Foodie Find – Page 12

Pizza Roundup Long Draw Pizza

By Littlest | February 18, 2016

Long Draw Pizza is a really good pizza place in the Ghosttown of Terlingua, Texas.

There were only two people working the night we went and they did a good job keeping up with everyone’s orders. One of the rules at Long Draw is no cell phones. While I was taking the picture above, the waitress gave me a hard time about taking pictures (that’s why the picture is so blurry). She was smiling and laughing when she gave me a hard time so I’m not sure if they really stick to that rule or if it was because my mom told her about my blog posts.

I liked the names of the pizzas! They were all different instead of the usual names.

I got the Rio Grande!

We also got a Six Shooter and a Cactus Jack! The sauce here was so good! I mean, the whole pizza was good, but the sauce was different from what you usually get. It’s their secret recipe.

One of the neatest things about this place is the live music!

Between the amazing pizza, the live music and the clean bathrooms I give Long Draw Pizza a 5 star review.

If you have a cellphone out and are taking pictures, be sneaky with it!

See you next time on Pizza street!

Alamogordo

By Jennie Simpson | January 28, 2016

We’d heard that there was going to be a snow storm the day we were supposed to drive down to Alamogordo, NM so we got started as early as we could and hoped for the best. We hadn’t driven but maybe an hour before we ran right smack dab into the front edge of a blizzard. Luckily, we kept just ahead of it the entire time we high-tailed it down to our RV park in Alamogordo. The people at the RV Park told us they’d heard the area would get 7 inches of snow that night. We had big plans for the next day so 7 inches of snow didn’t sound great. When we got up the next morning, we didn’t see any snow at all, but when we got out we quickly discovered all of the roads leading out of town were closed. Apparently, the rest of New Mexico was closed due to the blizzard. We went back to the RV and regrouped. We spent that first day at a Hastings where we checked out the movies, games, and books. It was kind of a nice relaxing day. Usually, our weekends are go, go, go.

We ended up eating lunch at Rockin’ BZ Burgers where we had the best green chili cheeseburger in New Mexico. This place is solidly at the top of our list for burgers. Littlest got the fried pickles and they were surprisingly good! We ended up eating here twice…in one week!

The main reason we came to Alamogordo was to visit White Sands National Monument. In the photo above you can see the Sierra Blanca which is 67 miles away from WSNM.

The RV Park we stayed at had sleds we could borrow so we could go sand sledding! Yup, you read that right…sand sledding! If you don’t have your own sleds, the visitor center has them for $10 apiece.

We had to find the highest sand dune we could to slide down and then we had a contest as to who slid the farthest.

When we got there, the visitor center was packed. It was so bad I had second thoughts about going into the park. I was afraid we’d just be waiting in line to go down the dune. You can see how crowded it was in the picture above. Ha! There was enough room for everyone to spread out and stay out of each other’s way. It was wonderful!

There’s not much wildlife at this National Park, but we did see a few signs of birds and some tracks we thought were from a kit fox.

We had the best time at this National Park! There wasn’t a ton of trails to hike and the park isn’t the biggest one or the prettiest we’ve been to, but there were so many opportunities for fun here.

We spent an entire day driving the Billy The Kid National Scenic Byway.

Our first stop on the scenic byway was the Lincoln Historic Site where we learned everything you could possibly want to know about Billy The Kid

and the Lincoln County War. I won’t give you an entire history lesson here…but I will tell you I didn’t know the whole story. In a time and place where the law wasn’t really the law, The Kid stood up for what he believed to be right and he paid for it with his life.

Many of the buildings that were around during the Lincoln County War are still standing. We got to see the Courthouse that Billy escaped from.

And a hole in the wall that might have been from a bullet Billy fired as he was attempting his famous escape.

The boys earned probably the coolest badge so far at Lincoln Historic Site. It looks like a Sheriff’s badge.

After we left Lincoln, we stopped at Fort Stanton. We saw a short video about the Fort and walked around the grounds. The Fort opened in 1855 and was used for several different purposes through the years until it was designated as a state monument in 2007.

The next stop on the scenic byway was at Capitan, NM and the Smokey Bear Historical Site.

