First of all -the many requests for the "Best and Worst" list for WeGo will be honored today, time willing. Secondly, new Blog, "So You Want to Open a Restaurant" is available to those interested in the start-up at the Radcliffe Mill in Chestertown. I just changed the template (again) in the hopes of making it a little more interesting - I just didn't like all that wide open white area as background I guess. But I also enjoy fussing with the HTML and customizing the look to make it my own...so it will be changing some more, I am sure.
Meanwhile, it's great to be on the Eastern Shore. However, the area is rapidly coming under more and more pressure from Developers of all Kinds, with some very creepy projects on the horizon. The one we fear most is the sale of 600 acres of Farmland - which will be gone forever - to a company called the Yorktowne Group, who want to annex the property to the town of Chestertown so they can put in ... ready for this? ... 1500 to 2000 homes. Okay, so it practically doubles the size of the town...the town council seems to seriously be considering it. And if they don't do it, the county will. What are they thinking? and what can we do about it? Next thing you know they are going to put that third Bay Bridge into Kent County, and you know what? If "they" do that, I'm out of here...
Okay..here goes "the list". Eventually I want to do links for them, linking a few to their place on this Blog, but for now that may be beyond my capabilities.
I suppose food would be an appropriate place to begin...
Best food - the roadside "fry trucks" all over Quebec
mussels we cooked at the campsite in Cape Breton
lobster in Maine, both at the campsite and on the dock by a Harbor
Chinese Home Cooking restaurant in St. Johns in Canada - the duck, the noodles!
the entire menu at Fleur de Lys
cheese curds at the Norweigian Festival near Madison Wisconsin
House of Flavors ice cream in Luddington Michigan - Tennessee Toffee!!
the beef barbeque at Louis Mueller - brisket and beef ribs - in Taylor Texas
Best Pork BBQ was McClards in Hot Springs Arkansas
fried chicken at Minnies Uptown Restaurant in Columbia South Carolina
the best regional potato chips remain UTZ of course, but Zapp's in the deep south give them a run for the title.
There's more and more but I gotta stop somewhere!
Best regional chain restaurant -
As you know, we avoid the national chains wherever we are, but local chains can be interesting. Best ones we hit were the Culvers in the upper midwest, primarily Wisconsin - Culvers have great frozen custard and are conveniently located for their bathrooms. We also stopped in a lot of Tim Horton's in Canada, for coffee and the aforementioned pit stop convenience. Sadly, I never felt able to order "two coffees please" in French...sorry Mrs. Dize.
Best farmer's market - Madison Wisconsin
Best "fair" food - at Jazz Fest in New Orleans, hands down.
Weirdest regional food item - those cheese curds again, found only in Wisconsin.
Best "all around really good time" - again, Jazz Fest, and again, hands down.
Most embarrassing moment - when the van got stuck in the parking garage in Chicago.
Most frightening moment - when we came back to the van after grocery shopping and Ruby was no longer tied to the van as we had left her...she had gotten untied and was happily lapping up garbage by the loading dock of the store. Also scary were the alligators of Aransas Wildlife Refuge, especially in light of recent alligator attacks in Florida.
Funniest moment - had to be when that raccoon fell out of the pine tree at Fort McAllister State Park in Georgia
Biggest surprise - upgraded room in Las Vegas.
Best College Campus - toss-up between Cornell University and the University of Wisconsin at Madison and LSU's campus in Baton Rouge
Most unusual campground - Seco Raceway.
Worst State Park campground - most of the ones in the California State Park system - this is a prime example of what will happen if we let the powers that be continue to cut funding for the National Parks...
Best Public Campground - Deer Lick Creek Park at Holt Lake, an Army Corps of Engineer campground near Tuscaloosa.
Best State Park Campground -a tie between Oliver Lee Memorial State Park near Alamogordo in New Mexico and Henderson Beach State Park, near Pensacola Florida.
Worst private campground - Domaine aux Grand "R" near Trois Rivieres in Quebec. Simply awful "camping aux sauvages". Other places may have been bad but this stills stands out as really a dreadful experience.
Best State Park system, overall - New Mexico.
Best National Park - The Badlands
Best National Memorial - Mt. Rushmore
Best National Historic Site - Andersonville
Best National Scenic Road - the Natchez Trace Parkway
Best area with uninterrupted beauty,mile after mile after mile - another tie, between Cape Breton in Canada and the Oregon Coast.
Best lake - Michigan, of course.
Worst traffic - L.A.
Most dangerous traffic - Atlanta
Scariest drive - besides the 22 lanes of traffic in L.A., it was the ride up the mountain near Missoula where the edge of the bad road was where the tires had to go.
Coldest we got - Santa Fe in December - in the single digits the whole time we were there.
Hottest - not sure of this, but maybe Louisiana in mid-May.
Best thrift store - Buffalo Bill(?) in Santa Fe
Best grocery store chain - Harris Teeter's
Best live music aside from Jazz Fest - Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys at the Roots Festival at Chicot State Park in Louisiana
Highest price we paid for gas - not including Canada - $3.15 in Fortune California on October 4th. Wonder what they're charging now?
Craziest looking wild creature running loose everywhere - armadillos
Most interesting Birds we saw - Sandhill cranes, especially the hundreds and hundreds we saw while camping near Cabello Lake in New Mexico where they are known as the "ribeye of the sky".
Western magpie
Mountain bluebirds by the dozens
Scarlet tanagers
Western grebe
Phainopepla
Long billed Curlew on Padre Island
Royal terns
Crested caracara -awesome sight
Whoopping crane - off in a distance at Aransas NWR
Wood storks in Florida
Roseated spoonbills
I wish - in hindsight - that I'd had this idea to do the "Top Ten List" when we started out. I could go on and on - best chocolate, best candy store, worst stretch of weather, most incredble hike, hardest place to leave, nicest beach, best shelling...one thing just leads to another.
Best Idea - to do this trip in the first place. Let's leave it at that.
Hope you all enjoyed this Blog as much as I did keeping it. Thanks for listening,
BandKandR
WeGo!
