So of course, thinking about sandwiches led directly to thinking about things to eat with sandwiches. Such as…chips!

Now, my personal favorite is the plain ol’ ordinary Lay’s Classic Potato Chips (“Betcha can’t eat just one!”). I’m also partial to barbecue-flavor potato chips, but Lay’s don’t really do it for me anymore. Doritos are okay, but not as an accompaniment to a sandwich. And Ruffles only work with dip (or lots and lots of beer…but that’s another topic entirely).

Apart from sandwiches, I’m partial to original Wheat Thins, and just about any variety of Rold Gold pretzels. And of course, if I have guacamole, Tostitos or Doritos (or almost any similar chip) is what I crave.

With chili, though, Fritos are the only way to go, either as a base on which to ladle the chili, or sprinkled on top. And they work just fine for all-around munchy goodness.

So with these suggestions to start you salivating, what do you enjoy with your sandwiches? (Pickles! Don’t forget the pickles!) How about chips for snacking, without a sandwich?

Putting the Chips on the Table is a post from: Kestrel's Aerie

 

All Beers Are Not Alike

Before I discuss my five favorite lagers, we should probably make sure we’re all on the same page, beer-wise.

There are, basically, two types of beer in the world: Ales and lagers.

Ale yeast is the older type of brewing yeast, and ferments at warm temperatures (62-75 degrees Fahrenheit).¹ Ales ferment rapidly–sometimes, in as little as a few days. Once fermentation is complete, the yeasts rise to the top of the brewing vessel and float there in a large mass. So, if you hear a brewer discuss "top-fermenting" he is talking about ale.

Lagers are much younger than ales, dating back only to the mid-1800s, when the lager yeast was discovered in Bavaria. Lagers are often called pilsners (or pilseners); more correctly, though, a pilsner (often shortened to "pils") is a hoppy, golden style of lager. (All pilsners are lagers, but not all lagers are pilsners. Got it?)

Before refrigeration became commonplace, Bavarian brewers fermented their beers in deep, cool caves or tunnels, to prevent exposure to heat. Thus, the lager yeasts evolved to prefer cooler temperatures, generally between 46-56 degrees Fahrenheit. Unlike ales, though, once the fermentation is finished, lagers (the word comes from the German lagerung, meaning "to store") age for weeks or months; that aging process is now known as "lagering."

Incidentally, lager yeasts are "bottom-fermenting," as contrasted with top-fermenting ale yeasts. The way I remember which are top- and which are bottom-fermenting, is to remember that "a" in "ale" is at the top of the alphabet.

By the way–as long as I’m educating you about beer–wine is considerably easier to make than beer. For the most basic wine, you need only crush the grapes and allow the juice to ferment (in fact, they can even crush themselves, if piled high enough!). Beer, however, requires malt (generally from barley, although other grains have been used), hops (aromatic flowers, which provide bitterness in varying degrees), the aforementioned yeast, and, of course, water. (There is no water in wine; well, there shouldn’t be, anyway!) Once you have those ingredients, they need to be carefully combined to produce beer…brewing is as much science as it is art. By contrast, wine-making is pretty much all art.

Common Types of Beer

I daresay there are many more kinds of beer than wine (by the way, I enjoy a glass of wine almost as much as a good beer; I’m not anti-wine!). With wines, you have red, or white, and of those, sparkling, or not. (Yes, that is a bit simplistic, but it’s also generally true.) The differences depend on the grapes used, but that’s about it.

With beers, on the other hand, besides dividing them into lagers and ales, you have pilsners, pale ales, India pale ales (not the same as pale ales by any means), Trappist ale, porter, stout, bock, doppelbock, weissbier, witbier (again, while both translate to "white beer" one is German; the other, Belgian), Belgian dubbel, abbey ales, British bitter, schwarzbier…the list is almost as long as the list of regions where beer is brewed. And certainly, many regions are home to many types of beer.

Friday Five: My Favorite Lagers

1. Pilsner Urquell. This is considered by many to be the first true pilsner beer; "urquell" means "the source." This is a wonderful Czech beer and in my not-so-humble opinion, the best lager in the world.

