I could.

Jay let. me drive from Flagstaff to the California border.  WOW, what a car!  Very nice and very powerful.  So after gassing up the car at the last Arizona gas station, we headed across the Mojave Desert.  Jay wanted to go to Bakersfield, but that was way too far so we compromised [I thought] on Barstow.  About 50 miles east of Barstow both lanes of westward traffic came to a complete halt.  It's the Mojave Desert!  It's barren!  It's freaking HOT!  And the line of cars and trucks as far as the eye could see at a complete standstill.  The view out my passenger window:

The view directly in front of our car:

After about 20 minutes, I ventured out of the car to see what I could see:

Not a whole heck of a lot.  Jay spoke with another motorist who recommended getting off I-40 and taking old 66 but when we inched our way to the exit, the jam appeared to be clearing up.  We stayed on I-40 and after another 30 minutes or so [total of about an hour], we were out of the mess. 

So I thought Jay would be about ready to pull into a hotel in Barstow but NO, he had his heart set on Bakersfield so on we went.  We got to Bakersfield at a little after 6:00 local time, checked in, stowed our gear, and walked two blocks to a Roadhouse where we each had a lovely adult beverage and a protein filled meal.

Believe me, Jay's proud and happy to be sipping his scotch and he absolutely deserved it.  I, on the other hand, enjoyed my Cosmo completely.

We're now in our jammies - Jay's eating the brownie Malu, the Concierge, gave him.  The internet is fine and dandy and I'm happy with that.

Tomorrow, we'll be in Carmel in time for lunch.  We can't wait for the cooler weather.  Bakersfield is HOT but dry.  ;0)

'Night all.

August 13, 2011 - Albuquerque

We drove out the driveway at 5:15 a.m. just as it started to rain.  Sure, we leave town and it rains!  Jay was Champ of the World as he drove for two hours in a downpour.  Finally the sun came up and it just sprinkled for another hour.  Props to Jay!


We stopped in Amarillo for a quick bite to eat and then continued westward.


We arrived in ABQ at 2:30 local time, checked into out hotel and rested for a while.  Yes, I watch a lot of Food Network and Cooking Channel and a few months ago, the United States of Taste [I think] did a show on fries.  One of the segments was at Lumpy's Burgers in ABQ.  Since it was filmed in the kitchen, I had no idea what to expect.  Here it is:

You walk up to this window, pick up a brown paper bag with the menu printed on it, make your selections with a crayon, choose your potato [either Idaho or sweet], put the potato in the bag, hand it to the cashier with the money and wait ten minutes for your name to be called.  Seating is outside, thankfully under a "shelter" of some sort.  Our name is called - well, Jay's name is called.  He retrieves the bags.  Here is mine:

Yes, that's grease on the white bag from the fries.  This is what's inside my bag:

No, it's not paleo/primal; yes, it was HUGE; and yes, DE LISH!!!  Neither one of us could finish our meal.  But it sure was a fun experience and I even bought a T-shirt!


So, then we came back to our hotel where they offer FREE WI-FI.  Okay, not so much.  I called the desk and asked if the internet was working - he said "it's working perfectly."  I told him it wasn't working in our room and he said he'd check it out.  I called back after 10 or 15 minutes since it still wasn't working.  He said he'd check.  I threw up my hands and went to Plan B.  I'd bought an AT&T Air Card JUST IN CASE and I'm so glad I did.  It works like a champ.  I'll probably use it again tomorrow and perhaps even at The Tickle Pink as sometimes their access isn't speedy.


So, there's our first day.  Jan emailed me - she and Bob are from Austin - letting us know that they're there on the deck of The Tickle Pink and it's 61 degrees!  Ah, hopefully, we'll be there Monday afternoon.


Ciao for now!

West Auction - Stockyards Cafe Revisited

We're leaving for the annual Carmel trip in nearly four weeks - driving again this year.  Jay's new car has to have all its fluid drained and replaced once he puts on 1,000 to 1,200 miles.  We used that as an excuse to head down 35E to the thriving metropolis of West, Texas.  There's a cattle auction barn on the west side of 35E and in said building is a little cafe called The Stockyards Cafe.  I stumbled across this place ten or twelve years ago when my sister and I took Mom and Aunt Irene to San Antonio.  Sweet things for breakfast just doesn't do it for me - not even pancakes - so the kolaches for which West is famous was not enticing me.  We were directed to the Auction Barn Cafe.  This place has it all.  sweet, savory, and an awesome looking burger that passed our table today.

