2015 Western Trip – Days 4-6 - Kansas City & North Platte

My favorite part about blogging has been the people I’ve met electronically and then in person and the friendships this has led to.  Dave and Jackie Scott are one of those couples, having met them when they drove all the way from Kansas City to attend our 2012 blogger party, returning in 13 and 14.  Since our route for this trip took us thru KC, a meet up was a must, so we had lunch a place called Jazz, along with their friends and fellow RVers, Dan & Jackie.  Left to right are me, Jackie, Dan, Pat, Jackie, Bev, Dave.

We stopped that night at the KOA in Salina, KS which was a typical early generation KOA and hasn’t been updated much.  Like the other places so far it was okay to spend a night or two and very convenient to the interstate and fuel places at exit 252.  One nice thing was that it was cooler and much less humid than Columbia, MO the previous days.  From there, we headed up US-83 which was a very nice four-lane road that gave us a fine view of Kansas farming – mostly corn and soybeans.  We then drove I-80 into North Platte, NE and found it to be another road in good condition.

We stayed at the Holiday RV Park (pretty much our only option) and it was another older grass and gravel campground and was a little tight for our rig.  But we managed to get in and out and it had an excellent cable TV and WiFi.  The first full day we did a few chores on the RV, drove around North Platte and had breakfast at Penny’s Dinner – reminded me a little of Waffle House, with a good short order cook being the key to the operation.

I had the best breakfast of the three called the Sunrise Skillet, composed of vegetables, hash browns, meat (ham for me), with cheese and eggs on top.  It was very good and I took about half of it home.

After that we drove by the Buffalo Bill Cody Ranch – here are some excepts about it from Wikipedia – “In 1883, in the area of North Platte, Nebraska, Cody founded "Buffalo Bill's Wild West", a circus-like attraction that toured annually.”  “In 1893, Cody changed the title to "Buffalo Bill's Wild West and Congress of Rough Riders of the World". The show began with a parade on horseback, with participants from horse-culture groups that included US and other military, cowboys, American Indians, and performers from all over the world in their best attire.”  “With his profits, Cody purchased a 4,000-acre (16 km2) ranch near North Platte, Nebraska, in 1886. Scout's Rest Ranch included an eighteen-room mansion and a large barn for winter storage of the show's livestock.”  “Buffalo Bill located Scouts Rest Ranch at North Platte because it allowed him to move his Wild West Show by train or by wagon across the United States relatively quickly.” 

Buffalo Bill later was instrumental in founding Cody, WY and we’ll have more on that when we get there.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

7/27 – 7/29/15 event dates

2015 Western Trip – On The Road – Days 1-3

We are finally underway for our big trip to the Pacific Northwest and hopefully this will be the dream trip I’ve been awaiting.  We’ve had all of the known coach issues taken care of, the basement area reorganized, and the RV chassis, the car, and me serviced.  The coach and car were all fine but I had a couple of issues requiring attention, so I’m hoping for a non-eventful trip – except for the positive ones.  The house sitter is in place and someone is lined up to tend to the grounds so we can hopefully not have to worry about things at home – this may be the part of traveling I like best and it makes me somewhat envious of the full timers.

Our plan is to spend a total of 73 days as we angle from home up to Washington, spend several weeks in the Northwest, then drop down to the middle of the country (Colorado) and head back home – I know, I know, this is not enough time to do the area justice but it is all I could get committed from my girls.  In addition to seeing the sights and eating good food, we hope to meet up with several blogger buddies during our adventure.

The first day we drove to Paducah, KY (311 miles) and spent the night at Fern Lake Campground which was an older park ran by a nice couple who live on site.  It is just grass and gravel, not a destination park but a good place to stop for the night.  They had pull thru’s that fit us and were about a half mile from the I-24 and a Pilot truck stop.  I would stop here again for a night or two.

The second day, we drove to Columbia, MO (302 miles) and skirted the SW of St. Louis by going up I-55.  I only like to drive two days in a row so we took an off day in Columbia, MO, staying at Cottonwoods RV Park which was another good place for a night or two but not a place for an extended stay.  After setting up, we went out, drove around a little, and decided to give the White Castle drive through a try for supper as we’d always heard of them.  Our opinion - if Krystal ever decides to expand into this area, White Castle will be history, but now I can say I’ve eaten them.