The boys had been looking forward to this for a long time. They both are Smokey Bear fans. We spent a couple of hours going through the museum and working on the Junior Ranger booklets.

We got to see where Smokey is buried.

This was one of the hardest Junior Ranger booklets they’ve done, but they got some pretty cool S.W.A.G. for their effort! We were starving by the time we made it out of the Smokey Bear Historical Site so we headed for Ruidoso, NM and a burger joint called Hall Of Flame Burger. It was a super good burger, but I didn’t get any pictures. We were that hungry. We, of course, got the green chili cheese burgers, but we couldn’t really taste the green chilies. Beyond that, the burger was top notch. The place was small and packed and we were lucky to get seats.

I finally got a picture of a Roadrunner! They are so difficult to get a photo of! Fast little buggers.

It’s a pistachio.

There were two different pistachio orchards right across the highway from where we stayed. We could see one from our RV and it was constantly busy. So, we thought we should probably check it out. We stopped at both, but our favorite was McGinn’s Pistachio Tree Ranch.

You could go in and taste pistachios and pecans and…wine! The store smelled heavenly when we walked in and I was super excited to see that they had ice cream! It was a fun way to spend a few hours

and we walked away with a few purchases!

This was our last week in New Mexico and we started panicking about the prospect of no New Mexican chilies…so we stocked up. This isn’t all of what we ended up with, but it’s a good portion of it. And yes, we are already planning a return trip to The Land Of Enchantment…and chilies.

See y’all down the road!

#newmexicochiliaddict

Santa Fe, the City Different

By Jennie Simpson | January 20, 2016

Santa Fe is the only Capital City in the United States that can claim both the oldest Capital City as well as one of the newest Capital Cities. Are you confused? How can it be the oldest and still be considered one of the newest?

The Palace of the Governors is the oldest capitol. It has been the seat of Spanish, Mexican and American governments over the last 405 years as of 2015. There’s a new Capitol Building and now the Palace of Governors is a museum. In the photo above you can see all of the local artists who gather around the building to sell their crafts. If you want to get an authentically made souvineer, this is the place to come.

This is the new Capitol Building.

Every Capitol Building is different. You can get an idea of what’s really important to the city or state by what’s inside. The Santa Fe building has a gorgeous dome. I love the colors.

The inside of the New Mexico Capitol Building, you’ll find art. Which, might not surprise you when you consider there are over 250 art galleries in just a two-square-mile area in Santa Fe.

One of our favorite pieces was this buffalo head. It was made with all kinds of spare bits and pieces.

Before we get too far into this post…let me just go ahead and answer the question that several of you have asked me. Yes, there really are dried chilies hanging everywhere in Santa Fe. Everywhere. Doors, windows, porches, fences…if you can hang something from it, there’s probably chilies there. Inside and outside. Personally, I love it!

When I planned New Mexico…many, many months ago, I found out about the Loretto Chapel and its “miraculous staircase”.

The Chapel is no longer a working Chapel, but you can pay to go inside and look around and take all the pictures you want.

You can see the “miraculous staircase” in the photo above. What makes it so miraculous? It has 33 steps in two full 360° turns. Still unimpressed? How about the fact that it doesn’t have a center support and it’s not held up by side supports either. You can’t actually go on the staircase or touch it. They have it roped off, but you can get close enough to appreciate the craftsmanship and the beauty of it.

Between the art, spicy food, and chocolate houses…there’s something for everyone here. I’ve never seen so many chocolate houses in one city! Notice the Green Chili Caramels? I told you they put chilies in everything!

We, of course, had to try several different restaurants in Santa Fe! The plate above is from Posa’s Tamale Factory. We headed there in search of a place to get our Christmas tamales. I got to try my first calabacitas (which turned out to be squash) here.

Posa’s Tamale Factory has been pumping out tamales since the 1950s. They provide tamales to many of the restaurants and stores in Santa Fe. You can see the packaging area through the glass windows in the photo above.

The Sopapilla Factory was right across the highway from where we stayed. They had some really good food!

We kept hearing about Tomasita’s. The food was ok, but we did find the biggest, fluffiest sopapillas we’ve seen so far!