I'm still sticking to my NO SUGAR / NO GRAINS program, so I ordered eggs over easy with bacon.  Our perky waitress asked what kind of toast I wanted, but I declined.  She didn't quite get the concept of NO GRAINS and brought me this:

Yes, that's a whopper of a pancake even though it was declined.  The plate to the right was nearly empty when I finished - just left some of the hash browns.  Jay had scrambled eggs, French Toast and bacon.  He did a really good job of cleaning his plate.

So this Auction Barn is a working auction barn and each Thursday evening, the cattle are brought there for auction.  The aroma of their presence is apparent once you leave your vehicle.  Inside the cafe, it's lovely fried food smells.

I don't know if these guys/gals are sad because they didn't get purchased, got purchased, or the HEAT!  Poor dears.

After breakfast, we headed to the Outlet Stores in Hillsboro.  Wait - what outlet stores?  I could NOT believe my eyes.  More than 50% of the stores were vacant.  Granted, it's been several years since I stopped into this center, but was stunned.  It looked like a ghost town.

Not wanting to go straight home, we took 35W through all the little towns - where Jay got his Dairy Queen cone - and then north to Denton.  We got home with over 200 miles later.  Which means, we're going to have to head to Terrell next week to the peach orchard.  I think that should about do the trick and Jay can get his car into the BMW place for the fluid-letting.

So stay tuned as we'll be heading west in just over four weeks.

Happy Father's Day 2011

Our sweet neighbors, Sandy and Randy, took us on an adventure today.  We met in their driveway precisely at 10:00 a.m.  We put all our trust in Randy as he headed west.  We were given no clues as to our destination and the only instruction were were given was to dress mufti.  Since I knew that was a military term, I pretty much ignored it.  As it turns out, Jay and I had on civilian attire.

Our destination was Willhoite's in Grapevine!  What fun!  This is an old [and I do mean OLD] car dealership that's been an eatery for over 30 years.  Sunday Brunch is amazing.  They had an omelet station, a waffle station, a salad station, a breakfast station, a lunch station AND a dessert station.  You could probably sit there and eat until your heart stopped for the low price of $12 [plus $1 off for 60 and older].  Of course, the Bloody Marys took care of adding to the price and they were delish!

Sandy and Randy

This place is very interesting and will be given another visit in the evening to partake of the burgers and music.  Of course, being Father's Day, the line was way out the door by the time we left.  Randy made the spot on decision to get there early.

We may have to do this one more time before our trip to Carmel.  Of course, it's a Baguette possibility since Rose lives in Grapevine and has probably been to this place.

Great fun!  Thanks to the Russells!

Vacation's Over - Retirement Resumes

The last few days of our vacation were spent TOGETHER which is the very best thing to do.  Of course, we shopped and, of course, we consumed food.

On Tuesday evening, Vicki took us to dinner.  We selected Houlihan's as it's nearby and in the past, the food and adult beverages have been good.  Key words: IN THE PAST and ADULT BEVERAGES.  Jay's scotch and water was fine - how can you mess that up, after all.  My EXTRA DRY MARTINI UP, however, was disgusting.  I asked the waitress to have the bartender remake it as I was sure he's used a flavored Stoli.  She said she had him remake it but it was still disgusting - WAY too sweet.  What does EXTRA DRY mean?  Why, I thought it meant VERY little vermouth.  In any case, we had an enjoyable, albeit sober, evening since we were all together.  Jay snapped this for us:

We passed on our morning walk today.  Vicki was due to leave at 11:35 but I got a call telling us the flight had been cancelled.  Thanks American!  Nice way to start the day, NOT.  But Vicki is so adaptable [as well as adorable], that she took it in stride and switched to the 1:35 flight.  She was very anxious to be home and wanted to start her trip so we got her to the airport several hours prior to her flight time.  I just checked her flight status and she took off at 1:44 - ahead of the horrible storms that are on the way.

So here I sit: SAD.  I wish we lived closer to each other, but have October to look forward to.

I'm not the only one who's sad.  Our front door guard frog is kind of in shock.

And our frog who lounges looks rather lethargic:

And our tree is downright disgruntled:

We had a great time together these last three weeks.  On our Grand Canyon trip, Vicki was such a terrific Co-Pilot/Navigator!  I hope I do half as good when Jay and I drive to Carmel in August.  And she's just so much fun to do things with - she's up for just about anything.  Soon we'll start planning our October vacation.  I think Rehoboth, Delaware and the Amish Country of Pennsylvania will be on the list, as well as Waterbury, Vermont [for family] and Seekonk, Massachusetts for those adorable Little People, Laura and Josh.

So that's it for this bit of Traveling.  Jay and I have a little jaunt or two planned and I may blog about them.

Ciao for now.

