Smoker

About 15 years ago my brother, Gerry, and his wife, Linda, were in OR for a visit.  It was August and the salmon were running in the Columbia River so I took Gerry fishing.  He caught an 18 pound salmon.  I caught squat.  As usual.  Gerry was justifiably proud, biggest fish he ever caught.

We had a fine salmon dinner that night but, of course, we only cooked a small portion of the fish.  I wanted G and L to take the rest home but they really couldn't, wouldn't be home for 4-5 days.  So I said to Gerry, 'Let's smoke it; then you can take it home, no problem.'  We drove to the nearest sporting goods store, bought an electric smoker and put it to immediate use.  The smoked salmon was delicious!

Last Sunday's local paper had an Albertson's grocery ad for fresh whole wild salmon on sale for $2.77/pound, about 1/3 the usual price.  I rushed down first thing Monday morning, bought 3 salmon, and had them cut up and soaking in brine within an hour of my return.  Brining takes 8 hours, and smoking takes another 8, both times dependent on thickness of the fish chunks.

The food is placed on the 4 removable racks and set inside the smoker box.  The little pan is filled with 2 cups of chips and inserted into the bottom of the smoker.  Plug it in and you're good to go.  Bags of chips come in hickory, mesquite, apple and alder but I can't tell the difference, taste-wise.

Smoked salmon is one of my favorite things - same for Trish - and it's expensive as hell, so it's well worth the 2-3 hours of effort it takes to smoke up a batch.  We're also fond of smoke-flavored chicken and game hens; the taste and delightful aroma is a real treat.  A grill just can't duplicate the smoky flavor and aroma of a real smoker, despite what the cookbooks say; the results are pathetic.

Bucephalus II

In general, I like the look and 'feel' of palms.  They smack of tropical breezes, ocean beaches, holidays both taken and fantasized, tiny umbrellas in colorful rum concoctions, shady oases in the desert, shapely females scantily clad, lightly oiled and sunny side up.  Advertising is to blame for this I reckon.

However, my palms were poorly chosen and poorly located, as were most of the plants I inherited when I bought the place.  Main problem was they blocked the view a bit more each year.  And, they attracted dwatted wabbits and were a real bitch to prune due to needle-like, poke-your-eyes-out frond tips and vicious, rip-your-skin-to-shreds thorny stems.  Now that I think about it, most if not all, outdoor palms are a pain in the ass.  They need regular pruning and they mess up your yard with sticky dates, huge leaves and stealthy, head-crushing coconuts.

Bucephalus, the Stallion Lane Stud
In the background are my favorite type of palms: other people's.  I don't know what it costs to have a 40' cherry picker rig, a dump truck and a cleanup crew over every year to remove the dead growth but I'm glad I'm not paying the bill.

We'd been keeping an eye out for a horse sculpture for some time, can't live on Stallion Lane without a stallion don't you know.  Although it has no dangly thingies I assure you it's a stud.  Dare I say, 'Just like its owner?'  No, best not.  T'would spoil my image.  You know, that image of a modest, tactful, soft-spoken, self effacing person I've so carefully cultivated, lo these many years.  Nyuk, nyuk.

Saguaro Cactus, the other metal sculpture Yoda mentioned.

The decorative rock around the bases of the sculptures is 'blurple' as in black and purple.  I didn't make that up, guy who sold the rock called it that.  How could one not love blurple?

The upper terrace with the new residents.

That's Grunt the warthog in upper right and Liza the lizard in middle right.

Bucephalus

Bucephalus is a:
A.  Small edible mushroom.
B.  Venereal disease.
C.  Horse.
D.  Heavy wool tunic.
E.  Snail.

Want a clue?  Sure, why not.  For a change of pace, I asked Yoda to write the clue (he didn't really die in that light saber fight after all).  Here you go:

"Sick of the Mediterranean Fan Palms I was!  Nasty sharp thorns on the stems they had, fronds the rabbits always eating they were, the view each year more blocking they were.  The hell out, them I ripped; sprinkler heads I removed.  To local Mexican yard-art shop I went, there two metal sculptures I bought.  One a horse is."

The correct answer is horse.  Bucephalus was the name of Alexander (you can call me Al) the Great's war horse.

Al and Bucephalus

One sunny day in 343 BC, Al and his dad, Philip II of Macedonia, were in Thessaly on a horse buying expedition.  They spotted a superb black stallion with a superbly high price: 16 talents.  A talent equaled roughly 60 pounds of gold, so the owner wanted nearly a half ton of gold for the beast.  Phil wasn't about to pay that kind of money for an unbroken/unproven horse so he instructed his attendants to do a test drive.  The attendants did their best, but were unable to ride the horse.  Finally, Phil said, 'That horse is worthless.  We're outta here.'

