Road Trip from Arizona To Maryland And Everywhere In Between

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

I wanted to thank everyone who gave me ideas of what to eat and see along our most recent road trip …
http://www.discusscooking.com/forums/f26/iso-restaurant-and-sightseeing-recommendations-99892.html
Both DH and I had a BLAST!!
And as Missus Dear Friend likes to say
"... and you guys didn't kill each other, again".


So, to catch y'all up...

We started out from our home in Arizona, making our first nights stop in Tumcumcari New Mexico... no place to really write home about. It was simply a stop to rest up, have a meal in our room and motor on …

Dinner -

I prepped one meal ahead of time so that we could just relax our first night, AND there isn't much in Tucumcari
So, it was one of our favorite meals, grilled Teriyaki b/s Chicken thighs, steamed white rice with Aloha Brand Shoyu
(I want to tell you a quick story about these individual packs of Aloha Shoyu--- I "cockaroached" - what we say in Hawaii when you do a five finger discount - some packs while back home in May )
and my quick Cucumber Kim Chee, YUM! Most ono, comforting and we went right to sleep...

 

[Kayelle]

Ohhh goodie!! I love a travel log. Can't wait to hear more!!!

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

Right K-L?
I love to hear about other folks travels, it gives me inspiration, yeah?

I forgot to mention that I had made breakfast for the road too, Blast Off Food as I call it.
We usually leave so early in the AM and we're not really ready to eat then, maybe about an hour or so into our road trip.


[file photo, we were too busy to take "at the time photos"]
I made us Spam Musubi to start us out,
We travel with a cooler behind my seat, full of drinks.
I had bottled water, some juice, Iced Tea, cream for coffee in our hotel room, and a thermos of coffee too! Gotta stay alert!!!

I also always travel with paper plates, plastic forks, spoons and knives...
a coupla rolls of paper towels, TP (ya neva know!), a few old kitchen towels for various uses (mostly to mop up any messes and to use as gross picnic table coverage at rest stops when we stop to have lunch of sandwiches, and yes I have those makings with us too )
I have a plastic milk carton grate that comes with us, filled with my "kitchen goods" which also includes a plastic flexible cutting board, a very inexpensive very sharp knife, S&P grinder containers, snacks, homemade goodies, and don't forget a coupla cases of bottled water and a case of TJ's Three Buck Chuck!
As I say, we travel self-contained! We don't want for much

And NO, we don't drive a HUGE truck, simply a Honda CR-V that now has almost 122,000 miles on it

Come along for the ride, I'll fill you in

 

[JustJoel]

I spent the night once in Tucumcari! Not much to write home about there, except for maybe the name, which is just fun to say!

 

[larry_stewart]

Im not the biggest fan of flying, so over the past few years we've done many road trips (actually doing another one in the fall). Usually our first day's travel snacks are any vegetables we have left in the fridge ( last thing we want to do is come home to a produce draw filled with rotten veggies). We cut up the carrots, celery, cucumbers .... We usually get some apples too. They are pretty good traveling fruit which hold up pretty well. Being vegetarians, we sometimes run into food issues in some remote places, so we always have PBJ on hand , just incase.

Ill be paying attention to this thread for some new ideas.

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

I agree with you JJ, Tucumcari, it's just fun to say...

Yeah Larry, both DH and I are with you! I fly only if we HAVE to.

 

[Rocklobster]

I spent the night once in Tucumcari! Not much to write home about there, except for maybe the name, which is just fun to say!

It's mentioned on a song by Little Feat..good tune, also..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il9VFC6-Inw

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

Next Stop ...

Fort Smith Arkansas

DH and I our huge American History buffs and this stop did not disappoint.

Steve, I had my eye on the Rib Room that you suggested, only thing is, they're closed on Sundays, as many restaurants where here.

So …





Bricktown Brewery, located in a beautiful, historic building! Gorgeous!

We had spent more time than we had expected at the Fort Smith NHS, so it was a late lunch/early dinner for us two.
We shared an order of the Bavarian Pretzel Sticks, and the cheese dip was outstanding!
We each ordered the Bricktown Burger, also quite delicious!
My designated driver had water, while I enjoyed a lovely locally brewed dark Beer, can't remember what it was called but it was great!

We had a pretty nasty storm come in, so it was back to the hotel for refuge.

 

[caseydog]

I wish my recent travels would have been for fun. I was planning to go on a road rally with a whole lot of MINI Cooper owners, but had to work, instead. I traveled a lot, but it wasn't at all fun.

BTW, Rock, Little Feat is one of my favorite bands. I first heard of them when the released Texas Twister -- fell in love with there sound.

Sorry for the thread-jack. Carry on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZKp8_jw4fw

CD

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

It's mentioned on a song by Little Feat..good tune, also..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Il9VFC6-Inw

HA!
DH really likes Little Feat and we had not heard this song before... so I played the video for him and all he could do was laugh!
"... Tucson to Tucumcari … Tehachapi to Tonapah …"
All places we've been.
There's another town name that I love, Tehachapi, it's really beautiful there too, well when the weather cooperates that is

 

[caseydog]

Little Feat is good road-trip music. You can sing along, and make people in other cars wonder if you are talking to yourself.