May 1 through 6, 2011

Believe it or not, we tried to get some rest this week.  On Monday, a rainy stormy day, My Gal Pal Val, stopped over for a Vicki Visit and coffee.  We also played Make-Up like three teenage girls! 

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we just ran around - Vicki got a haircut, we had lunch at Corner Bakery one day and Banana Leaf the next - just normal stuff.

On Thursday, we picked up Val and then off to the S&P Collin County office to pick up Tami.  We had a lovely, chatty lunch at Fish Express but I failed to take a photo.  :0(   Then, we did a little more shopping - Sam Moon, etc.

Steve met us at Uncle Julio's to celebrate Vicki's birthday.  Naturally Cinco de Mayo was going on so it was quite festive.  Vicki had bought a little jewel encrusted hair thingy at Sam Moon's which she wore, adding to the festivity.

Of course, Uncle Julio's is wonderful and we ate on the patio on that glorious day.  You can see the baubles in Vicki's hair!

Jay is a fan of the Girly Drink - and had TWO pina coladas.  He's such a cork sniffer!

On Friday, we took off for McKinney to further stimulate the economy.  I was looking for a new denim skirt as my favorite one is too big [yay!] and I found one at Orison's.  I'd not been up to McKinney in several years and it's all changed.  Lots of new eateries and most of the antique malls have been replaced by less interesting shops.  But, being the frog freak that I am, I found many of these frogs around the square.  I asked one of the shop owners and she said there had been a art show and the painted frog in front of a store meant there was an artist on premises.  Since I have a guard frog at our front door, I took a few photos to think about doing the same.

I'm pretty sure I'm going to keep our guard frog as she is - just get her a new plant [hat] - which very well could be on the agenda for today.

Steve suggested Square Burger, so we gave it a shot.

My Border Burger

Vicki's Bleu Burger

They were HUGE and could not be eaten like your normal burger.  But that was all right with me since I don't eat grains.  I tried a nibble of the fried pickle, however, and it was very good.  It's a very interesting place with lots of different burgers on the menu, including lamb - which I might try on my next visit to McKinney.  AND, tada, they serve aioli with their sweet potato fries.  We didn't have any fries but found out about it from another shop owner.  Aioli is the only way to eat sweet potato fries!  We learned that at The Alchemist in Waterbury, Vermont.

We didn't stay in McKinney very long since the antique malls were gone, so we headed to The Shops at Legacy for a walk around.  Since it was such a beautiful day, folks were out and about and the restaurant patios were bustling.  We ventured into one or two shops but just weren't interested.  So, we walked around the lake in front of the Marriott and then headed home.

We rested for a short time and then went to Remington's to eat again!  Yes, we're eating like we had good sense, but I'm still avoiding sugar and grains and will continue to do so.

Today, Saturday, we're catching up on homey things.  Of course, by mid-afternoon we'll have had enough of this Home Stuff, so we'll head out to grocery shop!  Steaks for dinner, I think, along with a lovely bottle of Cab.

It's early Thursday morning, and we're going to head back to Dallas.  Along the way, Vicki spotted the Flintstones Campgrounds.  Laura and Josh should get a kick out of these photos!

 Of course, I had to dance with a dinosaur skeleton.  You would, wouldn't you?

I wanted Vicki to see the beautiful rocks on the way down to Sedona so we took a southern turn at Flagstaff.

 We were going to hike the "trail to the bridge" but we had no idea how far it was.  After about half a mile, we decided to turn back.

 Since it was early, not too much was going on in Sedona, we headed back north, but stopped at the Coconino Forest lookout for photo ops AND Navajo vendors.

 Jay had taken me through the Petrified Forest many years ago, but I don't remember any of this.  This is on the south side of I40 and is the largest area of the Painted Desert.  A few memorable sites were The Blue Mesa and The Teepees.  See for yourself!

 Crossing over I40, there's a monument to Old Route 66!

 The north side of The Painted Desert is filled with red as opposed to the south side.

We were going to stop in Amarillo and tour Palo Duro Canyon but decided we were canyoned out!  Instead, we headed home.  I know it had been windy here while I was gone, but good grief!  While we were on 287, I had to keep both hands on the steering wheel as the wind was fierce.  And the dust from newly plowed fields!  At one point there was a fire - we couldn't see it, but the highway was smoke-filled and smelly.

Of course, we were hungry again so we stopped at Rudy's in Frisco and brought home brisket and ribs with some sides.

Believe it or not, we didn't go to bed all that early!  I'd recorded The Royal Wedding and we watched it until about 10:30.  We didn't see The Kiss but after our walk on Saturday morning, we continued watching and saw The Kisses!!! Very lovely.