'No!  Wait!' shouted 13 year-old Al.  'Dad, I'll wager the entire 16 talents that I can ride that horse!'  Everybody thought that was pretty funny.  When the laughing subsided, Phil told Al to go ahead, thinking, this will teach the lad not to make foolish bets.  Turns out, Al's a horse whisperer-type, plus he'd noticed the horse was afraid of its own shadow.  Literally.  He calmed the horse, faced it into the sun, mounted up and rode it around a bit.

Prior to inheriting the throne from his assassinated father at age 20, Al was tutored by none other than Aristotle.  At age 22 he hopped on Bu and headed off to conquer the world - which he pretty much did over the next 8 years, never losing a single battle.  Al was unable to complete his empire building plans because he was laid low by a deadly fever, malaria or typhoid most likely, and died at age 33.  Some sources say that Bu lived to a similar age.

I was gonna write about the 2 metal sculptures I just bought but got sidetracked with the story of Al and Bu.  The sculpture details will be in the next post.  So, why did I go on and on about Bucephalus anyway?  Because that's the name I gave to the new horse sculpture, and I wanted readers to know that it is indeed a noble steed.

2013 Summer Recap

We left LHC on 5-21 and returned 8-29, several days earlier than planned.  We owe our early return to Trish's hurting leg, the Ram's transmission issue, and a last minute entry - RV batteries not holding a charge.  Trish has a doctor appointment next Friday.  The Ram hasn't acted up since we left Colorado, is going into the shop next week.   The RV batteries are at a local shop being tested, early indications pointing to pilot error rather than faulty batteries.

1.  We towed the RV 4550 miles.

2.  The Ram was driven 6398 miles.  The large difference between these 2 figures is due to our stay in the Santa Fe condo in June; the RV didn't move for 30 days.  Overall MPG was 10.7, better than expected.

3.  Cheapest gas was in New Mexico - as it was 4 years ago.

4.  We had several delightful stays at the homes of family and friends.  At, not in.  We sleep in the RV even if there are guest beds available.  We try to be noninvasive guests. Thank you Heidi and Gary, Al and Gin, Gerry and Linda, and especially Terry and Lisa (the 'especially' is because we plagued them for 2 whole weeks!).

5.  Of the various state and national parks/monuments we visited, Rocky Mt NP was the winner by a landslide.  I'm not saying it's my favorite park in the national system but it's right up there.  It's pretty impressive to be camped at 10,000' elevation and still have to crane your neck to view the fourteeners that surround you.  And then there's the wildlife: elk, mule deer, big horn sheep, all up close and personal.

6.  We love the Cougar 5th wheel!  It performed admirably rain or shine, a comfortable, cozy, well-sized rig that fills our needs.  Trish can quilt while I siesta; I can work on my computer in the wee hours when normal people (like Trish) are sleeping; and the dinette allows us to have dinner guests and 4-person card games.  The Cougar floor plan is quite popular.  Many RV makers use the same layout, tweaking it here and there to give buyers more choices.

Summer 2014 is already in the planning stages.  We'll spend most of our time in the NW quarter of the US, maybe venture into British Columbia and maybe hit a few favorite California spots along the way.

Dogs and Deeres

The monsoons finally let up enough for a campfire last night so we did the dogs and marshmallows.  1 dog for Trish, 2 for me, 3 dog night.  I didn't do a body count on the marshmallows.

As for the other dogs:

Ranger and Artie posing for the media at Natural Arch, El Malpais NM.

Ranger.

The old gentleman.

He and Artie get along great, have regular wrestling matches.

Above and below pix taken by our good friend Lisa in Buena Vista, CO.  She's a pro photographer and  uses her talent - on a volunteer basis - to help shelter dogs find homes.  She takes attractive pictures of the pooches for newspapers, bulletin boards, etc.

Artie.

The young rascal.

Don't let that angelic look fool you.

She likes to sit in it but can't plow worth a darn.

Picture taken in South Dakota at Trish's friend's farm.  I opted out of the farm tour: been there, done that, and besides it was time for my siesta.  This rig has full cab climate control with A/C, GPS, FM stereo and God knows what else.  Probably has a fridge and microwave, too.   Back in my day when men were men, there was no such thing as enclosed-cab tractors.  We sat on hot steel seats with maybe 5 golf-ball size 'ventilation' holes for comfort; spend several hours on that bugger and you have severe linoleum butt.  We ate dirt, baked in the sun, sweated buckets. 