The next morning, we headed downtown to a small farmers market and had breakfast at the Ozark Mountain Biscuit food truck where my large sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit was delicious and well worth the $6 cost as were the deep fried pimento cheese balls.  I forgot my camera so here are a few shots from the web – I would definitely go back.

For dinner, Bev and Pat brought home supper from Buckingham Smokehouse Bar-B-Q as it was recommended by the campground check-in person.  Unfortunately, like most restaurant BBQ, everything was overcooked and dry requiring lots of sauce to be decent - to some folks BBQ is all about the sauce so they would have enjoyed this.  To me, BBQ is all about the meat and I'm spoiled by the stuff I make at home. 

We're off tomorrow to points further west and I'll check in again when we have something worthy of a post.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

7/24 - 7/26/15 event dates

The Hofer’s Visit In 2015

As has occurred the past few years, the Hofer clan, consisting of brothers Stu and Meakin and their wives Sandy and Sam, visited Almost Heaven South for a couple of nights this week.  And as in previous years, the event was about good food, good wine, and great visiting.

We provided the food and drinks for the first part of the visit consisting of Smothered Pork Chops with mashed potatoes and fried okra for the first supper, Kennedy Quiche for the first breakfast and Caribbean Holiday Shrimp for snacking while we lounged around on the dock during the afternoon.  Since they were all repeat dishes, I didn’t take any shots and I forgot to take the camera to the dock.

However, once the Hofer’s took over the kitchen, I made sure I got some shots beginning with our second supper meal.

They served a delicious meal of filet of beef with Marchand de Vin sauce and topped with a Bernaise sauce sided with mashed potatoes and stuffed baked tomatoes.  

We washed it down with a very nice Cote du Rhone red wine and ended the meal with ice cream topped with cherry sauce.

All I can say is these folks can cook and we always look forward to turning the kitchen over to them and eating the fruits of their effort.  And to make it even better, Sandy is the consummate cleaner upper so we got a great meal and a clean kitchen by not doing anything but tell them where they can find things in the kitchen – I’m not sure it gets much better than that.

They also decided to whip up breakfast the final morning and we had scrambled eggs with spinach and the left over Caribbean shrimp, Nueske’s bacon, imported from Wisconsin, fresh fruit, and Mimosa’s.

As always, I had an excellent time and so enjoyed spending a piece of my life engaging with these four very different personalities.  Thanks guys for the great visit and I can hardly wait until next time and am hopeful we’ll see you before another year passes by.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

7/15/15 - 7/17/15 event dates

A Tennessee Summer Meal

This is one of our favorite summertime meals, all from local farmers – no garden for me this year.

I thought I should post the recipes for you non-Southerners J

Fried Okra

Sliced okra

Cornmeal

S&P to taste

Crisco for frying (no substitute)

Fry until golden brown, turning often

Fried Corn

Corn, cut from the cob

S&P to taste

Butter for frying

Cook until warmer through, turning often

Green beans

Beans of your choice, this was a mixture

Country ham hocks

Chopped onion and garlic

S&P to taste

Water to cover

Cook until beans are soft – Bev used the pressure cooker

Watermelon for dessert

It was delicious and the previous night we had boiled new potatoes, corn on the cob, and green beans.  It’s not gourmet, but plain ole food is darned hard to beat – we may eat some meat tomorrow.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

7/5/15 event date

Almost Heaven South & Mobile Photos

Kathy and her three daughters are here from Texas for their annual visit and she decided to take some photos to show her friends back home where she goes every year, so I decided to put them on here as well.

This first shot is while she is laying in bed in the downstairs sun room which is the bottom left of the second shot.

Than she walked around the yard and got some of the house and plant life.

She went up on the neighbors hill and shot this one of the whole place then the second one through the trees at the road.

One of the things she wanted the Texans to see was what real trees look like - of course the folks from California Redwood Country might say the same thing about ours.

This shot is of the Mobile Almost Heaven South - it's being prepped for our upcoming trip.  So far it has gotten a power surge protector, an upgraded fan in the bathroom and several little odds and ends items fixed on the coach and the front end was aligned.  What remains is having the chassis and generator serviced this week then start packing up.

As you can see by the tracks in the rocks, the driveway is not quite wide enough.