2. Harp Irish Lager. The Guinness Group is, rightfully, most well-known for its signature brew, Guinness Stout (an ale). However, in 1960, Guinness began brewing Harp Lager (rebranded in 1997 as Harp Irish Lager), so called for the image of an Irish harp featured on its label (a smaller version of which you can see on Guinness labels as well). ²

3. Longboard Island Lager. From the Big Island of Hawai’i, Longboard is the signature beer of Kona Brewing Company. I discovered this beer on my first visit to Hawai’i in 2005, and it’s been a favorite ever since. Each time I return to the Islands, one of my first stops is to pick up a couple 6-packs of "liquid aloha." And whether on the Big Island or Oahu, I always insist on a visit to the Kona Brewery Brewpub, where the food is as good as the beer!

4. Blue Paddle. Produced by New Belgium Brewing Company, Ft. Collins, Colorado (probably most famous for its Fat Tire Ale, another favorite of mine), Blue Paddle is a very light-tasting pils (which is not the same as a light beer!), and became a favorite of mine from the very first sip. New Belgium began shipping to South Dakota only this May, and it’s a standard purchase for me at my favorite spirits shop.

5. Löwenbräu (Munich). One of two wonderful beers synonymous with Munich and Oktoberfest (the other, of course, is Hofbrau), don’t confuse this with the former offering from the Miller Brewing Company several years ago. When I lived in Germany (1985-88), this wonderful pilsner shared storage space in our basement with Bitburger, the local regional favorite.

I could go on and on about beers in general, and lagers in particular (by all means if you can find either of the other two German beers mentioned immediately above, you will not be disappointed!), but if you enjoy beer, give any of these (or all of them!) a try. Clearly, I’ve opened a veritable cornucopia of beer topics with this article: I’ve no doubt we’ll be talking about ales, IPAs, and all manner of other brews (and wines!) as time goes on.

Enjoy the weekend, and don’t forget to crack open a cold one!

Friday Five: Best Lagers is a post from: Kestrel's Aerie

 

Until today, I don’t believe I’ve ever baked a carrot cake. My wife does 99.9 percent of the baking in our house, but that doesn’t mean I can’t follow a recipe, and I do know my way around the kitchen.²

So when I accepted this challenge task, I decided to go all out. I did a web search for "best carrot cake" and settled on this cake, from allrecipes.com.³ I read many of the almost-700 comments on the cake, and decided to adapt a couple of the (relatively minor) variations.

Here, with my notes and variations, is the recipe I used:

INGREDIENTS

* 6 cups grated carrots (use baby carrots for sweeter flavor)
* 1 cup brown sugar
* 1 cup raisins (I used golden)
* 4 eggs
* 1 1/2 cups white sugar
* 1 cup vegetable oil
* 4 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 1 cup crushed pineapple, drained (soak raisins in juice)
* 3 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
* 1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)
* 1/4 teaspoon each: allspice, nutmeg, cloves, ginger

DIRECTIONS

1. In a medium bowl, combine grated carrots and brown sugar. Set aside for 60 minutes, then stir in raisins.
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease and flour two 10 inch or three 9-inch cake pans.
3. In a large bowl, beat eggs until light. Gradually beat in the white sugar, oil and vanilla. Stir in the pineapple. Combine the flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon, stir into the wet mixture until absorbed. Finally stir in the carrot mixture and the walnuts. Pour evenly into the prepared pans.
4. Bake for 45 to 50 (9-inch pans: 30-40) minutes in the preheated oven, until cake tests done with a toothpick. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pan. When completely cooled, frost with cream cheese frosting.

Note: Carrots may be drained before adding brown sugar, if a less-moist cake is desired.

CREAM CHEESE FROSTING

1 stick butter, softened
8oz cream cheese, softened
4 to 6 cups powdered sugar (for this recipe, I used about 5 1/2 cups)
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
Cream together butter and cream cheese until smooth, without any lumps, and has a slight gloss. Add vanilla extract. Slowly add sugar, increasing speed to incorporate as much air as possible. If frosting is too thick, thin with a tablespoon or so of milk or half-and-half.

YIELD: 12-16 servings, depending on cake pan size.

“Best Ever?” Not Quite

So how was it? It was very good: I’d make it again, but not the “best ever.”

The texture was dense but moist. The ladies would have preferred a “cakier” (i.e., more airy) cake, but I liked the texture just fine. However, I think cutting down the carrots from 6 cups to 4 would make it not quite so dense, without hurting the moistness at all (I would definitely NOT drain the carrots in this case).

As for flavor, the cloves were definitely noticeable, and the combination of allspice and ginger was apparent too. I think next time I’d omit those three ingredients (which were one of the modifications I made), and stick with just the cinnamon and nutmeg.

I’m also not sure about the pineapple. It doesn’t hurt the cake at all, and no one complained, but I just don’t think it added much at all. However, soaking the raisins in the pineapple juice for an hour definitely plumped them up, making them the perfect texture for the cake.

“Best Ever” Carrot Cake? is a post from: Kestrel's Aerie

 

Welcome back to what is part 3 or 4 (maybe 5?) of our four-week journey last month from Rapid City to St. Louis to Los Angeles to Los Osos and back to Rapid City. Whew! That took almost as long to type as it did to drive!

Los Angeles

As I related yesterday,, we arrived in L.A. on Wednesday the 18th, a bit later than originally planned. Nonetheless, we were not at all late for dinner; in fact, there was definitely time for a couple of Bill’s homebrews beforehand. One of the nice things about being “grownups” is that Bill and his sister (my wife) get along very well. Mrs. K and Bill’s wife Cookie are as much sisters as any blood relatives. And I manage to fit in pretty well too (convenient, no?).

One thing we all share is a love of good food and good drink. I believe I’ve mentioned before that not only does Bill brew his own beer, but he and his friend Jim make their own wines as well. They’ve won awards for reds and whites, and Bill’s Zinfandel is a particular favorite of mine. Every time I visit, I be sure to snag a few bottles to bring home.

On Thursday, we were all up early. Mrs K and Cookie went to Curves, and dropped off the van at the Toyota dealer. I watched what little coverage there was of the first round of the U.S. Open.

Later that morning, while Bill was at work, the other three of us took a large amount of investment coins (Mexican Libertads, a couple Krugerrands, some Canadian Maple Leafs, and some US Eagles) and a bit of jewelry (all of which had belonged to my mother-in-law) to the Torrance Women’s Club, where three numismatists/gemologists from a local shop were holding an appraisal clinic. 

While we were in California in March, I’d inventoried many of the coins and researched their values using current spot prices for silver, gold and platinum. Thus, we had a ballpark idea of their worth. When the appraisal of the 100 silver Libertads came in within $100 of my estimate, we were confident we were going to get a fair price for our coins and jewelry. To make a longer story shorter, we walked out about 90 minutes later with almost $10,000 in cash.

We celebrated with Mexican food at a nearby restaurant (not quite fast food, but very good nonetheless), then went shopping a bit. We needed some necessities of some sort at Target, and since we happened to be very near a Wild Birds Unlimited store, we stopped in and I selected my anniversary present: a Tilley LTM6 Airflow hat in natural with green underbrim. If you noticed the picture of me in the preceding article, I need considerable head protection from the sun. While baseball caps work, they don’t protect the ears, and they don’t travel well. The Tilley meets both requirements splendidly.(Thanks to @Llanionfor the recommendation!) (And no, that’s not me in the picture, although the hat does make me look almost as dashing! Courtesy, Tilley.com)

We then returned to the Toyota dealer to pick up the van. The oil was changed, and so were the wiper blades. Turns out the large black plastic piece we found outside Needles was in fact from the Previa: It’s an air vent filter; nothing critical. We once again tossed it in the van and headed back to Bill and Cookie’s.

Friday, we went to lunch with our friends Karen and Mike, as previously documented. Saturday was a pretty leisurely day, although Bill and I did spend an hour or so wandering around Fry’s Electronics. I tried not to drool over all the gear available, and to my credit (or shame; you be the judge) I didn’t buy anything.

Saturday evening, however, was a meal to remember. Bill smoked some pork ribs, and I promise they were every bit as good as those from the best Kansas City barbecue houses. Every. Bit. My birthday wish-list contains one item: A Weber Smoker. We also had the best macaroni and cheese ever, and that’s coming from someone who generally does not like baked mac’n’cheese.

Sunday was breakfast at the Lighthouse Deli in San Pedro, with Bill’s friend Jim. Sunday breakfast at the Lighthouse is a weekly tradition for Bill, Cookie and Jim, and we’ve joined them whenever we’re in town. For the first time since we’d been in L.A., the “June gloom” (morning overcast, or “marine layer” of fog) wasn’t present, so we sat outside. The food is great, good portions, and some unique dishes. Bill, for example, enjoyed the beef stroganoff omelet. I stuck with a somewhat more traditional buckwheat waffle. The coffee is excellent, and they’re quick to keep you topped up. All in all, a great Father’s Day breakfast!

Once we got back to Bill’s, we loaded the van, then the three of us (sans Bill) headed up the coast to Los Osos. After a quick food stop in Santa Maria (and to pick up a lug of fresh strawberries) we arrived at “the cabin” around 4 PM.

Los Osos

The cabin is Mom’s mobile home, a very nice double-wide she bought about five years ago. She had all the inside walls and ceilings plastered, as well as several other upgrades, so it looks much more like a real house than a mobile home.

The reason we call it “the cabin” is because when Bill and Janet were young, their folks build a bungalow in Morro Bay, which was always called the cabin. So the mobile home (located in a park for folks 55 and older) has become cabin #2, since we decided to keep it as a vacation home rather than sell it (at least for the time being). It’s within easy walking distance of grocery stores, banks, hardware store, bakery, cafes, and Los Osos is ideally situated in the heart of the Central Coast wine country.

The next few days were filled with sorting and pricing items for the estate sale, scheduled for Friday for the park residents, and Saturday morning for everyone else. I’ll not bore you with the details; suffice to say, my mother-in-law managed to accumulate a LOT of stuff over 81 years. Since we are keeping the house, there wasn’t a lot of furniture to move, but what there was, was plenty heavy and awkward. Bill came up Thursday morning, so he and I spent some of Thursday and then Friday morning moving stuff around.

Bill and Mrs K also spent some time on Thursday dealing with their mother’s estate, transferring accounts under the trust she established. All I’ll say about that is, between my military retirement pay and my wife’s inheritance, it’s nice to be able to be retired in our mid-50s.

Friday evening, Cookie’s daughter Deana drove up from L.A. Deana’s one of my favorite people in the world: Her joie de vivre is contagious. Besides that, she enjoys beer as much as Bill and I do! On Saturday, while Mrs. K and Cookie collected cash, Deana, Bill and I put a serious dent in two pots of coffee and made sure things didn’t fall down (i.e., we leaned against them to keep them in place).

Shortly after noon, we started boxing up the remainder (which was a lot!). About half went to the mobile home park for their annual yard sale; the other half we donated to Hospice of the Central Coast. The money we earned from the sale is being reinvested into paying bills and upkeep on the cabin (less what we spent for dinner Saturday night).

At 6:30 we arrived at Giancarlo’s in Morro Bay for dinner. We had reservations, but our table wasn’t available yet, so the hostess offered us a glass of wine while we waited. This was our first indication that the evening would be a memorable one. This was, again, one of the five best dining experiences I’ve had. Certainly, the company had a lot to do with it. But the food, wine, and service were top-notch too.

I had a lamb shank osso bucco that was just perfect, full of flavor. Mrs. K had the Crab Cioppino, and the waiter offered to buy her dessert if she could finish it. We ordered four desserts and were charged for only three. Deana had a swordfish steak that was firm and flavorful; it almost made me regret my choice. And Cookie’s scallops…my favorite mollusk…mmmmmmm. Bill had a duck comfite that was the best duck I’ve ever tasted: Firm, flavorful, well-seasoned.

There was also a two-man combo playing “old standards” (well, not that old—they played some great Elvis ballads). They were good, played to the diners, and we were very appreciative. When we realized that this year marked the 60th wedding anniversary of Bill (Sr.) and Ginny, Bill and Cookie’s 25th, and our 35th, we requested a song in Bill and Ginny’s honor. To say it was quite an emotional moment would be stating it quite accurately.

We finished up with dessert, as I mentioned. As is my habit, I ordered the tiramisu. It was good, but not great. I am starting to get the feeling that truly outstanding tiramisu is a myth. Or perhaps I really don’t care for it as much as I used to think I did. It’s a truism that no two tiramisu are identical; given that, I should probably abandon my quest for the World’s Best Tiramisu, because if I ever find it, I’ll continue to be disappointed ever afterwards.

Sunday morning we went to breakfast at The Sculptured Egg in Baywood Park (it’s hard to tell where Los Osos ends and Baywood Park begins; essentially, they are twin cities). We’d eaten there in March, and it’s probably one of my favorite spots for breakfast. Mrs K and I split a stack of pancakes and a cinnamon roll. After we returned home, Deana headed back to L.A., while the wife and I started loading the van.

We had a cedar chest, a jewelry chest (48” high with base), a wine chiller, and two sets of china (among other things) to put into the van. By lunch time it was filled, and I could still see out the back window. But it pretty much precluded any shopping stops on the way back to South Dakota! I suppose I should have taken pictures; I guess I’m still very much not a photojournalist. I’ll try to do better in the future.

Sunday evening we went out for fish and chips at our favorite place on The Embarcadero in Morro Bay. Monday morning, Bill and I loaded up his truck with all the stuff he and Cookie were taking to Hospice House in San Luis Obispo. By 9:00 AM, Mrs K and I were on the road.

The Trek Home

Our journey home was optimized for time, and we wanted to make the trip in two days. The first day (Monday), we traveled to Bakersfield, then Barstow to Las Vegas, cutting through a corner of Arizona before heading north on I-15 in Utah. The desert was hot, the drive was generally boring. Thank heavens for the iPod. After eleven hours on the road, we spent Monday night in Cedar City, then headed out again about 8:oo AM Tuesday.

We had no trouble getting through Salt Lake City, although there was one slowdown for a rather nasty-looking accident shortly before we hit the Loop around the city to head up to Wyoming. While the climb through the mountains from Salt Lake to Evanston, Wyoming, is quite beautiful, our poor loaded 4-banger struggled with the climbs, dropping quickly from 75 to 65 to as low as 50 mph in spots.

In Rawlins, we turned north on US-287 toward Casper. We ran into a few showers, and saw considerable lightning, but managed to avoid the really serious thunderstorms. From Casper, we headed south on I-25 for a bit, then hit US-18 towards Lusk, north on US-85 to Mule Creek Junction (yes, it really is called that), where we hit US-18 east through Edgemont, SD, up through Hot Springs, and into Rapid City. We walked in the door, after 14 hours in the saddle, at almost precisely 11:oo PM. We were in bed by 11:30…although the cats were so happy to see us home again (especially Mom), they pretty much ruined any chance at a really good night’s sleep.

The End

The cedar chest was moved to the guest bedroom this morning, and the jewelry chest will head down to Eric and Diane’s, either in August, or more probably in October. And now, it’s time for me to find a place for that wine chiller in the basement.

Coming up in the next few days, I’ll be writing about some personal goals I’ve set for myself, and showcase a few websites I’ve added to Google Reader in the past few weeks. I may even squeeze in a WoW article or two!

Finally, thanks to all of you who have continued to subscribe to the Aerie’s RSS feed, including the 20 or 30 new subscribers in June who pushed me comfortably over the 800 subscriber mark, despite only three articles all of last month. I promise to do better!

Odyssey Concluded is a post from: Kestrel's Aerie

 

Amarillo to Winslow

On Tuesday the 17th, we woke early and were on the road for what was a short day (thankfully, after the marathon of the day before). We soon hit the New Mexico state line, and stopped at the New Mexico Welcome Center. Over the years, I’ve become an expert on rest areas, and state welcome centers are generally among the best in a given state (I must say, though, that Missouri sure seems to have some of the best rest areas in the country, along I-70). New Mexico’s I-40 welcome center, just west of the Texas state line, rates an A+ for comfort, design, information and friendliness of staff. My wife practically had to drag me out of there!

So we continued on toward Winslow, Arizona, our stop for the evening, as I mentioned earlier. The trip was uneventful, and for the most part, the scenery is pretty wonderful (as long as you like deserts; however, the Painted Desert is definitely a pretty one!).

We arrived in Winslow by mid-afternoon, and were able to check into our room at La Posada Hotel right away. La Posada was everything we expected, and more. The rooms were quaint, and each is named for a famous former guest. We had the Jimmy Doolittle room, which was great, as this airpower pioneer is a hero I’ve long admired. The grounds are extremely lovely, and inside is a veritable museum (although some of the artwork is a bit…different).