Another place we kept hearing about is Santa Fe Bite for its green chili cheeseburger. This would be a good time to mention that Santa Fe is the green chili cheeseburger capital of the world. The world. Confession: Jerl is the only one of us that actually got a green chili cheeseburger here. You can see a pic of it in the photo above. He said it was a great burger, but he couldn’t really taste the green chilies. My advice…go to Blake’s Lottabuger (you can find Blake’s in all the bigger cities in New Mexico). It’s a better burger and is a third the cost.

We made it up to Los Alamos for an afternoon. If you don’t know Los Alamos, it’s where the Manhattan Project took place.

We spent several hours learning more about the Manhattan Project at the Bradbury Science Museum. This is a fantastic museum!

This was another wonderful hands-on museum. It was like spending the afternoon doing science experiments

and brain teaser puzzles. They had to kick us out of this museum too so they could close. We’re going to have to start going to these places earlier in the day!

There aren’t many original structures from the Manhattan Project left. There’s a small walking tour you can do, but it was getting dark so we didn’t have time to do it.

Taos wasn’t on our list, but we kept getting asked if we were going to go there. So, we thought maybe we should. Our visit to Taos took up an entire day. We drove The High Road to Taos then took The Low Road back. It made a nice big loop.

We visited the San Francisco de Asis Church. We heard that this church is one of the most photographed and painted churches in the world. The outside was different from what we’d seen before.

It was simply stunning inside. Unfortunately, photos aren’t allowed inside the church so I can’t show you. You’ll just have to go visit it yourself so you can see it!

Downtown Taos is pretty small. There’s a walking tour of it that we did. Taos kind of reminds me of a small ski village.

Taos has an elevation of between 7,000 and 8,000 feet. There’s a ski resort not too far away.

We walked around the Plaza. It was originally a fortified shelter and marketplace.

It wouldn’t be a true day trip without sampling some local fare…We found ourselves at a place called Orlando’s. It was small and brightly decorated.

Not only was Orlando’s the most authentic place we’ve eaten at,

but it was also the second most expensive place we’ve eaten on this trip. The food was amazing. We finally got to try posolé here and we learned about a third type of chili sauce…caribe! Caribe is totally different from the red and green chili we’ve been having. In the photo above, you can see all three chilies. Red, green, then caribe (on the right).

You are looking at the Rio Grande Gorge and Bridge. This is the second highest cantilever bridge in the U.S. Towering at 650 feet above the river, the bridge makes quite an impression. You can park at the rest stop and walk out on the bridge and look down into a canyon that would be deeper than the Grand Canyon if it wasn’t filled with so much silt.

One of the popular things to do in Taos is go to the pueblo. We went, but when we found out it’s $16 a piece to go walk around it…we passed. I’m sure the pueblo is nice, but I’m not going to pay that much to just go walk around it and then have to pay more on top of that for the tour. Maybe if we hadn’t already been to so many other fabulous pueblos…maybe. We saw the teepee above on our way out of town while driving on The Low Road back to our home on wheels. I couldn’t pass up the chance to get a photo of it.

That’s all folks! That’s our time in the Santa Fe area! We will definitely be back to this area at some point!

See y’all down the road!

Pizza Roundup Back Road Pizza

By Littlest | January 6, 2016

Back Road Pizza is a super tasty pizza place in Santa Fe, New Mexico!

You can get sandwiches, salads, calzones, and pizza.

The decor was cool. The staff designed and painted the pizza pans (I think that makes it even better).

There were pool tables upstairs you could play.

Being in New Mexico, you can even get green chilies on your pizza and I highly recommend it!

The bathrooms are clean and the staff were all really nice. Back Road Pizza totally gets a 5 star review!

I liked it so much I had to get a shirt from there. The shirt is too big, but that’s OK because I can wear it over my sweatshirt!

See you next time on

Pizza Street!

Albuquerque, NM

By Jennie Simpson | December 30, 2015

We had the best time in Albuquerque!! I’ll try not to make this post super long, but I’ll warn you now, it is picture heavy and includes a couple of really short videos.