And finally, she got this shot of our cove and wished she had a ski boat to tackle the glassy water.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

6/28/15 event date

Chile/Salsa Verde

While consolidating from two to one freezer - yep, no need for two without the BBQ business - I discovered a piece of Hawaiian pork roast from our blogger party in 2013.  We had been wanting to make green chile so I went in search of a Chile Verde recipe and found one that sounded good at food.com and matched the ingredients we had on hand, or at least thought we did.  You can click on the link to check out the original recipe but below is what we made.

We decided we wanted to have some salsa verde on hand so we made an entire recipe of the sauce then added some to the diced pork to make the chile verde.  In the freezer, I had discovered what I believed was a bag of roasted chiles but they turned out to be roasted red sweet peppers.  So we ended up using them for in place of the yellow bell pepper and we used canned chiles for that part - I also grilled the tomatillos to char and soften them a little.  We started with only three quarts of chicken broth knowing we could add more as needed.

Salsa Verde - adapted from food.com

Ingredients

• 3 quarts chicken broth - homemade
• 3 lbs fresh tomatillos, husks removed and grilled to char and soften, remove to a bowl
• 2 large yellow onions
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon sea salt
• fresh ground pepper, to taste
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 can with 5 whole chiles and one small canned diced green chiles, with liquid
• 2 fresh jalapeno peppers, chopped with seeds
• 2 roasted red peppers from the freezer
• 1 cup cilantro leaf, coarsely chopped

• Directions

  1. In a large stock pot over high heat bring the chicken broth to a simmer and add the onion, garlic, peppers, cumin, S&P.  Cook until veggies are soft - about 30 minutes.
  2. While this is cooking, grill the tomatillos until charred a little and softened, remove to a bowl
  3. Add the tomatillos with bowl liquid, canned chilles with liquid, and cilantro to the blender and puree.
  4. Empty blender and puree the vegetables and broth from the pan.
  5. Add everything back to the pot, adjust seasonings and thickness (add more broth or cook down to get desired).  We liked it as it was and pronounced it ready to eat.

The sauce turned out to be very good but some of the meat in the chile verde tasted a little old - so no post about it.  While we used canned chiles, I believe roasting the tomatillos and using the roasted red peppers got plenty of that flavor into the mix.  And while the chile verde was just okay, what was very good were the burritos Bev made for breakfast from the salsa verde.  The first one was stuffed with sausage, eggs, and refried beans and the one below with smoked chicken, eggs, and hash browns.  I hadn't decided if I was going to post about the salsa until this burrito got delivered to me.

It was delicious and of course the star was the salsa verde - the red peppers took away from the brighter green color.  Since this batch turned out so good, I can imagine how good it will be when we have some good roasted Hatch chiles - hopefully picked up when we visit CO this year.  The rest of this salsa batch will go into the freezer for the next time we need a verde fix.

Thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Larry

6/12/15 meal date

2015 Western Trip Planning

One of the places in the country I've been to but never spent much tourist time is the Pacific Northwest and so it is on the docket for this years RV journey - this may be my dream trip.  The plan I've put together involves angling from home up into the area with a few stops along the way then coming home as we see fit at the time - if we do my full plan as laid out, it will be 10 weeks.

One of the hard parts of living in the East and going west is just getting out of this area and into where we want to go and that will take us several days with the only multi-day stop in North Platte, NE so this rail fan can visit the giant Union Pacific rail yard.

From there we will continue toward the northwest with 4-7 day stops in the following places:

1. Cody, WY - to see the town, the scenic mountain drives and the east side of Yellowstone,
2. Coeur D'Alene, ID - to see the town, the surrounding area, Spokane, WA
3. Ellensberg, WA - to see wine country, Bonneville dam, Lake Chelan, Leavenworth
4. Anacortes, WA - to see Seattle and the area north of it.
5. Shelton, WA - to see the Olympic Peninsula area and Mt Ranier
6. McMinnville. OR - to see wine country, the OR coast, the Columbia River gorge, and Portland
7. Bend OR - to the the local towns, the mountains, Crater Lake

We will leave Bend on day 53 and from there we will start back home and make it quick or slower depending on our desires but including a few days in Denver at a minimum.

Several of my NW blogger buddies have already given me many suggestions and I read several blogs of folks who spend time there, but I would still appreciate any advice that anyone has to offer.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry