$200 Green Chili and Reminiscing...

AlexPeterson · #1 03-15-2009, 09:42 PM

These RV's are time machines in more ways than the obvious...

Here's how this went this weekend. #2 son came home from college for spring break on Friday night. We had discussed going to Dayton on an overnight sometime during the week he was off. The weekend seemed like a good choice, except the weather didn't look too good in Dayton for the return trip. So, where else to go? Around 9:00 Friday night, I had a thought - let's go to Colorado. I mentioned it to my son Brett, and we agreed to go for it. Weather looked perfect for both days, planning a flight from Minneapolis to CO on Saturday, return Sunday. So, we packed our junk and took off from KANE on the north side of the Twin Cities metro area at 0815 CDT Saturday. We planned a fuel stop in Ainsworth, NE. This leg was 2:20, fighting a 10 to 15 knot headwind. This building was visible from a long way off:

Back underway, destination Longmont CO. When we were about 30 miles out, we were rewarded with this view of Long's Peak, just NW of Denver about 40 miles:

After 1:50 for this second leg, we arrived at Vance Brand airport, generally just called Longmont airport:

Now, this airport is special to me - I first soloed at this airport in 1985. I will point out that another vivid memory I have from the time I lived in CO was climbing the peak shown behind me (another shot of that a little later..):

Brett and I hopped in the easily arranged rental car, and wandered down to Boulder and did some hiking, with CU in the background:

Just after this, we knocked on the door of some old friends whom I hadn't seen for nearly 20 years. Kind of surprised them.

This morning we drove up to Estes Park, and snapped this great shot of Long's Peak. There are very few things one can do more memorable than climbing a 14'er. Some of us have discussed going for this again, at more than twice the age I was the first time I did...

Here is the famous Stanley Hotel in Estes Park:

After a great breakfast at The Egg and I in Estes Park, we headed back to the airport, and were on our way. So long Colorado, for now...

Trip home was 3:27 non-stop. We had a TAS of 168 knots, 9500', 7.6 gph, 10 to 20 knot tailwind. Simply delightful. BTW, the northern middle part of Nebraska might be the most uninhabited place on earth.

Oh, I almost forgot, we had some great green chile on our burritos Saturday. Can't get it anywhere other than CO and NM, but I'll take corrections to that. Worth the whole trip. Door to door - 34 hours.

pierre smith · #2 03-16-2009, 06:29 AM

.....shows that he appreciates the quality time, Daddyo!

My # 2 son will see me tomorrow as well..

Regards,

tkirk · #3 03-16-2009, 06:56 AM

FYI......There are places you can mail order green chili...such as:

http://www.hatch-chile.com/

I have never ordered from this place, but Hatch Chile is well known. A local grocery store here gets them in about August when they are harvested. We usually have a good supply in our freezer.

bhassel · #4 03-16-2009, 01:10 PM

There was actually a farmers market between Dallas and Ft Worth (just up from the Krispey Kreme) that would make a run once a year during the Hatch Chile festival. We'd order 75 pounds of the beloved stuff every year.

then there was a grocery chain that opened up a new store in Plano that had veggies from all over, incredible selections on everything and they could run 1800 people through an hour. Anyway, during the chile season you would see the boxes of chile stacked up outside. The box was printed with the word 'mild' and it was crossed out and labeled 'hot' instead.

don't worry about that anymore since I'm living in Santa Fe. The best red chile is in the north and the best green is in the south (New Mexico of course).

Bob

Danny7 · #5 03-16-2009, 04:38 PM

not much snow on those mountains, farmers and fishes are going to be hurting this summer. Looked like a wonderful trip, thanks for sharing.

how many miles, hours, gas and $ did you end up using on the airplane portion?

Bob Brown · #6 03-16-2009, 05:41 PM

Growing up in New Mexico with about a 400 yr family heritage of eating the local burros and posole and being away from red chile (I lived in Northern NM) and green chile has been worse than going through heroin withdrawal. I have been known to pay extravagant amounts to get it up here, even bought airplane tickets for people in NM to BRING it up here...yeah, you'd have to know to understand...the rest of my family still lives in NM, and they all know that even talking about Hatch green chile is verboten...
I bet I could put a few coolers of frozen green in an RV-10...Now I have a reason to finish the RV-10 quicker!!! Let's see, G900 panel ordered from Stein, engine ordered from Barrett, cowl, plenum and induction ordered from James, exhaust from Larry already here...hmmm, instead of suffering through a conversation about New Mexico chile, I think I'll go do some wiring!!

AlexPeterson · #7 03-16-2009, 05:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Danny7

not much snow on those mountains, farmers and fishes are going to be hurting this summer. Looked like a wonderful trip, thanks for sharing.

how many miles, hours, gas and $ did you end up using on the airplane portion?

The trip was right about at 600 n.m. each way, and, while I didn't keep track exactly of the fuel, it would be right around 60 gallons. Average price I paid was around $3.25 or so? Home field is about $3, Ainsworth was about $4, Longmont $2.66 or so. Call it 200 bucks for gas. Total airborne time was 2:20 + 1:50 = 4:10 on the westbound, 3:27 on the return.

prestontmitch · #8 07-07-2012, 06:11 PM

It's certainly a lot cheaper to order it for delivery! The source listed above is a bit pricey but it's one of the only two sites I've seen that are actually from hatch. The other site The Hatch Chile Store is a bit cheaper.

n5lp · #9 07-07-2012, 06:20 PM

It is so very odd to go into a "Mexican" restaurant elsewhere in the country and not be asked "red or green?" Here, you can get decent green chile on a McDonalds Double Cheeseburger. I'm just not quite sure what the appeal of an enchilada without (green for me) chile is.

AlexPeterson · #10 07-07-2012, 08:49 PM

MMM, mouth watering... We in the Twin Cities have had a lot of immigrants start good Mexican restaurants over the last decade or so - but, they do not understand this red/green question. Red is standard, and whatever green sauce one can find is not the same as real green chile. I'm guessing it is a southwest US concoction, and not a real Mexican thing. Others can answer, I don't know.

Thankfully, I might be working on a joint project with some Boulder folks, so might get my fix more often!