Settled in Albuquerque

 Albuquerque, NM

*not a selfie

Eating Local

Today we finished getting settled, did some more grocery shopping, and got take out for dinner. 

We started out waking up from a great sleep.  It is so quiet in the neighborhood we are staying and the temperature is perfect for sleeping.  It's going to be a relaxing month I think.

We finished getting organized and unpacked and there is plenty of space for our stuff which is great.  Later in the afternoon we went grocery shopping at El Super again.  Donna picked a few recipes off newmexico.org's recipe list.

We needed New Mexico Red Chilis for a dish and these looked close to the Google search.  Later I found the real chilis and put these back.  The downside is we had to buy about 5x the amount we needed.  I guess we have a month to use them all.

November 1st is Dia De Los Muertos and we are going to get one of these to celebrate.  Eat local!

We also bought 5 for $4 pastries for "lunch" when we got back.  They were great.

When we got home we quickly realized that nothing we were making was going to be done in time for dinner.  We (I say we but Donna ended up doing most of the work) had to make broth and green sauce which took a few hours.  We decided to get take out for dinner tonight.  I drove across town to get great Mexican food at El Paisa Taqueria.  It is a cash only place and the food is very cheap.

There was a nice man selling things in the eating area of the restaurant

So I bought fresh chicharrons.  

The rest of the evening was cooking, eating great Mexican food, and watching PBS.  So far we are having a very relaxing stay which is needed because Denver was GO GO GO.

The end result of our all day cooking is a double recipe of green chili sauce for 2 recipes we have planned.

The blue counties are all of the new counties for this trip.  We hope to grab a few more surrounding counties before we leave and we will get 2 more on the way out in November.

Our New Mexico Highway Map is getting some miles too.  We are up to 443 miles in NM now.

That's it for today.  If you missed There's A New Mexico, check it out.  Homer Simpson was right, there is a new Mexico.

It's So Money

 Winnipeg, MB

That's the Mint behind us!

The Royal Canadian Mint

Today we toured The Royal Canadian Mint.  Usually when people put the word Royal in front of a phrase it means extra like Royal Pain In The Butt but not Canada.  The Royal Canadian Mint stamps coins with royalty on them for Canada and they have also helped over 80 countries mint coins including the good old USA.  It's a cool building and the tour was great, you should go.  I wasn't allowed to take photos of the actual minting going on so enjoy these photos I was allowed to take.

They have flags out front for all of the nations that they have pressed coins for.  There are 3 more going up soon.

It's a Loon!

The mint also made the Paralympic games medals.

This one is gold.

They sell all kinds of commemorative coins including coins for hockey and curling.

The Royal Scale

An old Royal Press and some footage in the background of the area I wasn't supposed to take photos of.

This is like a penny press machine except you put in 3 bucks and get a token pressed.  It was loud.

Donna found a Mounty Moose.

Wayne!

The original dies for the dollar coin (on the right) went missing on their way to the mint so they had to redesign the dollar coin and went with a Loon.  That's where the Loony came from.  The other one had a canoe so it could have been a canoey if things went differently.

A commemorative Twoney with a black ring to mourn the death of The Queen.

Each new monarch gets at least one coin and the direction of the face switches except one.  Edward VIII was king for a very short time before he left the throne to marry an American divorcee.  He wasn't king long enough to have a coin minted so the profiles didn't swap.

Groceries and a Yarn Store

After the mint we went to pick up groceries and visit a yarn store.  

Donna creeping on some row markers

We went to this great veggie and fruit stand.  We will be back.

We even forged some chanterelles.  

A puck of cheese

The Saskatoon pastries were great.

We also had to sample our maple syrup when we got home.  It was delicious.

That was it for today.  If you missed Food at The Forks, check it out.

Day 5 of Folklorama - China

 Winnipeg, MB

I guess Americans go to Folklorama and spend USD?  

Real Canadian Superstore

Today we went to Real Canadian Superstore for some groceries.  Real Canadian Superstore is a big box store with groceries and a bit of other things like clothes and housewares.  It's kind of like Super Target but with more food than stuff.  It also has elements Aldi with the "Deposit for a shopping cart" and "Bag your own groceries" aspects.  

We had to cash in some money to get a $1 coin (Loonie) to get a cart and then the cart we found wasn't locked.

At other stores you see a limit 2 but I have never seen the "After Limit Pay" wording.

Good old British Colored Cheddar.  Notice there isn't an extra U in Colored,  interesting.

"Who'd like a banger in the mouth?"

Subliminal Advertising gets lazy.  "Just call it a want want and move on."
It reminds me of the "Bandy Bandy" at The Field Museum.

More Folklorama

This evening we walked into Chinatown and went to the Chinese Pavilion at Folklorama.  It was another fairly small venue but they set up the seating better.  We started by getting food.  We both got the combo platter which had fried noodles, Sweet and Sour Pork, some veg, and an egg roll.  It was delicious but not fancy.  It was as delicious as Panda Express if memory serves, which is tasty but not fancy.  After grabbing food, we took our plate into the gymnasium and found a chair and ate while we waited for the show to start.

We got to see some of Chinatown for the first time.

The inside of the Chinese pavilion was less interesting than the outside.

They were serving food very fast.

The show opened with what I consider the show stopper.  It was the Jasmine Flower Dance.

At various points in the dance the dresses flip up to form giant flowers.

There was also a Guzheng performance.  The Guzheng is a bit like a deconstructed piano.  
Luckily the instruments weren't set to Magical Attack Mode.

The middle of the show came to a screeching halt for us.  The whole performance was a man making sound effects kind of like Michael Winslow but not near as good.  All of his sound effects consisted of loud robotic buzzing things.  The rest of the audience cheered along but they were mostly Canadian so maybe they were just being polite.

Another performance was a Gourd Flute and Dance performance.  The flute reminded me of the Futurama Holophonor.

The perfect thing about Folklorama is that just when you are ready to leave they announce the last performance.  The shows are between 45 minutes and an hour.  The last performance was another nice dance.  

After the show they shuffled us out onto the patio for the Dragon Dance Performance.  It was much cooler outside which was good.  The gym was getting hot.  When that ended everyone was already outside so they didn't have to clear the building.  Pretty smart.

That was it for today.  If you missed Day 4 Folklorama - Belgium check it out.