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Asheville, North Carolina: The Vegetarian South’s first in line.

Posted on April 12, 2011 by Katya Posted in food, Vegetarian Travel | 1 Comment

Since we are vegan/vegetarian, it’s been a constant point of ours to check the vegetarian options in each town we go to. It’s never a deterrent if there isn’t anything around. It would ridiculous to miss the Everglades just because we couldn’t get Tofurkey lunch meat nearby (even if it is Susa’s favorite). Not having a ton of restaurants or a Whole Foods to go to usually just means we save a bunch of money. You can find tofu and garden burgers in the most surprising towns in the country and to many people’s surprise, vegetarians can survive quite easily almost anywhere.

That being said, when we do find a town that has a really great vegetarian scene, we usually get pretty excited. And of all the towns we’ve stayed in in the last year and a half, Asheville has got every other city in the south beat when it comes to vegetarian options. Cities four times its size have nothing on Asheville for grocery store and restaurant options. You can often count Indian food and Chinese food as “vegetarian” because there are usually more than one good option there, but even without counting Asian food, Asheville has a heaping handful of cafes and restaurants to make west coast hippie towns blush.

The first place we went was the Green Sage Cafe, the first cafe on our way into downtown from Taps RV Park. The Green Sage was fairly busy, gathered foot traffic, tourists and locals in its convenient location near the Court Plaza, Shopping and of course some great local brew pubs. Its a “bus your own table” kind of place, with local art on the walls and a variety of seating. We usually sat befuddled beneath an average looking bicycle suspended from the ceiling. Not an antique, not surprisingly nice, just a bike with a basket on it. The food was good, though a little more expensive than we expected. After eating out several times in Asheville, we realized this wasn’t an isolated incident. I ordered a breakfast burrito and Ross a breakfast scramble (both with tofu). My coffee was not amazing and cooled quickly in its giant cup, but coffee didn’t really seem to be their thing. Overall I don’t remember being impressed though we did go back a couple more times, unable to stay away from the possibility of breakfast (even if we ate it at 3pm).

Green Light Cafe Asheville, NC The second place we went was nicer than our usual places, The Green Light Cafe. It was more like a “european cafe in an art gallery” than what I expected from a vegetarian cafe but it proved a place can be both nice and vegetarian without being expensive or “health nut – elitist” vegetarian. The server was really nice and helpful, the place was quiet and open, and the food was amazing. I got the special, a chili relleno dish and Ross got the enchilada – “Saucy beans and greens baked in a sprouted tortilla, smothered with our homemade nutty mole & your choice of daiya vegan cheese or cheddar.” Not many places offer vegan cheese so that was a big plus, and the homemade mole was just the right amount of sweet and nutty. We only went there once but would defiantly try more things if we visit Asheville again.

The restaurant we visited the most was Rosetta’s Kitchen. It’s a marginally small place, average for a vegetarian cafe, with a small kitchen and one person running the till. What I liked most about this place was its typical vegetarian cafe attitude of “we make you huge plate of excellent food – you get your own cutlery and bus your own tables”. I definitely think more restaurants should adopt that business model. It saves the place hiring more people, therefore allowing them to charge less for potentially expensive plates and leaves people to feed and take care of themselves unharassed by a tip desperate waiter. I enjoy cooking and good food, and have an appreciation for people who work in the service industry. Possibly my experiences and perspective are a bit skewed.
The food at Rosetta’s was amazing. We get burned out on eating garden burgers, especially during our first year when it was often the only thing we could get eating out, but of all the options on the menu I decided to go for just that. They claimed on the menu it was “famous” and that always means they make it themselves. This can vary from place to place, a homemade burger can be full of grains and falling apart, bursting with little more than undercooked black beans and dry as a cotton ball, but sometimes homemade burgers are surprisingly moist and flavorful with just the right amount of everything. This was one of those burgers. I added jalapeños and cheese to make my favorite combination, and besides the fact that the jalapeños were barely hot, the burger was great. Ross got The Family Favorite, Peanut butter baked tofu, smashed potatoes and gravy and sautéed kale. Of course I had to steal some, tasty as expected. So far my favorite vegetarian meals in the South have been the “home cooking” style meals with things like pecan crusted seitan steak, grits with nutritional yeast and of course some good greens/kale cooked in a way I can only dream of accomplishing. Gravy is always a highlight of one of these dishes and the gravy on the The Family Favorite may be nearly my favorite. We asked the cashier what was in the gravy (to make sure it wasn’t a mushroom gravy) and practically got the whole recipe. I of course memorized this simple concoction and plan to work on and improve upon it over time (nutritional yeast, flour, fresh sage, salt, soy milk). In my version there will definitely be breakfast sausage, as soon as I see some around. After gorging ourselves on this meal, we eyeballed the cakes in the case by the register and wished we had room. On our next visit we made the mistake of buying the Indian and Pad Thai bowls, when we should have got the plates and took some home (for just a little $ more) but it worked out because we then had room for a huge piece of chocolate cake with strawberry frosting. The kind of frosting that sends me into sugary seizures, but a good rich frosting (not real seizures, more like a reaction when eating a lemon, but with sweet things instead).
On other visited we tried various things but my favorite is still the Ruben sandwich with grilled marinated local made tempeh, homemade sauerkraut (from red cabbage) and Swiss cheese smothered in a herb-walnut sauce on homemade rye focaccia. As with all of downtown Asheville, parking is pretty bad on a weekend unless you pay for a lot, but luckily we always found parking just a block from Mellow Mushroom (which we never made it to) and within 8 blocks of everything else.

There were about 5 more places we never made it to and a couple that were more expensive or too busy for our mood. Then there was Doc Chey’s Noodle House, a place with lots of good reviews but ended up being a disappointment (please don’t put jalapeños in your Thai food when I ask for ‘Hot’).

Asheville is also great for beer lovers with several brew pubs in the downtown area and of course, wine and whiskey bars run rampant downtown. Our favorite being the one we almost walked past, a hole in the wall with a dark entrance and black door (still don’t know the name but I checked in on Foursquare at “The Dirty South” while there).

Scully's Bar 13 West Walnut Street

Given more time, I would have also visited:
Firestorm Cafe, Laughing Seen Cafe, Tupelo Honey (on a slow night) and Early Girl Eatery.
These are still just a few of the options available in Asheville and why it’s definitely leading the South that I’ve seen so far in vegetarian concentration and quality.

We always hope to see more of this on our travels and places like Asheville are definitely at the top of our lists of places we would recommend to other vegetarians, health geeks or basically anyone who loves food, good beer, nature, shopping and a town designed for foot traffic.

Chattanooga, Tenessee

Posted on September 14, 2010 by Katya Posted in travel | Leave a comment

Chattanooga was the first bigger city we stayed in since New Orleans and a great example of how modern the south can be. We arrived on a Saturday morning, ready to spend the weekend exploring the town and find some good restaurants along the same line as the Bottletree in Birmingham.

We arrived at Raccoon Mountain State Park early Saturday. It was a touristy campground with some caverns $14 to $99 to explore (depending on tour), a go cart track and one basketball hoop. The older man, the manager I suppose, was a total grump but other than that no one really bothered us, even though they had a stated “no pitbulls” rule in their pamphlet and on their website, we ignored it and had no trouble. I hold dearly my “your ignorance and fear will not affect my plans” policy.. as well as a “your stupid insurance company can go to hell” in those cases.

The first weekend we had researched a little online and got an idea of where the “things to do” were at, as well as where some of the better vegetarian options could be found. It was probably about 90 when we got in line to the Incline Railway, a really amazing train that makes its way directly up a mountain side – reaching an angle of 71% (practically up a cliff face) by the top. The seats are at an angle so you dont fall out by the time it reaches its peak angle, but even then you have to lean back and hold yourself a bit to keep from falling forward and shooting through the front window and down the mountain. It cost $12 a person, which I suppose id worth it but there arent really any perks to go along. You get taken to the top where a building containing a little shop full of tourist toys, stones and candy (and stone candy) – inside of some kind of cafeteria with some homemade fudge and coolers with a few bottled drinks. Outside in the neighbourhood, you could walk to a Civil War reenactment (which we did but did not pay to see). If you started at the top of the Mountain and therefore had a car, you could drive a little ways to Rock Mountain, which is some kind of a theme park which seemed a little kiddy oriented for us. At the bottom of the mountain, where we were parked, you can go to Ruby Falls, a huge waterfall in a cave which we also did not go to. After getting a drink and walking around a bit at the top, we rode the rail back down and headed out to find something to eat.

Incline Railway, St Elmo, Chattanooga, TN

The first place we went to eat was another Mellow Mushroom, a place we had discovered in Oxford Alabama that had vegetarian sandwiches and good pizza. It was right in downtown Chattanooga so we got to see some of that outside the car. It’s a fairly nice little area though not very old or particularly interesting. When we came back to the area later at night, searching for a cool and somewhat empty bar, we discovered downtown to be just like Austin or New Orleans to some extent, tons of drunk girls in heels stumbling around and huge lines outside overcrowded bars. We looked around online some more and found an area farther away that showed promise, everything was closed but we had now discovered an all vegan cafe, Sluggo’s, to check out the next morning.

Sluggo’s was a little expensive but had really good food and a “do it yourself” attitude which I love in a restaurant if the cashiers aren’t jerks about it.

The neigbourhood we really liked, though didnt find till a few days later, was the Northside Neighbourhood near Coolidge park, a cute little area with cafes, restaurants and shopping. Once we discovered it we repeatedly returned to Stone Cup Cafe to work, also a place that had good vegetarian sandwiches, and Aretha Frankenstein nearby which had amazing french toast and waffles, tagged the “waffles of insane greatness”.

Aretha Frankenstein has death masks

The neighbourhood also featured a dog park, a free one even! The Chattanooga Chew Chew. The last we’d seen was in New Orleans and required a paid membership to use. Unfortunately, Chena doesn’t care much about other dogs but the 5 seconds of excitement she gets from meeting one is at least some socialization for her. I feel bad that she has only a cat and two humans to play with sometimes.

Dog Park Chattanooga, Chattanooga Chew Chew

We spent most of the weekend rotating Stone Cup, Sluggo’s and Aretha Frankenstein’s, having only paid till the following Friday we were unlikely to see much more of the daytime things in the city and this was upsetting after seeing how cool Chattanooga was. We decided around Thursday to stay the weekend, unaware till we went into the office to pay, that it was Labor Day weekend and the park would be almost completely full, our space already reserved. Our only options were to leave town, move to another park in town (all of which would be equally booked), stay at a Walmart all weekend or move the trailer 60 feet to the last remaining spot. All of these options required the same amount of work preparing the trailer and truck for the move so we had some options to weigh but we ultimately and grudgingly decided to move the trailer 60 feet. When we moved to the new spot, a spot that was nearly on a hill, we parked the trailer backwards to avoid too much of a slant and ended up with out door facing another campers door and having to use the back side of the trailer as our “front yard”, hanging the lights on the slide out, no awning of course but a table and chairs for the one time we decided to BBQ some sausages. It was good enough though, since we didn’t plan to spend our weekend hanging out in the ridiculously crowded campground.

The last weekend in the area we reserved for nature. We had already decided to avoid the kid filled campground, and therefore the caves there and all other caves and touristy things in town because it was Labor Day Weekend and all would be completely full of people. On Saturday we decided to go to the Chattanooga Nature Center, a poorly advertised place which suited us, that also wasn’t very crowded. It featured a trail that lead to a great huge treehouse which in the spring-winter must have a great moat like swamp below it. Basically one of my dream houses, especially if the swamp had alligators in it. The trail went on to a rentable cabin next to the water and some rental canoes then arrived at the wildlife rehab area where they had owls, a bald eagle, a bobcat, some endangered red wolves and a crow. The birds didnt have much space and most had no company but they were there because they could not be released back into the wild, not for show exactly. I liked the crow, seeing one in a cage reminded me of my pet crow who I took home after if flew into the window of the pet store I worked at. He eventually recovered enough to release but I never knew if he made it for sure. I am pretty sure I had a crow stalker for the rest of my time in Portland, about 5 more years minus my year in Argentina.

There were some snakes back in the center building and a basic little gift shop but the best part was the drive around the grounds on a small dirt road. We barely fit in the truck as usual but the drive was great, allowing us to finally see some “untouched” Tennessee nature. There were large bunches of wildflowers, ponds, gardens and a bamboo forest, officially one of coolest forests to wander in, and some great little things to stop off and see like “Cherokee eye” – some kind of hole in a rock and our favorite, the spinning bench. About half way thorough we were told by a woman in a Mustang that the park was closing in 15 minutes and we grudgingly headed out. The last thing we saw before the exit, the land keeper’s house with a bit of land, horses and barn. Lucky guy.

Sunday we decided to leave town completely, having gotten used to the South shutting down on Sundays – even the vegetarian restaurants, but we knew we could depend on a State Park to be open. We headed to Georgia to see the so called Canyon in Cloudless Canyon State Park. We’d taken Chena this time and hiked a small trail that over looked the town, then headed to the crowded Day Use area where the actual canyon trail was. It was ok, after seeing canyons in the southwest it didnt impress us but the hike was nice and it was a good way to spend the last day in.. or near… Chattanooga.

In this park, tree picnicks you!

New Orleans, Armadillos and History

Posted on March 10, 2010 by Katya Posted in out and about, RV life | 3 Comments

We’re starting on our third week in New Orleans, and almost as long without a blog. The first week in town we stayed at Bayou Segnette State Park and worked. The park was nice, surrounded by swamp but no mosquitoes in the cold. At first it was hard to walk to the bathroom at night, hearing breaking branches in the dark. After a couple days we started to see who was making the noise , a very fearless Armadillo, enormous raccoons and tons of bunnies. The Armadillo hung out behind the RV – ignoring us as we got up close and even running straight for us at one point. We thought we’d them missed for good in Texas but apparently they’re all over the south.

Louisiana Armadillo at Bayou Segnette State Park

Since I decided like 15 years ago that New Orleans was my favorite US city, thanks to Ann Rice no doubt, theres no way we could come for only a week, or 2 even, and no way we could get away with just hanging out on the outskirts of town, never going inside it. Naturally, we rented a car for the weekend to head into the center and take a look around. It was the first time we rented a car so far and was actually pretty cheap. We went out Friday night and of course walked down Bourbon Street, but avoided the busier bars. I made a list of places that sounded interested or offbeat, Ye Olde Original Dungeon, Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop (a bar owned by a pirate and supposedly the countries oldest continuous bar) and Yo Mamas where we started the night off with a garden burger.

Saturday we headed to find a vegetarian breakfast and found 13 Monahan in thw Marigny district to be the only one so far. We spent the rest of the day walking around the French Quarter and Marigny, then drove to the Garden District where we ran into Lafayette Cemetery and walked around a while. For lunch we got some dinner at another Vegetarian place in Marigny, Cafe Bamboo at the Dragon Den. They have a fake chicken there thats pretty much the best I’ve had at a restaurant, good texture and taste. After eating it was getting close to the voodoo tour I paid $40 for online. We still had to go all the way back to the camp to let Chena out to go to the bathroom; it was a mad rush through the French Quarter (where you go an average of 10miles an hour) and onto the freeway, then back through the same thing. We’d planned to park in Marigny and walk the 15 minutes to the meeting place of the tour but arrived downtown only 10 minutes before 7:30 when it started. Ross dropped me off at Rev. Zombies House of Voodoo where the tour was already gathering. I hate tours but was interested to see one about Voodoo in New Orleans. I turned in our ticket and waited in line while Ross tried to find parking with an almost dead cell phone. The tours started gathering in groups of about 15 people. As time went on I kept moving to the back of the line, hoping to give Ross some time to catch up. Finally the last group gathered at about 8pm and we started walking down the street. I called Ross to try to tell him how to find us but his phone died mid directions. I didn’t really know what to do. The group turned off into Pirates Alley and I tried to decide to ditch the group or hope he finds us, 30 seconds later he somehow did. Unfortunately but ok in the end, by going to the back of the lines I had gotten out of the Zombie tour and into a regular Haunted Tour. No signs or information about this difference during the group gathering process of course. It was interesting anyway and we learned about some truly gruesome history – yellow fever epidemic, civil war hospital and Dauphine the slave torturer, all in the French Quarter. Our tour guide held back no details on yellow fever, amputation or the state of Dauphine’s mutilated slaves.

Lafayette Cemetery

Even jesters use Technology

Sunday was a different story completely. I woke up at 7am to get a drink of water, by 8 I was on the floor with a trash can next to me puking. I was in horrible pain and constantly nauseous but insisted we make use of the rental car while we had it. Every bump in the car was like a knife in my stomach. We made it to Magazine Street where lots of vintage clothing stores and cafes are but even walking felt like daggers. All the smells of the street didn’t help either. Throughout the city open sewers stink up the intersections and each cafe and restaurant provided a different set of nauseating aromas. The RV was no better, every smell but the new clean car smell was making me sick. We took an excruciating drive back to Marigny where Ross got a burger and I got a small salad, whose smell immediately made me push it to the other side of the table. After that we decided to head back to the RV so I could lay down, day ruined in my book, and from that point I was sick and basically unable to eat for 4 more days.

On Wednesday night Ross finally came down with the same thing,making its source even more confusing. The water at the state park wasn’t necessarily the safest water, although we filter it. I was sick directly after drinking - though Ross drank from the same cup, and Ross was sick directly after a shower almost 4 days after me. The night before, 12 hours before I got sick, we shared some fries and fake chicken nuggets; but a 12 hours to 4 day delay for food poisoning? Although I was less sick after 4 days, I still had a sore stomach after everything I ate, making it discouraging to eat at all. We decided to get another rental car and a day early this time (only $30 more) so we could go buy some pro-biotics and yogurt as my mother had suggested. Ross improved over the weekend but my stomach continues to be really sensitive to anything with spice or flavor. Indian food that Ross made had be back at the trash can for hours and since I’ve been sticking to mashed potatoes, cereal, bread and pasta – boring. Hopefully this will be over soon; its horrible when in order to eat I have to prepare for hours of sharp shooting stomach pain, though nothing else at least. I started to read allot about bacteria in water and food poisoning and with only the one symptom its hard to imagine what it could be. Would be nice to know so I could avoid it in the future at least…

We spent this last weekend (3/5-3/7) discovering more neighbourhoods in the city; Magazine Street again, this time finally getting some shopping done at Buffalo Exchange, and a neighbourhood that was the worst hit by Katrina, the Ninth Ward. There were many empty spaces and most of the standing buildings were unoccupied and still had the FEMA markings on them. One building we decided to park next to while we ate out takeout also had markings from the Humane Society “2 dogs”. Its always horrible to think of what the residents and animals of the neighborhood went through. I took a photo of some graffiti I liked (not realizing it was painted over a FEMA marking till I saw it on my computer) but didnt really take many photos in the area. I love taking photos of dilapidated buildings and wreckage but this just wasn’t the same. People died in this neighbourhood, dogs drown, people homeless because of a storm and the fact an irresponsible company like FEMA left them waiting. I saw no reason to take photos, I don’t take photos for shock value.

After we left, we decided to head back towards Magazine street and St.Charles Street. A neighbourhood with huge mansions, towering cathedrals and the gorgeous Toulane University. It was definitely a contrast, as much of the city is. We stopped to use a bathroom at a McDonalds and once I saw a Borders books across the street I got into a crafty frenzy. I haven’t actually made thing this trip… somehow I’ve managed to too be busy or too tired and sore after work to manage that but I intend to change it. I bought a beading book and a “cute” crafts book, then we went to Michael’s for some supplies (because JoAnn’s was closed) and headed for the worlds most disgustingly sweet gelato sundaes.

Sunday was our moving day but the place we wanted to move to was full till Monday afternoon. We drove the car and RV to a Walmart and hung out for the night, returning the car in the morning working till 2. I’ve become increasingly annoyed by the lack of space for 2 people and a dog in the RV, so I had to enlarge my work table. Before the move we headed over to Home Depot and had a piece of wood cut, which is not strapped to my existing table with a bungee. Better than a table barely wider than my laptop, now I can actually use a mousepad and mouse!! Future improvements may include as much as a whole new trailer. We are both feeling very, very cramped in here and I’m sure Chena’s nearly insane.

The new park, Jude RV Park is our new home for an entire month. It’s closer to town and should give us some more time to look around some more, rental car or not. They even said they’d work with us if we ended up with a trailer, truck and RV all at the same time. Nice people.

I’ll try to update more often, assuming I’m not on the floor next to a trash can.

seven thirty, french quarter

Last weekend in San Antonio

Posted on January 11, 2010 by Katya Posted in food, out and about | Leave a comment

Last weekend we finally went out a bit to see some of San Antonio. We could have taken a bus but – oh so inconvenient on a Sunday, so we drove the beautiful Brougham instead! Destinations planned – Food at Green, where we had some pretty great and interesting vegantarian (vegan/vegetarian) dishes. Ross had the homemade sausage/peanut butter & habanero jelly sandwich and I had a buffalo “chicken” sandwich. We then ordered a giant cookie and java cupcake which we took home and gorged on later. The waitress was really nice and atmosphere interesting. Between the random kitsch decorations of things like a 50s light cover collection, were photos from local photographers; mostly landscapes of the southwest. It was the first place since Portland that felt a little like Portland – nice in a way since what I liked most about Portland was places like that. (excuse the iphone photos.. please).

