Pasta With Lemon Cream Sauce Ala Chef Lea Ann

When one of our favorite people and trained chef blogs about a recipe containing some of our favorite ingredients, it quickly moves to the top of the try-soon list.  When I told Bev about it, she immediately said that with ham and peas, we should consider it for Easter dinner so this meal ended up being a trial run.  I adjusted LA’s recipe a little for our taste as noted but please check her blog for some much better pics than mine.

Stuffed Mushrooms & Salmon Cooking Time

SALMON

We had all been craving salmon so I found a recipe with an Oriental slant to it and baked the entire fillet.  I used the recipe from The Recipe Critic and it had a good flavor.

A Celito Lindo Fix

After our trip to the Southwest and trying several Mexican restaurants only to believe our local place was better, we decided we’d better go to Celito Lindo in Vonore while our trip memories are still fresh.  We invited friends to go with us to compare it to their favorite El Sazon in Alcoa.  We went early but the place was pretty full by the time we left so we are obviously not the only fans.

Southwestern RV Trip – Days 63-64, The Final Two Days

We got back on I-40 in North Little Rock Tuesday morning and the road thru the rest of Ark was pretty good but we noticed lots of flood waters on both sides of the road and when we got to the Mississippi River, it was way out of its banks.  By the time we got into Tennessee the winds had picked up and I fought the gusty conditions the rest of the way to Parker's Crossroads.  Usually I’ve reported how the road got better when we got into TN but not so today as it was just okay most of the day and bad for the first 35 miles thru and east of Memphis.

Southwestern RV Trip – Days 60-62, Still Heading Home

After a day to rest, we got back on the road on Sunday (an hour late as we were unaware of the DST change - ain't retirement great?) and drove thru Oklahoma City to Seminole, OK to stay at the Bar H Bar Travel Center which contained a fuel stop, a convenience store, a restaurant, and a campground.  Overhead from the web.

Southwestern RV Trip – Days 57-59, Heading Home

After nearly eight weeks the time had finally come to point the coach east and head for home beginning with the 18 mile long, 4000 ft climb to get up on the Colorado Plateau at Flagstaff and the big diesel handled it well.  We soon left the pine forest around Flagstaff and found ourselves in a flat desert wasteland, so my positive AZ comments in the previous post apply only to southern AZ.  The road thru AZ and NM was okay – some very good, some good and a lot needing attention but none terrible.

We were driving along and saw this snow covered peak and then noticed what seemed to be a dumping ground for old asphalt so we did a little research and discovered that the snow covered peak was Mt Taylor, an inactive volcano and the piles of asphalt are really 1.5 – 3.3 million year old lava – a real shocker.

Southwestern RV Trip – Days 55-56 -esort, AZ, and Crusty's

On Tuesday, we made the three hour round trip to the Phoenix Airport to drop off Cindy for her fight home then we began making preparations to leave on Thursday so not much else planned for these final two days at Camp Verde.  

This seems like a good time to comment on two things beginning with the campground.  The Distant Drums RV Resort is owned and operated by the Yavapai–Apache Nation and I consider it to actually be a resort with 158 spacious sites – we were in #89. The roads are all paved and the sites contain a concrete RV parking pad and a concrete car parking/patio area.  The in-between areas are covered in small red rock which are raked each time someone moves out.  The utilities and cable TV all worked well and the WiFi was better than most.  Amenities included an 86F pool, a 104F hot tub, basic store, workout room, dog park, showers, laundry, and free shuttle to the casino.  

Southwestern RV Trip – Days 52-54, Oak Tree Canyon & Jerome

On Saturday, Bev decided we should drive up the river canyon north of Sedona to see if the Navajo were selling their wares along the road and it looked like it might be a nice day.  By the time we were about 5 miles south of town it began to rain pretty hard, then after traveling a mile in the slow moving back up heading into Sedona with two more miles to go we decided to make a U-turn and head back to the campground – not a good Sedona day.

After a round of naps, we headed over to the Cliff Castle Casino to make a very small donation to the tribe and eat an early supper at Johnny Rockets – old time diner inside the casino – and we all enjoyed our meals.

Southwestern RV Trip – Days 50-51, Grand Canyon

A big part of our Sedona area stay was to have first timer Cindy get to experience what the area has to offer and it began with her oh-wows at the red rocks driving up to Sedona and continued with more oh-wows at Meteor Crater so today we took her to the Grand Canyon National Park for the ultimate oh-wow - the park is celebrating it's 100th birthday.  After a 2½ hour drive, we began at the Visitors Center where we watched the movie then went out to Mather Point overlook.

Southwestern RV Trip – Days 48-49, Meteor Crater, Winslow, Sedona

It was finally warm and sunny on Tuesday and the road up to Flagstaff was open so it was a good day to check off a bucket list item and visit Meteor Crater and then go on into Winslow for lunch – it was about a three hour round trip drive up I-17 onto the 7000’ Colorado Plateau then east on I-40.  Heading toward Flagstaff, we got a good view of the San Francisco Peaks and Humphrey’s Peak which is the highest natural point in Arizona at 12637 ft.

Southwestern RV Trip – Days 46-47, Sedona, Cottonwood, Jerome, Chapel

Finally, on Sunday we all felt well enough to venture outside the coach so we went for a drive to get a feel for things.  We began with the 35 minute drive up to Sedona to find they had a lot more snow and plenty of people on a pretty afternoon.  These are shots between Oak Creek and Sedona showing the famous red rocks.