One of the most important things you’ll need to know before visiting New Mexico is that they love their chilies. Every restaurant we went into (and we went into quite a few here) offered chili on everything. If you know us, you know that we consider ourselves to be pepper-bellies…lovers of all things spicy. New Mexicans are not playing around with the spice.

This is what New Mexican food looks like. Kind of like a big plate of goo. The first, and probably our favorite, restaurant in Albuquerque was Sadie’s. The food was amazing and the spice was on point. We all walked out with numb lips and warm bellies.

If you’re familiar with the show Breaking Bad, you might recognize the Twisters logo as that of Los Pollos Hermanos. We ended up eating at Twisters twice. Yep, it’s fast food and yep, it’s that good. I got the Indian Taco both times and was in carb bliss both times.

The burger doesn’t really look like much. Sometimes looks can be deceiving though. Blake’s Lottaburger has one of the best green chili cheeseburgers we’ve found so far in New Mexico. It’s not fancy by any means, the menu is limited, and it’s where all of the locals go.

Are you getting the idea that Albuquerque was a huge foodie town for us? We’ve been looking forward to all of the culinary treats this area has to offer. We also ate at a place called Little Anita’s. It was on par with what we’d been getting…spicy, gooey, huge sopapillas, and super good. The other place we ate at is called Frontier. It was a bit of a letdown. I think it’s one of those places that if you grow up eating there it’s amazing. Kind of like Taco Town for Carthaginians. It’s not that the food at Frontier was bad, in fact it had some of the best tortillas and cinnamon rolls we’ve found in a long time…it’s just that it wasn’t up to the standard of the other places we’d been.

We didn’t just eat. There are a ton of fun things to do in the Albuquerque area. We spent an afternoon looking for petroglyphs at the Petroglyph National Monument.

We did two short hikes

where we had to hunt for the petroglyphs. Sometimes they were super clear while other times we weren’t really sure if the graffiti was old or new.

The boys walked away with both the Junior and Senior Ranger badges and patches.

We spent a couple of hours at the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science. We loved this museum! They had the whole place sectioned off. Each section was numbered and you could follow the numbers and walk through the history of the Earth. They called it Timetracks: Walk Through Time.

The walk starts at Origins and talks about the Big Bang and the creation of the planets.

This was one of the most hands on museums (that isn’t a kids museum) that we’ve found. There was this little visor thing you held in front of your face while looking at the image above.

As you turn the visor the images changes to indicate the changes on earth.

All five us had to play with this before we moved on.

One of the things that made this museum different for us was the way the rooms were put together to create a scene. It wasn’t just a bunch of bones in a boring room.

The Timetracks walk takes you through origins to the day in the cretaceous period when the dinosaurs had a very bad day, all the way to present day.

The boys loved all of the interactive displays. We ran out of time here. The museum was closing as we left and unfortunately, we didn’t have time to go back and finish.

We loved the National Museum of Nuclear Science & History! Yep, we’re nerdy like that.

This museum was also really well laid out. You start by learning about the Periodic Table and make your way to the Manhattan Project. Littlest is checking out a mockup of The Gadget. Take a look at all the National Park badges on that hat! In the sun it looks like a disco ball!

We learned about the Cold War and saw a replica of what a bomb shelter looked like

and what some of the supplies you might have found in a shelter are. Multi-Purpose Food…sounds yummy, right? I have this image of grey gloppy gruel.

The displays take you through Nuclear Medicine, Radiation, Atomic Pop Culture, and then…

we got to play!

I mean, we got to conduct some very interesting, very educational, science experiments.

Even the big kids found something interesting here.

And then this happened. It’s a good thing this was toward the end of the museum because I’m not sure how much of the museum we would have actually seen if this had been first.

We all played with the magnetic blobs. I mean, we all conducted the experiment to see if size really does make a difference.

They had to kick us out of here. Seriously. They were trying to close and we just kept wanting to stay. My little geeks were in science heaven.

In an effort to learn more about the 19 tribes that call this area home, we visited the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center.

We learned more about Native American’s beliefs,

customs,

ways of life,

and art.

We also learned that Native Americans don’t really like being called Native Americans. They prefer to be known by their tribe. I think the biggest thing we learned is that there’s still a lot of animosity between our cultures. I could say more, but I really try to keep this blog a positive, upbeat place.

