Boulder Breakfast

"Would you like a piece of toast for breakfast? We have it with peanut butter and sprouts."

"Um. Okay. Sure."

I was doubtful. I should have known better. Boulder does not disappoint when it comes to interesting food. The key was the fresh pea sprouts (a little maple syrup in the peanut butter didn't hurt). Crunchy bread, crunchy sprouts. Great breakfast, dudes.

El El Frijoles Rocks

On the wrong side of the highway in Playa del Carmen, on the Riviera Maya, El Oasis Mariscos serves excellent tacos de camarones. The dining area is under a pergola and has about a dozen crudely fashioned wooden tables with deceptively heavy matching chairs. The menu is in Spanish and is short and shrimp tacos are the specialty. While they are sold individually, a typical order would be three. They arrive at the table quickly: small batter fried shrimp on small freshly made soft taco shells. The soft crunchy hot slighty sweet shrimp with one of the house salsas is always a delight. When I am heading south toward Tulum, I plan my day around passing that taco stand at noon.



Taco joints north of the border seldom have that appeal. El El Frijoles on Route 15 in Sargentville, Maine was an exception. I liked everything about this place. Driving past heading toward Deer Isle, I caught only the name and I laughed out loud. On the way back later in the afternoon, I got a better look at the sign, the art gallery in front and the picnic tables. Two miles further up the road I turned around and went back. The name and promise of lobster tacos were too much to ignore.

Behind the main house/art gallery facing the road was a small barn which had been converted into a taqueria. Driving past, I had not noticed how many cars we parked under the trees. Most of the picnic tables were occupied. Things were looking promising. Inside there were four very small tables (total seating for nine only); we snagged one just as the evening rain started. We ordered the daily special, haddock tacos, as well as the lobster tacos and a couple ears of native sweet corn. Memories of the taco stand in Playa floated by as we waited. My expectations were high and they were exurberantly exceeded. The taco shells were fresh, hot, and home made. The haddock was grilled then topped with a mild green chili sauce; the lobster was topped with a sweeter red chili sauce. Both were world class. And the corn was the best I had eaten all year. Since it will be a while before we can return, we ordered seconds.

Tobacco Barns in the Corn Fields

Tobacco barns still populate the countryside in Southern Wisconsin but the leaf itself is less evident. Corn seems to have taken its place. I suspect something more complicated than crop rotation is responsible for the changing landscape. Perhaps the end of tobacco subsidies in 2005 and misbegotten ethanol policies bear some responsibility. I would feel a lot better about ethanol if the U.S. government eliminated subsidies for corn and the plants which convert the crop from food to fuel.

The Shell station in Cambridge used to have a sign in front advertising NO ETHANOL. Not anymore. (This struck me as a bold statement, considering its proximity to the corn fields.) Apparently, the station is now required by Wisconsin law to supply gasoline with ethanol. So now only the Shell V Power 93 octane fuel is unadulterated. It costs $0.30 (about 7%)per gallon more, but yields about 9% better mileage (29.2 mpg versus 26.7 mpg as tested this morning on Interstate 39 in my 2003 Passat V6 4 Motion Wagon--I filled up with gas without ethanol for my trip and drew the tank down to empty before refueling with 89 octane 10% ethanol at a Kwiktrip in Stevens Point).

Briq's Root Beer Float

Visits to the A&W Drive In were always a treat. Those heavy chilled mugs with frothy root beer more than compensated for the mediocre burgers. A scoop of vanilla ice cream added to the suds was transcendent. Both were changed in delightful ways: the root beer lost some of its heavy sweetness and the ice cream grew a crunchy crust.

I don't know if A&W still uses glass mugs. I was about to find out when I ran across Briq's Soft Serve on the north side of Wausau, Wisconsin. Classic walk up joint with picnic tables under shade trees. Since I was already primed for a root beer float, I ordered one at Briq's. Apparently the creator of the Briq's version had a passing familiarity with icebergs: the vast majority of the Briq's soft serve ice cream lurked below the surface. No surprise coming from a place which is the "home of the one pound ice cream cone." I ordered a small and it was enough for a small family.



At some point, I will investigate the use of glass mugs at A&W, but only if I don't pass an independent drive in on the way.

Briq's is located just off US 51 on Merrill Road in the general direction of the A&W.

Cajun Chowder in Coloma

There are no gators in Coloma, Wisconsin and nothing remotely like a bayou. But somehow the magicians in the kitchen at the Coloma Coffeehouse figured out the cajun thing anyway. Maybe it has something to do with the humitidity this summer. The chowder was packed with seafood; the broth was thick; the pepper was spot on; I had to hunt for the rice. I wish I had ordered the bowl.



Coloma Coffeehouse, 157 N Front St,, Coloma WI 54930 715/228 JAVA (5282)

Cousin Ruth and the Stone Bones

Years ago, Ruth discovered fossil camel and rhinoceros bones exposed in a mound in western Nebraska. This was no idle claim: the bones were properly identified, catalogued and displayed at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln with full credit given to the finder. Yesterday, we returned to the site of her discovery.


A Brule clay mound rose about 100 feet above the surrounding terrain. Ruth said the fossils she found were "just lying on the ground." I was incredulous. "A tooth was exposed, and then we dug out the jaw." The mound was located about two miles north of the North Platte about 200 feet higher than the current highwater mark but still well within the wide valley the river has cut over eons. The ground was littered with smooth, flat granite and basalt stones which had been carried from the mountains several hundred miles to the west and then deposited here when the channel shifted south.



William, Ruth's son, made the first new discovery. It was a rib fragment which "chinged" when he tapped it against another rock. He thought it was metal and was prepared to discard it. Soon his brother Edward found some fossil bone fragments. They were indeed just lying on the ground. They were near the top of the mound and somewhat protected by thick slabs of limestone which originally capped the oligocene clay mound and inhibited erosion. The age of clay suggests the bones we found protruding from it were 25-30 million years old.

Matt from Galesburg

Matt climbed into the Hertz Subaru Outback outside Hot Springs, South Dakota. He was on his way to New Mexico via the Four Corners and Grand Canyon. Originally from Galesburg, Illinois, he has worked as a day laborer and made his home in Texas, Florida or on the road. When I met him, he was seeing "a bit of the country."

If he still had his scooter, I would not have met him. It was impounded in Florida. Matt was passionate about scooters. He could get over 100 miles per gallon. He had traveled from Texas to Illinois on about six gallons of gas. He could carry his pack on the running board. He had nothing good to say about the police, especially the police in Louisiana. They harassed him and confiscated his scooters; his driver's license too. He was on his way to New Mexico because he had heard it was easy to get a new license there.

Matt's backpack was stretched drum tight. He claimed it weighed 100 pounds. Having seen the effort required to heft it, I had no reason to doubt that figure. He carried his life in that pack. He had foot long spikes to secure his tent and a hatchet to cut firewood.

He was dressed in shorts, heavy boots and wore a camouflage baseball cap. On the road, he was called Willy for obvious reasons; he even had the ponytail. He was lean and tanned like a Gulf Coast fisherman. He had professional tattoos on his arms and chest and amateur ink on his fingers. He complained that he could no longer hike 20 miles with his pack due to a bad back.

We crossed the North Platte in Bridgeport, Nebraska and stopped at Runza for a late lunch. He remembered having something like a Runza in LA about 20 years ago. It was a calzone. I had wolfed down half my Runza before I noticed how slowly and deliberately he ate. We returned to the bridge over the Platte and I dropped him off; 140 miles closer to the Grand Canyon than he had been a couple hours earlier. He would make camp under the bridge.

Matt turned 49 last week; he was born on June 18, 1959.