Food

Boat Tacos

November 7, 2014 kathygetto 7 Comments

Boise, Idaho

I’m in Boise with Melissa while she recuperates from her surgery.

My job is to monitor pain medications, clean and do yardwork, and make meals.

Tonight we had Boat Tacos. And they were yummy!

About a month ago, Rich was with his friends at the racetrack and they had set up a feast which included flour tortilla shells shaped like boats. His friends said that they had gotten them at Walmart in Winnemucca. Rich raved about how good they were and how handy they were to eat while on the run.

So we began looking for them. It was harder than you might think to find a product that you don’t know the name of. All you have in mind is the boat shape and that it’s a flour tortilla.

We looked in Utah. We looked in Colorado. We looked in Walmarts. We looked in Safeways. We looked in City Markets. All to no avail; we couldn’t find them.

Then we started looking on-line. Thank goodness for Google!

Once we found out the source and saw what the packaging looked like, it was easy to find them in the store. 🙂

They are made by Old El Paso and are called Stand ‘n Stuff Soft Flour Tortillas.

Rather than making a wrap, these are the perfect size for making and taking on the go…

I was just getting ready to serve them up when I remembered that Rich had given Melissa some of his wonderful corn relish.

That made them even better!

These handy little boats are not only great for tacos; they are perfect for scrambled eggs, pulled pork, sloppy joes, and so on…

If you want to give them a try, look for them in the Mexican or Hispanic food section of your store by the salsa. They are not stocked by the flour tortillas which seems like the logical place to us and why we couldn’t find them. 🙂

People

Misslissa

November 6, 2014 kathygetto 6 Comments

Gold Canyon, Arizona

I’m sitting at the airport waiting for my early morning flight to Boise.

Melissa had an emergency appendectomy last night just before midnight.

She’s doing well, and I’m going up to help her out for a few days.

She’s been feeling poorly since Sunday, running a fever and having stomach pain.

She took yesterday off from work. That’s when I knew she was really feeling awful. The last time she took a day off, her eardrum burst.

She’s one tough cookie and doesn’t like to leave her “people” with a substitute.

Her best friend Kassi was with her late yesterday afternoon and stayed with her after recovery for a few hours.

I just finished talking with Misslissa, and she’s feeling much better this morning.

Can’t wait to smother her with love!

Cerebrations

Where Bad Teachers Go

November 5, 2014 kathygetto 2 Comments

Gold Canyon, Arizona

I went to an introductory meeting yesterday for all pickleball players at our RV Park.

There were about 40 people there including one woman who commandeered the entire meeting.

Nope, she wasn’t the president of the group. She was a past president who, apparently, didn’t like the way the current president has been doing things.

“Debbie” was unbelievable. She criticized things ad nauseum, she kept rehashing things that happened last year, and she monopolized the entire meeting.

Greg, the current president, did a great job of trying to corral Debbie, but by the end of the meeting there were nearly 40 people who wanted to strangle her.

During the meeting I leaned over to Kim (who had also had enough) and said, “I worked with Debbie’s sister at my last job…” I was kidding, of course, but I think all of us have either worked with a Debbie or been related to one usually as an in-law. 🙂

I later found out and wasn’t surprised that Debbie is a retired school teacher.

There’s something about bad teachers that stays with them throughout their lives. They don’t try to empower others; they try to micromanage them.

And Debbie was the quintessential retired bad teacher.

So where do bad teachers go after they retire? They move on to ungreener pastures to try to micromanage new faces.

Places

Painted Desert

November 4, 2014 kathygetto

Gold Canyon, Arizona

We visited the Painted Desert area last week while staying in Holbrook.

The Painted Desert is a United States desert of badlands in the Four Corners area from the Grand Canyon National Park into the Petrified Forest National Park. Much of the area within the Petrified Forest National Park is protected as the Petrified Forest National Wilderness Area. Much of the Painted Desert region is within the Navajo Nation. (From Wikipedia)

While not as colorful as South Dakota’s Badlands, the Painted Desert is very pretty.

The Painted Desert Inn is a National Historic Landmark. It once served as a trading post, inn and restaurant for travelers along the Arizona portion of historic Route 66.

Now is it used as a museum for park visitors.

It was a stunning building, but we got there at 4:01. It closes at 4:00, and like all true government employees everywhere, the park ranger closed up shop right at 4:00 on the dot. 🙂

So we went back and looked at the beautiful vista some more.

Places

There’s No Place Like Home?

November 3, 2014 kathygetto 6 Comments

Gold Canyon, Arizona

We’ve been in Gold Canyon for a few days now, and we’re starting to figure it out a bit more.

I’ve taken a few pictures.

Here’s a photo of the entrance to the club house.

There’s a small nine hole golf course wrapped around the club House area. Golf carts roam the park and can be seen traveling down streets and state highways. Yes, highways…

Here are two close-ups of the clubhouse entrance.

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I haven’t taken an actual count, but I think about 75% of the resort is park models. The rest are motor homes and travel trailers.

Here is a typical park model of a resident who hasn’t arrived yet. Note the covered golf cart and car protected from the harsh summer sun.And here’s an occupied park model with patio furniture and southwestern yard art.

And here’s Homer tucked in among other part-timers.

Getting around the park is getting easier, but you can see why it’s a little confusing… Two streets are named the same. 🙂

Places

Petrified Forest

November 2, 2014 kathygetto 2 Comments

Gold Canyon, Arizona

We set aside an afternoon last week to tour Petrified Forest National Park near Holbrook.

