0045 - Big day out!

Yesterday we took the Dodge to a dealership in Cookeville for a recall on the tie-rod, and during that process they determined that we also needed to replace our front and rear brake pads. Yipes! Since that was going to take most of the day to complete, we rented a car and set off about our business.

Item one on the agenda... I really don't know why we try...  seriously, we must thive on calamity. Mexican food. It's a neverending quest fraught with disappointment and gastronomic peril. We pulled up reviews this time, and we decided to try Pueblo Viejo. Once again the salsa came in a carrafe, which I think is cool but never seems to bode well... but I have to admit it was the best salsa yet. Still tasted like it came from a jar, but it had chunks of onion, and I saw tiny pieces of what appeared to be fresh cilantro.

Where they lost us was the main course... my steak tacos were not two distinct soft tacos with rice, beans, sour cream and guacamole on the side (as pictured on the menu)... instead it was smothered in rice and none of the rest of that stuff was anywhere to be seen. But... mine still appeared to be edible. Mike's on the other hand... I could only laugh (nervously) when I saw it. The taco was normal. The chile relleno looked like someone took a pile of baby shit, melted some cheese on it and the rest of the plate was a large puddle of refried beans. The relleno itself was completely flat and no more than 1-1/2" in diameter. The waitress asked us if everything looked good and Mike said no, then asked where his relleno was. He ultimately sent it back, I packed mine up to go and we moved on. No point in dawdling.

Still determined, we made our way over to El Tapatio. I figured Tapatio sauce is one of Mike's favorite things ever, and there were a ton of cars outside... maybe it was a sign. They even had margaritas and beer, whereas PV didn't. The salsa had oregano in it, I kid you not. It was one of the most disgusting things I've ever put in my mouth. In the backwoods maybe you can convince people that oregano belongs in salsa, but Cookeville is a decent-sized town and they should know better. The fajitas, however, were pretty good and Mike seemed happy with his dish. Still... we are underwhelmed by the selection of Mexican food in Cookeville, Granville, Gainesboro and Carthage.

After that we went to the Del Monaco winery in Baxter. The wine was good, we tried several and came home with several. I'm digging the muscadine, it has a sweet muscadine flavor with a nice honey finish. My favorite two things though, are the salsa cheese... sooooo tasty, almost like Parmesan with a mellow pepperjack flavor but you can taste a hint of tomato. And my new wine glass that has a flower painted around the outside. It's a big improvement from the plain old drinking glass I was using, at least I feel more sophisticated when I'm using it.

Today we headed toward Murfreesboro, which is about 67.9 miles from where we currently "reside." You see... in Murfreesboro they have one of these:

And that ^ is like crack to me. I haven't been in one of those ^ in about four months - not even online... I am a voracious reader, I got separation anxiety. I damn near went into hysterics when we pulled into the parking lot. Ask Mike, he called me gently retarded or something like that.

So... I used gift cards to get about eight books (I did NOT go crazy - you shut it!):

• Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness is the sequel to a book I picked up in Dubai called A Discovery of Witches. It was surprisingly good for something I randomly chose and I was hoping there would be more from her. Even better, since it just came out it was 30% off.

• I pre-ordered A Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling. I didn't even know what it was about, I just know that I loved Harry Potter, and when I find an author I like, I will read every single book they publish until they stop entertaining me. After reading the description I'm not sure what to think, but I'm putting my faith in JKR.

• I love the Vampire Academy series by Richelle Meade and when I saw that she had begun a new series based off of one of the characters I decided it was worth a look. So I picked up Bloodlines to see if I like it.

• Anita Blake is one of my favorite characters ever, she's such a badass too complicated to explain in a short paragraph, but she's spunky and interesting and I like her. Sometimes the author, Laurell K. Hamilton, goes in a direction I don't particularly care for with her romantic scenes, but overall I enjoy the series and I am quite addicted. When Borders when out of business I picked up what they had in stock, but there was a gap, so I filled in that gap tonight with Skin Trade, Flirt... and the new one was out for 30% off so I went ahead and grabbed that one, too. Excuses? I got 'em by the truckload!

• Another series I enjoy is the Undead and... series by Mary Janice Davidson. It's about a vampire queen/shopping addict who doesn't want to be a vampire queen. It's what most people call a beach read, a quick, easy, entertaining story. I don't usually pick up books that make me laugh, but the series is hilarious. So I picked up Undead and Unappreciated, and Undead and Unreturnable.