Road-trip music is a genre of it's own. It makes miles and miles of dull Interstate tolerable.

CD

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

DH didn't know I could sing until we started taking road trips, which by the way, our first road trip was OUR HONEYMOON!
Baltimore to Kennebunkport and back again.
Now we have Sirius Radio and other services through our phones.
We sing, we laugh, we talk ... we really enjoy the open road.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

K-Girl! Looking forward to more installments. So far I'm enjoying the ride-along. BTW, the first time Lovery and I drove out to Tempe AZ to deposit progeny #1 at college, we stopped at the NM visitor's center and asked where a good place to eat would be. The guy at the desk told us to get off in Tucumcari and what roads to turn at to get to a tiny joint at a point in the road - Lena's. The place could not have seated even two dozen, tiny counter with what amounted to a kitchen behind it - and when you needed to use the facilities you had to walk through said kitchen to get to the water closet (it wasn't much more than that). But the FOOD! The next year through, Himself and I were driving Goober back. By then, Lena's had moved to a different, larger place...and the food wasn't as good. A few years later, he and I looked all over for Lena's when making a run to take Goober back to OH, but it had closed.

...Road-trip music is a genre of it's own. It makes miles and miles of dull Interstate tolerable...

You're so right, cd. Jimmy Buffett is my go-to when the other drivers on the road are driving me crazy. Hard to be angry when listening to Buffett!

 

[cjmmytunes]

CG, speaking of Jimmy Buffett, he's doing a song with Kenny Chesney on Kenny's new CD. "Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season"

 

[PrincessFiona60]

You're so right, cd. Jimmy Buffett is my go-to when the other drivers on the road are driving me crazy. Hard to be angry when listening to Buffett!

Always Buffett for the road!

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

Cookville Tennessee

This is not the first time that we've driven to the East Coast.
We've learned a few lessons with that.
One is, don't try to kill ourselves driving such long legs in the journey, remembering that it is the journey.

This was simply an overnighter, no sightseeing at this stop.
And it was a good thing too! DH was quite cranky by the end of this day.
So rather than fuss, we ate a popular chain restaurant.
I thought that this would be easy-peasy, but NOOOOO
That was the worst experience we've ever had at TGI Fridays.
Bad service, slow kitchen, horrible food!
And again, a kick-butt storm rolled in to scare the pee-wade out of me, let me tell you folks!!!

 

[caseydog]

K-Girl! Looking forward to more installments. So far I'm enjoying the ride-along. BTW, the first time Lovery and I drove out to Tempe AZ to deposit progeny #1 at college, we stopped at the NM visitor's center and asked where a good place to eat would be. The guy at the desk told us to get off in Tucumcari and what roads to turn at to get to a tiny joint at a point in the road - Lena's. The place could not have seated even two dozen, tiny counter with what amounted to a kitchen behind it - and when you needed to use the facilities you had to walk through said kitchen to get to the water closet (it wasn't much more than that). But the FOOD! The next year through, Himself and I were driving Goober back. By then, Lena's had moved to a different, larger place...and the food wasn't as good. A few years later, he and I looked all over for Lena's when making a run to take Goober back to OH, but it had closed.

You're so right, cd. Jimmy Buffett is my go-to when the other drivers on the road are driving me crazy. Hard to be angry when listening to Buffett!

I've never been a big Jimmy Buffet fan, but he used to do a concert every year at the soccer stadium a couple miles from my house. The town would be full of "Parrot Heads" for a couple of days. I got a good kick out of the RVs and tailgating set-ups around the stadium. Those people take partying seriously.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txMPXfiDRgw

CD

 

[cjmmytunes]

CD, back in 2003 when the OBX had some severe damage from Hurricane Isabel, Jimmy Buffett and some of his Parrotheads brought a plane full of much needed supplies to help the people of coastal Dare and Hyde counties. My sister and her husband got to meet him.

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

The Family Gathering In Virginia





We made it!
Huddleston Virginia, Smith Mountain Lake.

Most of the gang had rented a lake front home; DH's older Brother rented another home just a few doors away for his crew, but we opted for a small condo down the shore a bit, maybe 10 minutes away, it worked great.
We all would gather during the later morning hours and recreate together.








[this is DH's youngest sister's husband, I call him my favorite brother-in-law]
Our Captain above-mainly because he was the one in the group who was licensed to drive a boat! We had a nice boat, kayaks, jet skies, canoes, stand up paddle boards and lots of floaties! I liked the pink flamingos!


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWqcAWEX-C8

It was a blast with all the kids!
In total, there are 25, no now 26


Dear Niece #3 is now engaged. So romantic, her beau proposed at sunset, while paddling her around the lake in a canoe. It was a hoot! All of us were lined up on the deck of the house, waiting for them to come back … she throw her hand, with it's beautiful new sparkly ring on it, up in the air and screams "I said yes! HEH! You guys all knew?"
It's too big of a family to keep a secret!

We're here for a week, YAY!!

 

[Kayelle]

Ohh what a great family gathering Kgirl. I really like the sleeping arrangements for the end of fun filled days. Perfect!!!