All in all we had a wonderful experience in Albuquerque and plan on going back someday!

See y’all down the road!

Old Stuff And A Big Hole

By Jennie Simpson | December 18, 2015

That’s quite the title for a post, right? Old Stuff And A Big Hole. Usually, I’ll name a post based on the town we’re staying in, but that doesn’t really work for this area. We stayed 20 miles from Winslow and 30 miles from Flagstaff at the Meteor Crater RV Park. I couldn’t call this post Meteor Crater because that was such a small part of what we saw. So, I went with the title you see. It fits.

Moving on!

The northeast corner of Arizona is chock full of ancient pueblos and dwellings. We find them fascinating and can’t seem to get enough of them. So far, each dwelling or pueblo we’ve seen has been a little bit different than the others. Each providing a new hint or clue as to how people once lived.

Welcome to Walnut Creek Canyon.

We spent an afternoon walking the Island Trail at Walnut Canyon National Monument where the Sinagua people lived more than 800 years ago.

The Sinagua weren’t the first to live in Walnut Canyon. Artifacts found there show people were in the area more than 1,400 years ago.

The Island Trail takes you by big boulders perched precariously above the trail and down 240 stairs. It’s not the down that gets you…it’s the up and the fact that you’re almost 6,000 feet above sea level.

Down in the canyon there are these sandstone rock formations. The diagonal lines or cross-bedding shows a record of the changing winds. Those used to be sand dunes.

The cliff dwellings were built between 1125 and 1250. The builders took advantage of natural recesses in the limestone walls to build their homes.

There are some amazingly preserved homes at Walnut Canyon. The doors would have been covered with whatever they had (like an animal skin) with a gap at the bottom. See the little cutout in the wall above the door? It’s a pretty ingenious design. The air enters the home through the gap in the door then circulates through the home and takes the smoke from the fire with it out through the hole at the top of the wall above the door.

Sometimes a picture will explain it better. See the square at the bottom right of the photo above? That shows how the smoke would be carried out of their home.

This photo gives you a better idea of what the dwellings used to look like.

We spent an entire day between the Sunset Crater Volcano National National Monument and the Wupatki National Monument. There’s a 35 mile scenic drive that connects these two parks.

Sunset Volcano last erupted about 800 years ago. This eruption is the most recent in a six-million-year history of volcanic activity in this area. The photo above was taken on the A’a Trail.

The boys loved seeing icicles hanging from the old lava flow.

Here’s a picture of Littlest standing in front of one of the flows so you can see how tall they are. And yep, that’s snow you see!

At the top of the Lenox Crater Trail we were rewarded with a wonderful view of the San Franciso Peaks. Interesting fact…the San Franciso Peaks used to be one big volcano.

Here’s a shot of Sunset Volcano. There’s not a trail to the top to actually see the crater which we thought was a big bummer. But apparently there was so much damage done by people trekking up there it’s now a big no no. Personally, I think if you name a National Park after something there should be a maintained trail to see it.

After an eruption lichens begin breaking down rock into soil.

I didn’t find any flowers, but I did find a ton of these Apache Plume that had gone to seed. We thought they were very cool.

Next up was the Wupatki National Monument. There are several pueblos in this park and we tried to see as many as we could even as a snow storm was moving in.

This is the Wukoki Pueblo. Wukoki means “Big House” in modern Hopi.

The Wukoki has a pretty nice view from its porch.

Wukoki was once home to two or three families that they believe came from the Kayenta Anasazi culture.

One of the things we found so interesting about this pueblo is how small the doors are. That’s Jerl crouching in the doorway and Littlest standing beside it so you can get an idea of the size.

This is the Wupatki Pueblo.

The location and size (100 rooms) of the Wupatki Pueblo makes archaeologists believe that this wasn’t a typical village but a special meeting place for the surrounding areas.

One of the coolest things at the Wupatki Pueblo was the blowhole. I’m not going to pretend I completely understand how it works…something with light warm air and cold heavy air.

We all had to take turns standing and leaning over it. Jerl wasn’t expecting the wind to be so strong and his hat blew right off his head!

The Wupatki Pueblo had a pretty fantastic view too.