I wrote a review on Yelp for them, apparently my new thing, as well as for The Cove, another vegantarian friendly place we went to our last night in town.

After eating we headed to the Japanese Gardens, an oddly abandoned looking place. No one supervising, slightly under maintained and some wild kittys living in the bamboo but this made it even better. It was small but the space was really well used. There was a great old building being renovated there but not much chance for a good photo without construction tape in it. I have some Holga shots that I’ll develop eventually.

After that we went to the second oldest park in the US which was pretty but not enough to take photos of. Looking forward to going to Austin, we hear its pretty lively and vegetarian friendly.

A Nerds Thanksgiving

Posted on November 30, 2009 by Katya Posted in Mechanical, projects | Leave a comment

I have never really liked Thanksgiving much for many reasons and being British, Ross just doesn’t have it drilled into him like I do. I don’t like Thanksgiving firstly due to the story itself. The idea of a bunch of Puritans having dinner with a group of American Indians just doesn’t sit right with me. I can only picture a group of fearful religious nuts spreading the word “savage” around a dinner table while a group of Indians, miles away, debate what these new weirdos might want. What they wanted and got was ownership over land they decided belonged to “no one” (the Indians). There’s no way they ate outside in November in the midwest and no way that stuck in their ways puritans just accepted the company of “savages”. Lies, all of it. Secondly, I don’t like a holiday based on the celebratory killing of one specific species and in such large masses. I don’t like when any of them are killed but an actual holiday basically dedicated to the mass killing of one is just overkill, literally. Now that I’ve alienated everyone, I’ll admit that as much as I don’t like the holiday, it’s so ingrained in me (especially with calls and text messages from family the morning of) that I do like to make a pretty good dinner, watch a movie and very willingly take the weekend off.

Thanksgiving with the Nerds

I made corn on the cob, homemade smashed potatoes, steamed broccoli and veggie Italian sausage cooked with onions and garlic – all pretty much smothered in HP Sauce. If you haven’t tried HP sauce you should. It’s like a tangy steak sauce but better and goes great on meats, potatoes, sandwiches and whatever you’re willing to try it on. We bought it at Fred Meyers in Portland but you can get it at World Market also.

As fun as it sounds, we didn’t just eat on Thanksgiving. It was a pretty nice day in Catalina State Park outside Tucson so we decided to take on a list of projects. Ross started with and spent most the day trying to change out the gas tank inlet that has been leaking on us since Portland. I didn’t even know they used rubber for gas tank inlets but apparently they do and as expected, it eventually corroded away. The hose we bought was pretty hardcore with a bit of metal running through it and cost about $50 for 3 feet. Unfortunately it had to be cut, so scuffed hacksaw and pliers later we had the two pieces needed to complete the project. The last people to attempt to fix it ran into the same issue as us, a metal pipe with an oblong mouth – that needs to connect to a round hose. As you can imagine, this didn’t work so well and we still leak if we overfill but at least we’re not smelling gas anymore. We plan to use some “hard as metal” epoxy” to complete the task.

While Ross was tearing his hair out trying to finish that project, I was inside hanging heavier ceiling hooks for the divider curtain, organizing our bins that sit on the bumper shelf (one of which we were able to get rid of) and putting a railing on the top of my closet so things can be put up there and stay up there while we drive.
The day before we had hung a standing oscillating fan on the ceiling above the back shelf, a necessity for circulating heat in this thing, and Ross wired up a 3 way switch so that the front stereo he worked so hard to install could be used with the house batteries, allowing us to use the stereo for movies or music while we’re not driving (so it wont drain the starting battery).We are definitely making progress on the projects, one of the only things left is to patch the manifold, patch the hole in the floor and figure out whats up with the water pump.

The day after Thanksgiving was our last day at Catalina State Park and although it was more than time to move on, I kind of wish we’de stayed long enough to avoid this winter storm that’s taking over New Mexico and Texas.