Since we had some time before dinner, we thought we’d take a stroll down to the kitschy, Route 66 part of Winslow.¹ We even took each other’s pictures on that street corner made famous by The Eagles:

Well, I’m standin’ on a corner
In Winslow, Arizona
And such a fine sight to see
It’s a girl, my Lord, in a flatbed Ford
Slowin’ down to take a look at me.
Come on, baby,
don’t say maybe
I gotta know if your sweet love
is gonna save me.

We resisted the temptation to buy any of the souvenirs at either of two corner shops (in the picture, I’m facing one; the other is across the street to my right), figuring our pictures would suffice.

Dinner: The Turquoise Room at La Posada

That evening, we enjoyed one of the five best meals I’ve ever had, at La Posada’s Turquoise Room restaurant (and please don’t ask me to list the other four!). In the photo below, our table would be the one in the lower left corner (you can see the tops of two chairs, but not the table).

To follow along, check out the dinner menu. We started with an appetizer, Piki Bread with Hopi Hummus.² (I was also enjoying an absolutely fantastic draft lager from a local microbrewery; unfortunately, the name escapes me. From now on, I shall be taking copious notes on food and drink for this blog!)³

For her entrée, Mrs. K selected a sampler (not shown on the linked menu), which included a range-raised quail and a chili of bison, elk, lamb (and probably armadillo as well, according to her brother!), and tamale in a cactus flower, while I thoroughly enjoyed the Locally Raised Churro Lamb Sampler Platter, with a glass of MonteVina Syra. One thing we decided even before we arrived was that we would be saving room for dessert! From the menu:

Yeah, it was that good! Can’t think of a better way for us to have celebrated our thirty-fifth wedding anniversary (even if it was a few days early).

Winslow to Los Angeles

Wednesday, we woke early, decided to pass on breakfast at La Posada (next time, though!), and got on the road by about 7 AM. We had hopes of pulling into my brother-in-law’s driveway about 3:30 PM. Alas, the best-laid plans…

The previous day, we’d encountered a fairly strong crosswind while driving across New Mexico and the eastern half of Arizona. As we approached Flagstaff, it seemed to me that somehow our front-end alignment had gotten out of whack, and I mentioned to my wife that in addition to an oil change (which our Toyota service hadn’t provided when we asked them to make the ‘92 Previa “road-trip-worthy”), I would have the alignment checked in L.A.⁴

Flagstaff is a beautiful city, and is the gateway to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon. It’s also home to Northern Arizona University. It was drizzly as we climbed the mountain toward Flagstaff, and we actually had some rain in and around the city. As we headed down the western side of the mountain, however, the drizzle tapered off and we had one of those gorgeous days you get in the desert, with the bluest of skies, peppered with big, white, fluffy clouds.

As we continued on toward Kingman, I noted again how much the van seemed to be pulling to the left. Suddenly, I heard (and felt!) a loud “THWAP-WHACK-WHACK”. Of course, I was in the left lane, having just passed a semi. I immediately took my foot off the gas, checked behind me to be sure I could safely cross to the right, and hit the button for the emergency flashers. I pulled over as quickly and safely as possible, stopped, and we got out to survey the damage.

Surprisingly, all four tires were fully inflated. Even more surprisingly, and somewhat frighteningly, the tread from the left-front tire was wrapped around the axle and CV boot! It had completely separated from the tire at 75 mph. No, the tire was not a retread. It was, however, about 6 years old, and for the past 3 years has gotten little use, except for sitting out in South Dakota’s fickle, and extreme, weather. More on the implications of that in a bit. My first concern was that none of the cables (brake, power steering) going to the wheel were damaged; fortunately, everything appeared to be just fine.

Now, I was praying the (full-size) spare was inflated; it was! We had the tire changed in 30 minutes, which wasn’t too bad considering we’d never had to change a tire on the Previa before. On pins and needles, we drove the last 20 miles into Kingman.

Our trusty Garmin GPS had located a Goodyear tire dealer right off the first Kingman exit, so we went there. The manager took one look at the tires and noted they had considerable sidewall rot from exposure to weather over the years. He also noted that tires should generally be replaced about every 5 years, to preclude just the sort of thing that happened to us.