See the two wooden beams in the photo above? They’ve been in place for over 800 years.

There was some amazing pottery found in the area.

And some newer pottery for sale. I would have taken any of the ones in the picture. Love them!

This was the Nalakihu Pueblo. Farmers once lived here. See the snow clouds getting closer? We got snowed on back at Sunset.

The ruins really do dot the landscape. Can you see the two different ruins in the photo above?

These two pueblos were built on the edges of a canyon. We saw these while we were walking the trail to get to the Lomaki Pueblo.

And this is the Lomaki Pueblo. Notice the leaning walls? I wonder how long they’ll stay standing. Interesting fact…when a family or village would decide to move to a new area they would take all of their valuables with them, including the roof support beams or sometimes they would plug all openings to the building and leave some of their valuables there, as if they had plans to come back. One of the things that has really stuck out to us about pueblos is the way the structures are melded into the landscape and are oriented to the sun and seasons.

It spit snow on us a couple of time that day. Nothing bad. We enjoyed watching the snow clouds.

I stuck this picture in to show y’all how many cinder cones dot this area.

So, the other thing we did on this stop is visit Meteor Crater. I snapped a picture of a picture so you could see the whole thing. The real photo is in the Meteor Crater Visitor Center.

There was a neat little museum. The boys loved this booth.

The booth played a video of what scientist think happened about 50,000 years ago.

We took the guided tour along the Crater rim. It was interesting and the guide made it fun. I don’t have a wide enough lens to get the whole crater in one shot. The Crater is 4,000 feet across, and 550 feet deep. It used to be about 700 feet deep but because of erosion, it’s being slowly filled in. To help you visualize just how stinkin’ big this crater is…there could be 20 different football games going on along the bottom and around 2 million fans could line the sides to watch. Big, right?

I can’t leave the food out! We ate at a place called Mama Burger in Flagstaff. My burger had green chilies, jack cheese and hot sauce. I’ve been a little obsessed with the green chilies lately. I think it’s because they’re so good.

This was the burger Mr. Man got. I don’t remember everything on it but it was huge and messy with bacon…and he ate it all!

We ordered fries and tots to have along with our burgers. We didn’t realize they were going to come out in completely filled pie plates. And the price was really decent! If you’re ever in the area you should definitely go to Mama Burger!

See y’all down the road!

So Much Awesome Part Two

By Jennie Simpson | December 11, 2015

The Sedona/Verde Valley area has so many things to see and do. From the hikes I told you about in the last post to National Monuments to Ghost Towns. You should plan on spending at least a few weeks in this area to see it all.

We started with the Red Rock District of the Coconino National Forest.

We went to the Visitor Center where the boys worked on a Junior Ranger program and we got some good advice about surrounding hikes.

The view from the Visitor Center was pretty stellar. We got our first good look at Castle Rock, Bell Rock, and Courthouse Butte (in that order from left to right).

The Native American culture is strong here. We stayed right across the highway from the reservation.

We call it Montezuma Castle today, but the descendants of the people who once lived there know it by other names. The Hopi call it Sakaytaka which means “place where the step ladders are going up”. We spent an hour strolling around the grounds. We were bummed when we learned you can’t go up into the Castle anymore.

Montezuma Castle was used by many different clans. The Parrot, Bear, Water, Cloud, Bluebird, and Spider clans are just some of the clans to have called it home.

Here’s a model they put up of the inside of Montezuma Castle after they stopped letting people go inside.

The Dude and Littlest are standing in front of some Arizona Sycamore trees. I love the way the bark looks camouflaged!

The boys ended up with a pretty cool badge. We actually had to buy the one in the picture, but since they completed the booklet and got the free badge, they decided they should have the cooler badge too. We don’t see these badges much. Some parks won’t put them out for sale because they don’t want just anyone to get one.

In the Montezuma Junior Ranger book there’s a few pages that require you to go to Montezuma Well. You can still get the Castle Badge, but if you complete the whole book you get a special button…so…of course, the boys had to have it. I honestly didn’t think the Well would be that interesting. I thought it was just…well…what you see in the photo above.

To my surprise, there are some dwellings at the Well! The Well contains over 15 million gallons of water and is replenished with 1.5 million gallons of new water every day.