• I just finished Summer and the City by Candace Bushnell, which is a prequel to Sex and the City. It was interesting to see how the characters met, and how little sex was in the books compared to the television show. Yeah they still talked about it, but Carrie was a virgin, Samantha was engaged, Miranda wasn't an attorney yet, and you didn't meet Charlotte until the end of the book... totally different. The strangest part is that Sarah Jessica Parker was so intrinsically Carrie for me, that the whole book was in her voice with her inflections... all the characters were.

After that we drove around and ran across The Trail of Tears and The Stones River National Battlefield. The hard part about visiting a battlefield is that it is a just a field and you have to use your imagination to replay what took place or you miss out. So the battlefield itself wasn't much to look at without the historical perspective, but the cemetery... my god... so many dead. If the numbers started at 1, there were 5,138 grave markers, and some of those contained the remains of multiple soldiers. Try to imagine it, it was a sea of grave markers that went on forever.

With our cell phones this is the best we could do:

After that we went to a gun shop and range to look around for a bit and then I decided I was hungry. Mike pointed out a Carrabba's earlier in the day, and a Chuy's, so I'd been pretty much obsessing about the two of them all day like some lovesick, half-starved third-world child. Carrabba's won out because we've had so much Mexican "food" lately... but I swear... next time I have a craving for Mexican and I don't want to cook it myself - we're heading to Chuy's. I'm done with the local crap. I wanted to eat locally and support the small businesses, but at the end of the day, I want something that doesn't make me want to gag. Oh - and they have Marble Slab and WingStop too. If they can squeeze a Pappa's Seafood House in there, and a Lupe Tortilla, I'd have just about all my favorite places in one spot.

0044 - Wastrel

Today was pretty much a waste. It's been drizzly all day and we didn't really go anywhere. In some respects it was nice to not leave the house for a change... first time we've done that since we hit the road... but... after a while, we both get a little stir crazy. And there seems to be a universal truth... when you're stuck at home all day... and you have a ton of channels... there is still nothing good on tv.

The highlights of my day were as follows...

I washed dishes.

I made sandwiches for lunch.

I washed dishes.

I applied for several jobs and joined a few survey sites.

We watched almost all of the Lonesome Dove mini-series - which is really a brutal story, yet somehow intriguing at the same time. So many recognizable faces... such a compelling story.

I made pasta for dinner and we watched a show about the Hudderites. They're an interesting people... almost Amish, but not. They said 'pissed off' and 'damn' a lot. Speaking of the Amish, I boiled some Amish-made pasta, sauteed some garlic and an onion in butter and olive oil, then I added chopped pancetta to that while I cut up some mushrooms. After all that cooked down I added the juice of a lemon, and about 2 Tbsp of butter to tie it all together and tossed the pasta in once it was finished cooking. It was a little like chicken picatta without the chicken or capers... dangit, I forgot the capers! And I didn't have any parmesan.

Then I washed dishes.

And after that we made a dash for the local convenience store for ice cream. It was 6:47... they close at 7:00. They looked disappointed to see us until we said we wanted ice cream. For a whole five minutes (roundtrip), we were out of the house. If it wasn't raining we would have walked and still made it in plenty of time, it's that close.

It's still raining. I can't tell if it's night time because it looks the same as it did two hours ago.

Oh, and in case you're wondering... Mike had a similar day.  :-)

Insert clever segue to random RV-related thoughts here -->

Cooking in an RV is slightly different than cooking in a regular kitchen. For one thing, there are three burners, which seems to be exactly the right number for my needs... usually I need two max, but on occasion I use all three. Only downside to the burners is that the grate openings are too large for some of my smaller pans and cause them to be slightly off-kilter or, in order to get them level, they end up slightly off-center of the flame. Also... if something falls out of the pan... like... a noodle... I have to make sure to get it out of the flame because I don't want to set the RV on fire.

I am getting used to cooking with gas and actually like it, at least on the stovetop; I've only used the oven once and the hiss was a bit disconcerting to me, plus I have to get Mike to light it for me (kitchen is so small that I can't see anything when he points and attempts to explain what I'm looking for... to open the oven door I have to move to the side).

Seems like things cook more quickly using gas, and I can control the temperature to a finer degree. Sometimes in my quest to cook on low heat, I accidentally extinguish the flame. It's nothing more than an annoyance *if* I notice that the flame went out, but a couple of times it didn't go out immediately, so I thought something was still cooking... and only later realized that it wasn't.

Mom used to tell me that gas set off my asthma attacks. So far I haven't had any issues. I can only think that I either grew out of that, or that things are much improved since the '70's. I can certainly smell it when the pilot is being lit, but it fades when the flame comes on... I'm still somewhat nervous about explosions. Yes, seriously - if you only knew some of the things that went on in my head...

I find it strange that we have self-leveling jacks, and the control panel claims that we are level... and yet, the butter in my saute pan pools to one side instead of spreading out of the center of the pan. Seems like every oven I've ever owned has had that issue.

Then there are the dishes. We have exactly four plates and four bowls. There are two of us. Technically I could get away with using two for lunch and the other two for dinner... but even if I wanted to let them sit, harden, and attract bugs, they do take up valuable counter space. We pile them in the sink, but in order to use the sink I still have to wash them, because the other side of the sink is where the dish drainer resides. That means, every time we eat, I end up doing dishes. I do dishes and laundry a lot more than I used to. I am the dishwasher. Mike helps sometimes... my point is that we don't have a dishwasher that does the work for us, so it's up to us, and our space is smaller so any little thing adds to the clutter and claustrophobia.

The refrigerator is also quite a bit smaller than the one we had before. I was used to shopping about once a month, mostly because I abhorred grocery shopping. As a result, yesterday's sojourn to Kroger was a little overdone. I managed to squeeze all the refrigerated items into the refrigerator, but a lot of pantry items are still on the counter, and all of our drinks are in coolers. It makes the space feel cluttered. We're going to have to adjust... to get into a once a week shopping mindset. The other thing that takes some getting used to is the temperature... it just doesn't get as cold as a normal refrigerator. We have read about putting fans inside to recirculate the air, some people say it helps, we may have to try it out and see. It takes a while to cool things down... about four hours will get a cool drink... six hours might make it cold.

Trash also seems to pile up at an alarming rate. We brought the trashcan we had at home with us, I guess it's 13-gallons. The one that came with the RV is about half that size and thank goodness we didn't use that. Seems like we fill up a bag every two days or so. Even if we didn't, sometimes odor necessitates that it be taken out anyway... onion scraps are especially stinky. Since we don't have a garbage disposal, we can't just toss things down the drain, so any uneaten food, any grease left in the pan, any scraps... it all goes into the trashcan.

And that's your RV lesson for the day. There are adjustments. And yes, there will be an exam on Monday.

Feel free to comment (yes, this is me begging)... I know you guys read my blog and it feels like we're keeping in touch... but if I don't get feedback, it's a one-sided conversation. It's a little lonely out here without most of our friends and family around. We have each other, and we've met some cool people, but comments and emails really brighten my day.

Gonna settle in and watch Flash Gordon. I remember seeing it in the theaters when I was about 7'ish. We were either living in Mississippi, or visiting, so we all piled into my aunt's brand new van and headed to the big city. The theater was one of those really fancy ones with red velvet curtains in front of the screen that opened when the movie started. I hated the part where Flash stuck his hand in that tree stump. And I got so, so sick. In my aunt's brand new van... she didn't appreciate it. And once we got back to grandma's things took a turn for the worse... I have never been so sick in all my life. Good times...

0043 - Torrent

It rained last night. It rained again this morning. It may rain again this evening. That's okay, we need it. Only thing about rain in a rural area... is mud. There's always mud. Mud in the truck. Mud on the steps. Mud in the entryway.

We finally got to eat at Clippers and it was the best meal I've had in the Cumberland area. Just simple burgers and fries, you grab your drink out of the cooler and pay at the counter. They have such odd hours that we've been trying for weeks and they were always closed.

After lunch it was on to Cookeville. We scheduled some maintenance on the Dodge. There was a tie-rod recall that was supposedly taken care of and... it wasn't. So we're dropping it off on Friday for that.

And we found a Kroger. As much as I love small town markets... I love me some Kroger. They've got brands I recognize. They've got red leafy lettuce. They have So Delicious coconut milk. They have pancetta. We went a little crazy... I admit it. Dinner was easy as a result... rotisserie chicken, olive bread I threw into the toaster, hoppin' john from a can, and cucumber slices mixed with a feta dressing. For dessert I'm going to make this "ice cream" because it sounds good and it is healthy.

Looks tasty, doesn't it?

I'll let you know how it goes. :)

0042 - Today's Adventure

It rained last night! A hard rain! And it's been dark and drizzly all day today.

