Food, Friends and Fun

After leaving New Orleans we crossed Mississippi and Mobile Bay to arrive in Daphne, AL.  Our kind friends, the Simpsons, are hosting us and sharing their home and hospitality in exchange for green chili and Albuquerque Tortilla Co. Gorditas.  We figure we are getting the better end of the deal, but they insist they are.

We were enjoying a lovely glass of red wine before dinner when Cheryl got a little too enthusiastic and apparently slammed down the wine and glass with a bit too much force.  Sorry, Valerie.  I'll be replacing your glass shortly.

Last night found us in downtown Daphne at Manci's Antique Club.  It is a hole-in-the-wall diner/bar/Jim Beam Bottle Museum.  If you check out the display case behind me you can see some of the collector JB bottles.  They reportedly have all but three of them.

Mishmash, succotash, day-two-fey

Answers to yesterday's food:

Red beans and rice, muffuletta, gumbo, red jambalaya and Tom after the Hurricane(s). 

It was all delish.

Today's breakfast in pictures, after we forgot and already had started eating:

Took one of the mandatory carriage rides with Howard and Beauty the Mule.  Could not really hear much of the spiel, but it was a nice ride.  

This is Lafitte's; it's a bar.  Might be one of the oldest in NO. Or maybe it was the building that is the oldest.

Look closely behind the wrought iron cornstalks on the right, the groom is kissing the bride. <3

There were a few more cool buildings and homes, which may or may not belong (at some point in time) to Delta Burke, Nicholas Cage and Brangelina.  We met Stella, waved at Antoine's, and now know the best places to get hubcap burgers and alligator fritters. 

It was also surprising to us both how different the Quarter was between Friday and Saturday.  Many more crowds, many more early imbibers, we even saw one guy break a beer bottle to wave around as a weapon.  Not sure how that turned out as we skedaddled around the corner the other way.

'Nawlins!

My brother Bill made a special request when we got to New Orleans. Therefore this post will be rather short in words but long on pictures for his benefit.

Now that's some spicy sauce

Today found us headed to Avery Island, Louisiana where we got to visit the Tabasco production facility. 

If you saw the 60 Minutes feature, what they didn't tell you is how cute and pretty the island itself is.  From the guard at the bridge who hands your driving pass out on a long pole with a clothespin on the end to the rolling hills up to the 168 foot center of the island, it is all very quaint and picturesque.  Avery Island is also home to egret colonies, many other birds, and even has a Japanese garden along with camellias and azaleas and rare species of bamboo.  As for Tabasco products, we tasted Tabasco Ice Cream, Tabasco cola, Tabasco worcestershire, Tabasco teriyaki, Tabasco soy sauce, Tabasco jam, Tabasco red hots and that didn't even begin to cover the meat marinades, dip mixes, mayonnaise and what not.

And now for your quiz:

1.  What are the ingredients in Tabasco?

2.  How many varieties of Tabasco pepper sauce are there?

3.  Which corporation owns Tabasco?

Answers at the end.  In the 'Gee, I didn't know that' category we learned that Avery Island is atop one of the nation's largest salt domes, measuring 2.5 by 3 miles and believed to be as deep as Mount Everest.  And they mine the salt as well as use it in Tabasco production

And now for your answers:

1. Tabasco peppers, vinegar and salt.  That's it.  Of course it marinates and ferments for about three years before it is deemed worthy of being bottled in case you were thinking of making your own.

2. Seven-original red, green, garlic, chipotle, sweet and spicy, buffalo and habanero.  There is technically an eighth, the Family Reserve blend sold only at the factory, but they don't count that as a flavor since it is not commercially available.

3. None.  It has always been privately owned by the Avery-Marsh-McIllhenny family.

Greetings from Beaumont, Texas

We have officially crossed the Lotion Line.  That is the line between the dry air of New Mexico or West Texas where one must drink three extra glasses of water a day just to keep from shriveling up and the moist, humid coastal air where nothing ever dries out completely.  The line itself moves around a bit depending on the seasons, but we have put away the large economy size pump bottle of Extra Dry Skin Relief until our return loop gets west of Oklahoma City.

Yesterday we continued our visit to the Pacific War Museum in Fredericksburg, tootled down the road to Luckenbach and then wandered over to visit the LBJ Ranch National Park alongside the Pedernales River.  The bluebonnets and wildflowers were blooming, the grasses were green and the view of the hill country from the ranch was inspiring.  One really could imagine what it must have been like when LBJ hauled those city slickers from Washington D.C. out to the ranch for some down time and discussion.

We ended the night in Driftwood, TX and spent the evening with friends from Cheryl's college days. ( We figured out over dinner and a couple of bottles of wine that it has been 40+ years since those days!)   This morning found us on the road early, but by midday we decided we would rather take a leisurely pace and stop early, so here we are, still in Texas, but the border is just over yonder.  We took advantage of the extra time to catch up on chores and email and will hit the road tomorrow and head to Louisiana.

Laundry drying 

Tom 'watching' the news while checking his email.  Hercules is swathed in his blanket, having survived his shower.

Irish Day in a German Town

Our full day here in Fredericksburg was spent doing a little shopping and a lot of museum visiting.  The WWII Pacific War Museum here in the birthplace of Adm. Chester Nimitz is world class, and takes several hours to see just the highlights, but is truly a wonderful museum with a tremendous amount of artifacts and displays. 

In between we celebrated St. Paddy's Day in this German town by eating German food instead of corned beef.  But yes, we had the cabbage (or in our case sauerkraut.). Followed, of course by a stroll through several art galleries and shops where we almost managed to not buy anything, but ultimately failed in that regard. 

Wrestling an Octopus

Greetings from Fredericksburg, Texas.  We had a lovely night at camp in Big Bend National Park with some beautiful tropical colored small birds and cottonwoods all leafed out already.  Our trip down was better than the last time we traipsed through Fort Davis (five inches of half-inch hailstones) although the wind we battled on the way down finally caught up with us and stayed all night.  This is the picture of the clouds as the sun rose on our way out of the park this morning.

Despite our best intentions, we seem to be dashing up and down and across Texas just in time to let the cold front winds catch up every night.  This is now the third day of this back and forth race and it is getting a little tiresome.  Each day has been just a little bit windier and driving today was about a 35  mph crosswind with gusts up to 45 and we agreed it felt a lot like we were arm wrestling an octopus.  Lane management was a big challenge, but as our brother Jim said at the outset, "Keep the greasy side down".  We got here fine, although Cheryl is now drinking a few glasses of wine to get rid of the tension in her shoulders and brain from all the white-knuckle driving.  Tom, OTOH, has no problem with "ground turbulence"  because he has "experienced worse flying in thunderstorms and lenticular clouds and this only moves in two dimensions".  Well, OK.

Fortunately, we have two nights planned here in Fredericksburg, so we are gonna let the storm move right along without us.  Tomorrow we will relax a bit, sightsee in town, do some retail therapy and head to Driftwood,TX  on Tuesday.