For many cultures, Montezuma Well is a sacred place. The Hopi, Zuni, and Yavapai can all trace their ancestors to a time when they were living at the Well. You can’t drink the water now, since it has arsenic in it.

Tuzigoot National Monument is one of my favorites so far.

The Visitor Center had some really amazing artifacts that were found there.

One of the coolest things about Tuzigoot is that you get to go inside a dwelling and then go up some stairs for a great view.

Here’s the view from the top. When the archaeological team got to the Tuzigoot site it was just a big pile of rocks. They knew something was under it because the rocks were so uniformly piled.

Funny story about how Tuzigoot got it’s name…when the archaeologists were looking for a name for the site a Tonto Apache suggested Túzogoot (TWO-see-WHOODT) which means “crooked water”, but the archaeologists spelled and pronounced it as Tuzigoot (TWO-zee-goot) which is nonsensical in Apache. Unfortunately, the Tuzigoot name stuck so that’s what it’s called today. A nonsensical word.

While we were at Tuzigoot we got to see a weaving demonstration. This guy was so good! He was having conversations and pausing, but he never lost his place in the weave design. I’m pretty sure he’s done it a time or two.

The boys left the Sedona/Verde Valley area with two National Park badges plus two special pins, a State Park badge, and a National Forest pin. They work hard to earn the badges. They have to fill out a booklet that requires you to find items, problem solve, hike, and think outside the box. Then, the Ranger goes over it with them to make sure it’s done and they actually understand it all (I think it’s to see if the parents did the book or the kids).

What you’re looking at is the town of Jerome, AZ. Jerome is known as “America’s Most Vertical City”. We drove through it trying to find a place to park so we could grab a burger at the Haunted Hamburger, but we couldn’t find a single place to park. I didn’t get any pics of the town as we drove through and I wish I had. It was a really neat town! Jerome is an old copper mining town and was once known as the wickedest town in the west. It’s supposed to be very haunted. We really wanted to spend time there and if we ever make it back to Verde Valley, we will definitely stop back in.

We didn’t spend the whole time hiking and exploring National Monuments. Nope. We, of course, had to find some good food! We found Hog Wild BBQ in Cottonwood, AZ. It was so good, we ate there twice. What you see in the photo above is the Mingus Mountain Burger and garlic fries! The Mingus Burger has cheese, bacon, and green chilies on it along with all the usual burger stuff!

So, there you have it! That was our two weeks in the Sedona/VerdeValley area. Usually when we stay someplace for two weeks by the second Wednesday, I’m ready to go. I’m itching to move on. But that wasn’t the case here. On that second Wednesday I started to panic about the lack of remaining time and the abundance of hikes to still do. We’ve had to start a list of places to revisit. Can you guess what the first place on the list is?

See y’all down the road!

Pizza Roundup Pisa Lisa

By Littlest | December 3, 2015

Pisa Lisa has some of the best pizza ever with super tasty gelato, but let’s talk gelato later.

Pisa Lisa is in Sedona, AZ.

I had a really good feeling about this place. It started off right with some of the best blueberry soda I’ve ever had!

The menu has pizza, salads, panini’s, tapas, and more.

We just got pizza.

I got a nice picture of one of the chefs tossing dough.

Now, let’s talk gelato! They had lots of flavors like strawberry cheesecake, raspberry, pistachio, mango, that is all the flavors I remember but there were more.

They also had tiramisu on the dessert menu. This is my dad’s favorite!

The decor was top notch!

The bathrooms were clean and the service was good. Pisa Lisa is definitely getting a 5 star review.

Typing this review made me drool!

See you next time on

Pizza Street!

Phoenix, AZ

By Jennie Simpson | December 1, 2015

We’ve been in Arizona for about a month and we finally made it to the State Capitol Building! We don’t add the state sticker to our map until we’ve been to the Capitol Building, so we’d been looking forward to Phoenix.

See the pretty statue on top of the copper dome? It moves! We thought that was a nice touch. I’ve decided the Capitol Campus in Phoenix is my favorite so far.

It’s not my favorite because of the Capitol Building it’s self…although the fact that the original section of the Capitol Building has been made into a wonderful museum, definitely helped put this Campus on the top of my list. The building isn’t the prettiest, the architecture isn’t the most interesting, but the museum was brilliant!

We got a look at what life was like in the State Capitol Building in the early years.

And, we got to see the state flag made from Legos! How cool is that?

We found examples of all the state symbols.

The rest of the campus was very lovely with several memorials dedicated to the wars.

We spent a couple of hours perusing through the museum and the grounds.

And, of course, there were the flowers!

These pink ones were everywhere.

We ended up eating dinner that night at a German place called Haus Murphey’s.

The weather was perfect for eating outside.

I knew it was going to be a wonderful meal when it started off with creamed pumpkin soup that even Littlest, who doesn’t like soup, loved.

The meals came and we all made appreciative noises as each plate was presented.

Everything we had was amazing and best of all, there was enough leftovers for everyone to have lunch the next day! Score!!

We’ve put Haus Murphey’s on our list of places to visit again!

See y’all down the road!

The Lost Dutchman State Park

By Jennie Simpson | November 28, 2015

The Lost Dutchman State Park is a 320 acre patch of paradise sitting near the base of the Superstition Mountains in the Sonoran Desert. The Superstition Mountains got their name from Pima Indian legends. The Sonoran Desert is so different than the desert we found in Nevada. Far from the desolation of the Nevada desert, the Sonoran Desert is filled with an abundance of plants and animals that have adapted to survive.

Who’s the Lost Dutchman? Well, there are several different versions of the Dutchman’s story. In all of the stories, the Dutchman is Jacob Waltz. A popular version of the tale states that Jacob and a friend found a lost gold mine and hid several caches of gold in the Superstition Mountains, but Jacob was killed before he could properly claim the gold. Now, there are a few more theories as to how Jacob met his demise. The two version I found the most were that Jacob was killed by the Apaches or he was killed by his friend. Either one of those ways, wouldn’t be a nice way to go.

We did as many of the hikes as we could. The hiking trails were wonderful!

We could see all the way across the valley to Phoenix.

And then there were the views of the mountains. I could have found a spot and just sat there looking out at the views for hours.

I mentioned the cholla cactus to you before…the way the spines will fall off of the cactus with just a light brush and embed themselves into things like skin…

At the Lost Dutchman State Park, there are Chain Fruit Chollas. If you look at the bottom of the cholla in the picture above, you can see the little balls of spines that fall off of the cholla cactus. Those sneaky little balls are a menace!

That’s Jerl’s hiking boot. He nudged the cholla ball very lightly. When he kicked to try to get the cholla ball off, it moved it’s way to the top of his boot. He had to use a rock to remove it. Talk about tenacity!

See the spines it left in his boot? That’s hard rubber, guys. Just imagine what those spines would do to skin.

There are a good number of saguaro cactus’ here too. They still amaze me.

I thought I would show you what the inside of a saguaro looks like.

The Native Americans use the saguaro ribs to get to the saguaro fruits that grow way up on the top of the cactus. Pretty ingenious if you ask me!

We found this really cool sun dial on one of the hikes. It was pretty accurate!

Now, I’ve shared with you our foodie find, but I’ll put it in this post too just in case you missed it. It’s known as The Burger House and it was a 45 minute drive (one way) from where we were staying.

We went there twice in the seven days we stayed at the Lost Dutchman SP. Both times I got the same thing…the Green Mix Burro, Enchilada Style.

Now these are the French fries enchilada style. They were a gooey cheesy mess of yum, but they weren’t as good as the Green Mix Burro.

I have a confession. Until our time here at The Lost Dutchman, I wasn’t impressed with Arizona. I mean, yeah, it was pretty and yeah, I was seeing new things…but, I hadn’t seen anything that really made me say “Oh, wow!”. Plus, I hadn’t found any truly amazing Mexican food. And, they call their burritos burros…doesn’t burro mean donkey in Spanish? I’ve always wanted to go to Arizona, and I was pretty disappointed with my experience. Our time at Lost Dutchman SP changed that though. I feel like Arizona has redeemed itself some…which is good since we still have a month left in Arizona!

See y’all down the road!