Mother Nature has her fun with the landscape and gives you some bizarre things to look at
Mile after mile (next facilities 65 miles) goes by and pretty soon the land flattens into down right desert with all the neat plants, widely spaced, vying for whatever moisture there is. Ocotillo, Cholla, Manzanita, and other adaptive forms of plant life adorn the landscape.
As we approached Yuma, there began to be evidence of more plentiful water and palm trees appeared sometimes
I wonder why out here in the middle of nowhere (figuratively speaking) my cell phone still works? Hey! Look at that palm tree!
Pretty soon we were not far from the Mexican Border, and got a look at “the Fence”
We had chances to talk to the nice gentlemen of the Border Patrol occasionally
Yessir, we are indeed American Citizens. Would we have all this stuff if we were smuggling something? (thought, not said). We were continually waived through – have a nice day sir.
And you never know what you’re going to see along the way
Back to the friends part, one of our good friends from Historic St. Mary’s City relocated to Yuma, and thanks to the “I’m a palm tree! I’m a palm tree!” cell towers we arranged to meet for lunch. Expediency, location, and ease of getting to led us to agree to meet at a Cracker Barrel near the freeway. A welcome sight to see actual buildings and miles and miles of sand, cactus (next facilities 45 miles), and without much thrashing, we found the place. I think I am proud to say that this was the first time I’ve been inside the ubiquitous road side haven of “hominess” although desert southwest and down home is a tortured juxtaposition.
We were fearful that a wait was required due to the people hanging around outside, but closer inspection revealed that most were outside because smoking was not allowed inside. Upon entering, you find that you’re in the “gift shop” with all sorts of candles in jars, preserves (just like grandma used to make – 12,000 cases at a time), buttermilk pancake mix, and other country items. Want a “military” rocker? Look no further.. Anyway our request for three for lunch resulted in being ushered from the packed gift shop to the equally busy dining area. “Rustic” might characterize the décor, with booths fashioned out of rough hewn lumber (no splinters). We were approached by “Hi I’m” and given our choices of Breakfast (served all day) or Lunch Menus. We chose the latter..it’s loaded with choices of sandwiches, salads, sides, low carbs, and platters. Somehow, the letters “g, a, and d” has been misplaced at Cracker Barrel. There are “Fancy Fixin’s”; “Salads n’ Stuff”; “Vegetables n’ Sides”; and if you want something to drink it’s under “Beverages n’ Juices”.
I finally settled on the Country Chef Salad (Fresh greens topped with a bounty of oven roasted turkey breast, sugar cured ham, hickory smoked bacon, shredded Colby cheese, boiled egg, tomato, all topped with a wedge of Colby cheese, red onion and our own sourdough croutons), and MFO selected the (sic) Home Made Chicken Salad (Our own chicken salad is made from scratch with chicken tenderloin and served over fresh greens, with boiled egg and tomato all topped with a wedge of Colby cheese, and our own sourdough croutons). Notice the communality of several ingredients? And, our friend decided to go straight for dessert and chose the Fruit Cobbler (today’s offering was peach).
In the dead period between ordering and actually being served, we had a good chance to catch up on old times, what’s happening now, and where we’re headed. Again, food aside this is what makes it nice.
When the food arrived, it actually was fresh, the lunch meat in the chef’s salad was moist, the bacon was good (you can’t miss with bacon), and they supplied enough blue cheese dressing to satisfy me. MFO said the chicken salad was “okay”. The dessert was ample and was cleaned up with no effort.
After finishing conversation and meal, we fought our way through the gift shop again into the “it’s a dry heat” sunshine. It’s so fun to see friends, have good conversation and find that new locations don’t diminish the friendship, and new jobs can be fun. For today, whatever we wore, we were
DFL
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