CalExpeditions

Tag: Food & Drink

  • New Haven, Connecticut

    New Haven, Connecticut

    New Haven is a small city in a small state. According to the Uber drivers and residents, New Haven is most famous for its pizza, which they claim is the very best. Did you know they use coal fired pizza ovens? They do. And did you know that they not only mispronounce the word “pizza” saying instead “abeets” (or maybe sometimes “apeets”) they also misspell it as “apizza.” I tried some and found it to be exactly like every other thin crust pizza I’ve had from a wood-fired oven.

    New Haven is a college town with many universities and colleges, among them are:

    • University of New Haven
    • Quinnipiac University
    • Albertus Magnus College
    • Southern Connecticut State University
    • Yale

    Since I had dropped the van off for the modifications, I had time to kill. So, I cast lots to see which campus to visit. Yale won.

    I was surprised to learn that Yale is holding up pretty well and performing satisfactorily, despite its age. Although I must note that Yale faculty have failed to create and develop an entirely new field of knowledge since they created Paleontology quite a few years ago. It is an altogether agreeable place, complete with old buildings, new buildings made to look old and the odd bit of statuary.

    One critical tidbit of info: Yale named one of their residential colleges Grace Hopper College, after one of the most important computer scientists in the early days. It was she who coined the term “bug” in reference to errors in software. She did so when the Harvard Mark II stopped working properly and she restored it by removing a moth from one of the mechanical relays. She taped it into the log book and there you have it, the first literal computer bug.

    Yale scientists are fascinated with old bones and assemble them in fantastical ways, fashioning fearsome beasts.
    These creepy things are what Yale scientists believe populated the primordial oceans.
    In addition to bones, Yale scientists find rocks to be of great interest, despite the fact that Geology wasn’t invented there.
    Additionally, the Yale museum has a vast exhibit of looted artifacts from cultures around the world.
    Curators at the Yale fine arts museum are partial to primary colors, even if the assembled colors make no sense.
    This is what an actual Nobel Prize looks like. Look closely and you’ll see it belongs to E. O’Neill. I’ll save you the trouble of remembering how to math Roman numerals and tell you it is 1936.
    New Haven has a quite nice locally concocted cola beverage.
    Xena keeps watch.
    The way there.

  • Wonderful Washington, Part 2

    While in DC, I dined at some excellent restaurants and drank at superlative bars: Afghania, The Hamilton, Off the Record at the Hay Adams, Round Robin at the Willard Hotel, and others I neglected to take note of. I attended a service at the National Cathedral. It had been a while since I have been to a service, which is ok because I don’t sin much any more. Toured Mount Vernon, the White House, the US Capitol, the National African American Museum of History and Culture, and the Library of Congress. Visited many of the monuments, including some new ones: FDR, MLK, and WWI.
    Washington National Cathedral on a gray drizzly Sunday morning.
    A brief snippet of post-service organ music, along with some idle worshippers.
    The bells! The bells! My search for Quasimodo proved fruitless.
    The Women’s Viet Nam Memorial.
    The Korean Conflict Memorial.
    Franklin and Fala.
    A UN person.
    I bet you don’t have a single spoon warmer in your mansion. The White House has them in abundance.
    This plane was the first trainer for the Tuskegee Airmen. It is at the National African American Museum of History and Culture.
    A bit of the beauty that is the Library of Congress.
    This is how people eat and drink in Washington.

  • Oporto

    Oporto, which is in Portugal, is the birthplace of port wine. Thanks, Oporto, for a refreshing beverage! To foster the growth of tourism, they have set aside a sizable portion of their waterfront and created a district modeled on the ancient medieval towns of Europe! Their efforts are richly rewarded with a delightful destination, complete with bumpy cobblestone streets (very narrow!) and steep staircases with each step of some random dimensions. Such a thing would never be allowed in the US, to the litigious nature of our society. Too bad.

    The climate is similar to that of the California coast and the hills reminded me of San Francisco. Temps were mid-50’s at night and mid-70’s in the daytime. Very pleasant.

    My room at the AirBnB. Authentic, historic rock walls, but very modern otherwise. Ideally located.

    The view from my courtyard patio. I had to share the patio with a few other guests, but they were not too obnoxious.

    I took the obligatory photo of the famous bridge across the Douro River. It has two decks, both accommodating foot traffic.

    Steep steps. Dubious materials. Sketchy engineering. They will certainly not last.

    I pressed this button and my vision improved! Apparently the promised change  is random. More than a few psychotherapists could use such a button.

     

  • Southern Miscellanea

    Maybe we can blame it on the pandemic, but I’ve discovered the Southern cooking ain’t what it used to be. I did manage to find some good catfish, fried of course, in Natchez, Mississippi, right on the banks of the river. Next door is the club in which Jerry Lee Lewis got his start.

    Magnolia Grill in Natchez. Good catfish.

    Fried green tomatoes. Looks great! Not so good, actually. Sliced too thick…I can make better ones myself.

    I made a quick pass through the Vicksburg battlefield. You could spend days tracing the movement of troops through the area, but I’ll save you the trouble: the Americans won. An interesting fact I learned while there…during the American occupation of Vicksburg, they stationed what they then called “colored troops,” armed to the teeth, to maintain law and order. Poetic justice is served!

    A slaver “general” exhorting his troops to make the world safe for human trafficking. His white supremacy was no match for American ammo; he was cut down shortly after he posed for this statue.

    Visited the National Naval Aviation Museum at Pensacola Naval Air Station. Huge building crammed full of planes. Nice collection of early airplanes from the WWI era. I was glad to see they had a large and informative exhibit about airships and blimps.

    The Navy learned that airplanes fly better without anchors, so they placed all of them in museums.

    This old trainer is not in actual flight. Look closely and you’ll see that it is chained to the ceiling.

    While traveling through the waterlogged section of the country, I’ve learned that boat launch ramps are often good places to camp overnight.

    Blackwater River in Florida.

    Xena, the Warrior Princess, loved camping here. She is an expert at digging holes in the soft sand. She digs until she find moist, cool sand, then lays in it. Even when it is already chilly.

    A stand of pines along the banks of Blackwater River.

  • A Few New Mexican Salsas Available in Hatch, NM.

    In New Mexico, the undisputed Capital of the Chili World, one must choose from among hundreds of salsas.