We have decided we need to start being more active, so we walked across the bridge and down a trail, all told it was probably about a mile roundtrip. Along the way we took pictures of things that caught our eye.

If you click the pictures they get bigger. I know this makes Stacy happy. :)

Mike took this one. There are these HUGE ants everywhere around here... just flicked one off my recliner a minute ago, I wouldn't want to get bitten by one that's for sure. Anyway, he does a lot of cool textural pics, and I call this one Ant on a Log. I amuse myself so.

I took these two because these little lacy flowers intrigue me. When the flowers die, the stems all close up and look like a little basket.

I like taking pics where the water is framed by interesting tree limbs. I took several of the mountainous area behind the lake, but there's nothing to show the scale and it all gets lost... just doesn't translate well on camera because I can't get a wide enough angle to do it justice.

I thought this driftwood was interesting.

Mike's pic. I love the single rain drop near the bottom of the leaf.

Mike again, just cool texture and color.

Mike. Neat flowers.

Me. I thought the white fencing behind it helped the colors pop.

Mike. I LOVE this photo, how the wood disappears into the water, the color. It's amazing.

Me. Mimosa limbs and a butterfly on the lower right.

Mike. Moss on a tree.

Me. Love how this flower draped over the guardrail. Mike pointed the flowers out to me and then we kept finding them everywhere. Once I took the pic, the bee started flying around... I didn't know he was there until then. If I had *tried* to get him in the pic it wouldn't have worked... never does for me anyway.

The End.

0041 - Doo-Dah and Picture Catch-up

You try coming up with interesting blog titles... And by the way, I finally got around to downloading pics from my phone and Mike's camera. If I don't find a camera soon I'm going to break down and buy another one because my phone has been highly disappointing and there is so much to photograph around here.

So... today I made yummy pasta with Amish made noodles and some tomatoes we got at the farm market. A couple of cloves of elephant garlic, a couple of nice juicy tomatoes, half an onion, lots of salt, olive oil and butter. Delicious. Dinner was chile pie. Simple but good. And we didn't eat out once today! Woo-hoo!

Then we ran errands in town... made some phone calls... mailed some mail... made a deposit... Boring stuff. Except that I got one phone call to let us know that we won a $75 gift card to Camping World, and a free 3-night/4-day stay at an RV park in Huntsville, AL. Yes, we have to attend a 90 minute sales presentation for a timeshare, but as luck would have it - we needed to be in Huntsville because one of Mike's buddies is coming home from the Middle East. So it was somewhat fortuitous, and we can spare 90 minutes.

After that there was a spontaneous detour to Cummins Falls State Park. Been wanting to stop in. We've driven by it a few times, and anything with a waterfall makes me happy. It isn't a very large park, but you can take different trails to go to just the viewing platform, or all the way to the falls themselves. It's free to go in, which is also nice. We may go back, the trails go up and down the mountainside and it was a good workout. Sort of a juxtaposition between relaxing and invigorating. I was a little jealous... there were people swimming and it looked so refreshing... it's fuh-reakin' hot out there.

Wow! Look! Pictures!

Mike shot this and I thought it was interesting. There were several versions but I liked the contrast between the vegetation and the rock. That's my docent speech for the evening.

Love the roots. We stayed there for 15 minutes taking pictures from different angles.

Fallen tree with branches sticking up. Looks like a wooden flower.

Mike took this one too. I wonder if he was thinking what I am thinking. Cuz... I call this picture... Trees Having Sex. You're welcome.

So... going back in time... this was Catherine's Landing in Hot Springs, AR.

This tree has a weiner.

And this is us cruising around the backwoods of TN... looking for property... connecting the dots...

Seen lots of these... on the side of the road pretty close by. This one was off in the distance a bit. It sat there patiently posing while we wrestled the camera out of the case and got everything sorted out.

Heading toward Granville there is water everywhere. It's gorgeous. This actually doesn't do it justice but we keep forgetting to take a picture when we're driving over the bridge.

Mike was in seventh heaven at Cyclemos in Red Boiling Springs. For me, it was neat to see all kinds of older motorcycles.

Indian fire extinguisher. That's Indian motorcycle, not Native American.  (just making sure)

My happy, smiling hunny.

A bridge between Kentucky and Indiana.

And last... and least.... the worst nachos I've ever had. Or as I call them... nacho soup. Who would even serve that? But this is typical of what we've been experiencing when we try out a new Mexican restaurant out here... *sadness*

I'll try to be better about posting pics in the future. :)