The grasslands were once a vast floodplain crossed by lots of streams. As the trees fell, they were washed across the plains. A mix of volcanic ash, silt, and mud buried the logs and slowed the decay because the mixture prevented oxygen from reaching the logs. (Taken from the park brochure.)

All the small rocks in the foreground are the same colors as the trees, so we assumed that they are broken up parts of the trees or their limbs.
There are three different types of trees that were petrified. This one looks as though the bark petrified as well.

We literally walked through the logs.

The visitor center has great displays of both the logs and many of the paleontologists’ finds.
I have no clue what this is, but she must have been awesome looking and still is even millions of years later…

This poster tried to explain the petrification process to us non-science visitors.

The surrounding area is relatively flat.

Interesting to find a bit of life in such an old thing. Here’s some lichen growing on a log.

This valley is strewn with petrified logs. This area looks similar to the Badlands of North Dakota which are not as colorful as the Badlands of South Dakotata.

Many of the trees are split in ways that look as though they’ve been cut with a chain saw.
And the best news? This is a national park that allows dogs on trails. Sophie was happy!

Places

A New Way of Life

November 1, 2014 kathygetto 1 Comment

Gold Canyon, Arizona

We drove into Gold Canyon yesterday, to our new ‘residence’ for ten weeks.

We’re staying at Gold Canyon RV and Golf Resort. It’s a huge resort for both RVs and park models. Park models are single wide mobile homes, most of which are added on to with patios and screened in areas.

Gold Canyon is huge. I think there are over 700 sites here. Rich and I have already gotten lost several times. Sophie’s still trying to figure out the best places to relieve herself.

We’ve already met enough people to forget most of their names. And the amazing thing is that because we’re here off-season many of the models and spaces are vacant.

A couple of quick notes:

My Wi-Fi hotspot doesn’t work here. So we have to walk to the clubhouse to use the Internet.
Pickleball is gearing up and I will start playing today. People play twice a day, and some travel to neighboring communities a couple of times per week.
No pictures for today’s post. Too busy setting up and getting lost.
Because we’re here off season, we got a smoking deal: Three months for the price of one. That deal takes us through December 31. We paid extra to stay through January 15.

People, Places

A Grand View

October 31, 2014 kathygetto

Holbrook, Arizona

We changed our planned route a bit and snuck over to take a quick peak at the Grand Canyon.

The canyon is amazing, majestic, inspiring, beautiful, immense, overwhelming…

But while the canyon loomed in the background, I fell in love with Mary Colter’s Indian Watchtower at Desert View.

Mary Elizabeth Jane Colter was an American designer and architect who designed the 70′ high stone building. The building site at Desert View is located 20 miles east of the main entrance into the park.

I’m fascinated by the fact that the architect was a woman who was tasked with so many important designs for this national park in the 1920’s and 30’s.

The four story structure was completed in 1932. The tower was designed to resemble Pueblo Peoples watchtowers. The base is arranged in a large circle and intentionally designed to look as though it is partially ruined.

The windows are small, irregularly shaped, and appear randomly placed.

Colter spent six months researching before building a scaled model. She then had a 70′ platform built to assess the views from the proposed site.

I could go on and on, but the photos tell the story better than I do.

The wood ceiling on the ground floor hides a steel structure that supports the remaining stories.

The stairway railings were wrapped with some sort of hide that’s been well worn with decades of use.

A view through a central column ties the three upper floors together.

The views from all of the windows are stunning.

The artwork and design touches on both inside and outside of the building show an intense use of detail as shown in this closeup of the top floor ceiling and the petroglyphs embedded on a rock within a T-shaped door formation on the tower wall.

The murals inside use colors that many of the area tribes user in their artwork.

See the jagged brick around this window? From the outside of the tower, this looks like a hole in the brick so that the wall is broken.

A few more photos from our views of the canyon…

Places

Best Trading Post

October 30, 2014 kathygetto 2 Comments

Cameron, Arizona

We happened upon a historic trading post on our way to the Grand Canyon. The Cameron Trading Post was established in the early 1900’s.

While there are multiple buildings on the site, we first toured The Gallery. It was full of antiques and current day art work. My good taste showed yet again as I fell in love with a Navajo blanket priced at $26,000. 🙂

These sterling silver bridles had the most amazing mouth pieces I have ever seen in a bit.

Beautiful Native American weaving in beautiful earth and sky colors.

There were many architectural design worth copying.

There are even some casts of dinosaur tracks.

The young man working called in extra help to let Rich and I tour the upstairs area. I think the building was over 90 years old and just beautiful.

These outside stairs led up to an upstairs patio.

The ceiling was amazing!

Of course, I am always looking for ideas for beautiful things Rich can build once he has a shop again…

The store was beautifully arranged and displayed.
And the young man tending the store was full of stories about ghosts and items moved in the middle of the night.

Perfect for the old trading post and just in time for Halloween…

Places

All Four Corners

October 29, 2014 kathygetto 2 Comments

Cameron, Arizona

On our drive from Cortez down to Cameron, we decided to stop at the Four Corners Monument.

Normally either Rich or I do a bit of Internet research before we go somewhere. We didn’t for this stop, and we were surprised…

Four Corner was more of a tourist trap than an informative site.

We had a couple of clues that things weren’t going to be like going a US Park Service monument. But, alas, we didn’t pay attention to or put those clues together until we were,too far through our tour to stop…

Clue #1: It is called Four Corners Monument not Four Corners National Monument.

Clue #2: The sign into the monument was not the typical Park Service government brown.

Clue #3: The restrooms were very nice, but they were closed as noted with a sign that looked like it had weathered at least a year. Visitors needed to use Sani Huts.