Farmers nowadays are such pussies!

Walnut Canyon NM

Walnut Canyon National Monument is located 10 miles southeast of Flagstaff.  Yesterday we stopped in at the visitor’s center, watched the introductory film and toured the museum.  There are steep trails that wind 400’ down into the Canyon but we opted out on those.

 

Between 1125 and 1250, the Sinagua Indians built and lived in 100s of small cliff dwellings tucked under the rock shelves that line the canyon walls.  They farmed on the rim, growing corn, squash and beans.  They had to haul drinking water up the steep canyon slopes from Walnut Creek.  The Creek dried up for about 3 months each year so they stored water in clay pots to tide them over.

Taken from near the Visitor Center, cliff dwellings are in center of picture.

They moved out of the area in the late 1200s, probably because they had exhausted nearby supplies of wild game, and timber for cooking and heating.  It is assumed that they were later assimilated into the Hopi tribe.

At 10x zoom, a close up of the dwellings barely visible in the above picture.

Souvenir hunters discovered the dwellings in 1880 and for the next several decades, proceeded to decimate them, even using dynamite to improve access and provide light to the dark interiors.  The hunters didn’t leave much for the archaeologists to find so little is known about the Sinagua way of life.

Walnut Canyon, looking east.

We’ve been camped at Fort Tuthill Park near Flagstaff for 3 nights and will stay 2 more before heading back to the barn.  We bought firewood upon arrival, hoping to enjoy a couple nights of roasting our weenies, warming our buns and (Trish) toasting marshmallows stuffed with dark chocolate.  That hasn’t happened though, due to daily torrential rains.  This area has received roughly 5 times more precipitation than the historical average.  The weather is supposed to improve so maybe we can still roast and toast.

Artist's conception of Sinagua life in the summer.

Winters can be severe at 7000' elevation so they had fires inside the dwellings and swapped out their lightweight cotton summer loincloths for the heavier, warmer, wool ones.  Or the fur ones if it got really cold.  

I wonder: did they climb up to the rim in the frigid winters to conduct their personal business or just hang it over the side - bombs away?  I'm guessing it was the latter and that's why my dwelling would have been located just below the very top shelf.  Talk about your slippery slope!  "You want me to climb down through that mess and fetch a pot of water?  Up yours, Dances With Gophers!  Get it yourself!"

This scenario gives rise to another theory regarding their reason for moving out of the area.  It may have been due to the accumulation of waste rather than the depletion of resources.  After putting up with the waste for 100+ years they just couldn't take it anymore: they were crapped out. 

Grants and Movies

Grants, NM
Once known as the uranium capital of the world, Grants is a sleepy town of 10K souls about an hour east of Gallup.  Nowadays, Grants doesn't seem to have much going for it; tourism and a couple prisons seem to be the main industries.  We're leaving this AM after spending 2 nights.  The RAM has been playing nice since we left Buena Vista.  Maybe it just doesn't like altitudes above 8000'.

El Malpais NM sandstone bluffs overlook, with lava field in background.

The tops of the sandstone bluffs are worn smooth and have several shallow basins full of murky water.

This 6' x 4' basin is full of little polliwogs. 

Natural arch a few miles south of the sandstone bluffs.

El Malpais National Monument is the primary tourism draw, and the Visitor Center is right across the road from our campground.  We stopped there yesterday, prior to driving into the Monument area on highway 117.  El Malpais means 'badlands'.  It's a huge area of black lava flows, extremely rough, the result of several large eruptions over the last million years.  Mt Taylor, one of the volcanoes, lost an estimated 6000' of elevation when it blew its top (bet that scared the crap out of the elk).  Driving south on 117, you see beautiful sandstone bluffs on the left, a vast expanse of lava flows on the right.

Dueling cameras on the natural arch path.

Movies
When we're near a town and have electricity at our campsite, we often get a movie from the nearest Redbox.  Usually, I research potential movies on Flixster, which provides ratings by both critics and random viewers - a very helpful selection tool.  Both Redbox and Flixster are free apps that I've installed on my smart phone.

I neglected to check the rating on the movie I selected 2 nights back.  It had several very accomplished actors and I thought, 'Wow!  With all that talent, it has to be fantastic!'  And it was: fantastically disgusting, gross and mean-spirited, the worst movie I've ever seen.  Partially seen, I should say; 20 minutes was all we could stand.  The name was Movie 43.  Monumental talent monumentally wasted.

When we returned that movie we got another one: Quartet.  It's Dustin Hoffman's first directing attempt, starring Maggie Smith.  I did check the ratings this time.  They were favorable and we found the move quite enjoyable.