When I’d taken the van in a couple weeks before our trip, to ensure everything was in good shape, I’d made a point of asking the service manager to (a) check the tires to be sure they were up to a 5,000 mile trip; (b) replace the wiper blades. They didn’t do (b), and as for (a): He assured me we had “plenty of tread.” Well, duh! The tread went all the way to Lincoln’s chin!⁵ 

I had been fully prepared to replace the tires, had Toyota indicated it might be advisable. So it was with no hesitation that we had the Goodyear folks put on four new tires, while we walked over to a nearby Denny’s for a belated breakfast. In the meantime, my wife phoned our sister-in-law to let her know our arrival would probably be closer to 4:30 that afternoon.

An hour after arriving in Kingman, we were on our way again, and I was feeling a lot better than I had the last 20 miles, believe me! Soon, we hit the California state line near Needles. As beautiful as the Painted Desert is, the desert between Needles and Barstow is some of the most Godforsaken land in the US. And I’ve seen a LOT of the US!

About an hour past Needles, we stopped at a rest area (California, you get a C-minus on I-40, and I’m being generous). As I pulled into the space, I heard and felt my tire hit something; sounded like it was under the left-front tire. Oh great! I got out and pulled out a large, black plastic piece of automobile, but no way to tell if it was from the Previa, or had possibly been there and I hadn’t seen it. It had a gash in one side, which may have been caused by me hitting it; it was also hollow, and had some dust or dirt inside. So who knows how long it had lain there? I took a quick look under the van, but couldn’t see any immediate indication that it came from the Previa. The absence of fluid on the ground (other than AC condensation) was encouraging at least.

I went to the restroom and came back to the van. I asked Mrs. K to watch under the vehicle as I started it and backed out, to see if there was any evidence that we had a problem. As I turned on the engine…a dash light came on and didn’t go out. Now what? “Check engine oil.” Well, first I checked the owner’s manual: This indicator, if it comes on and stays on, indicates oil level may be low; check and add oil if needed. Okay, fine, we may be a quart low. Not a problem; I can get a quart at the next service station. Still, it was unsettling. As for the mysterious plastic piece: We tossed it in the back, and decided to see what happened if we drove on.

After about a minute, the oil light went off, and nothing else untoward happened as we continued our trek. At the next opportunity, we pulled off at a convenience store, and I added a quart of oil. The oil light didn’t re-illuminate, so I was completely confident we were fine there.

Eventually (about 4 PM.) we approached L.A. Throughout the entire trip to this point, I’d driven within a couple miles of the posted speed limits (generally, 70 or 75 mph on the Interstate). As we got closer to Los Angeles, the speed limit dropped to 65, then 60, and finally down to 55. I tried to follow suit…and was passed by everyone! Understand, I basically learned to drive on the freeways of Los Angeles, and I still feel comfortable there, but things have changed—a lot!—over the past 30 years or so since I’ve driven there regularly.

We saw a diamond lane (carpool lane, 2 or more people per vehicle) and since we had quite a ways to go on that particular freeway, I hopped into it. Soon, I was doing 70, then 75, and cars were still exiting the lane, passing me, then reentering. Sorry, I was NOT going to do 80 there.

As we moved from one interchange to another, the gas gauge started dropping (the last quarter tank in the Previa seemingly disappears in 15 minutes of driving). My wife was concerned that we might not have enough to reach Bill’s house. However, gas stations are not as ubiquitous at every off-ramp as you might think.

Eventually, we got off the freeway—at 5 PM., the height of rush-hour—in Bell. Yeah, right where I wanted to be, in the barrios. Not. It is an unfortunate fact of life in East Los Angeles that anglos aren’t completely welcome in all parts of that area of L.A. However, we drove around, finally using the GPS to locate a gas station, got $10 worth, and pressed on.

We were perhaps 15 minutes from my brother-in-law’s at the time; I think we could have made it, but hated to chance running out of gas on the freeway. We pulled up at Bill and Cookie’s driveway at 6:00 PM. on the dot. The first thing Mrs. K said to her brother was, “Steve needs a beer.” (He brews his own, and it’s excellent!)

Tomorrow: Odyssey Concluded

Odyssey Continued is a post from: Kestrel's Aerie