Best Meal Ever

Twice lately I’ve been asked to describe the best meal I’ve ever eaten and I have thought about it a lot. Except my thoughts don’t linger with this meal because the food was so good. It was actually the atmosphere and company that made it so amazing.

My Wyoming friend and I spent an epic week exploring Utah a few years ago. We road tripped from Salt Lake City to Moab for several days of exploring Arches National Park and Canyonlands National Park.

After checking out the house where we were staying in Moab, we unloaded the car, packed our backpacks and headed to the store to pick up some groceries before driving south to Canyonlands.

We found a spot to park and spread a blanket on the ground. You see, there was a meteor shower that night and Canyonlands has some of the darkest skies in the country.

So we sat there in the dark eating a picnic of peanut butter sandwiches, crackers and Bing cherries. We chatted while we waited for the show in the sky to begin.

It was a feast like none other.

Sadly, we saw the meteor shower only briefly before a dark cloud sprawled across the sky. We car camped that night and woke up to enjoy the sunrise. It was my first desert sunrise and another incredible memory. The pictures don’t do it justice.

Five years later, I don’t hesitate to buy cherries when they’re available because the memory is so sweet. They will always remind me of that night and the freedom that I found on that trip.

Advice

“Affirm it, visualize it, believe it, and it will actualize itself.”

It’s great advice and it was found inside a fortune cookie!

Happy Saturday, friends. We’ve waited all week to get here so let’s enjoy this day. First, I’ll visualize myself having a good day and then will believe it to be true!

It’s adventure day so that means anything is possible.

Flamingo Cocktail Lounge Of Muncie

Vintage matchbook covers are fun little treasure troves of information and delightful pocket sized works of art. You can sometimes pick up a ziplock bag full of them in antique stores and junk shops for just a few bucks, making them an inexpensive treat to take home and explore.

I found a bag of interesting ones in Muncie this spring. This one is for the Flamingo Cocktail Lounge on Kilgore Avenuez. It was air conditioned!

The design caught my eye and a quick internet search yielded a couple of interesting things including this interior picture from the mid seventies.

I also learned that they were known for a hamburger called “Lukey Fogle” and for a blind piano player who provided background music.

An ad placed in an undated program for Muncie Community Theater’s production of “The Tea House of the August Moon” advertised the Flamingo Cocktail Lounge as a destination for cocktails, dinner and supper, reminding theater goers “For before or after the show don’t forget the Flamingo Cocktail Lounge.”

I later learned they put on that show in the 1970-71 season so I assume this program was from that performance.

As of a 2017 post in the Lost Muncie Facebook group, the building was home to the End Zone Sports Bar and Grill. They were know for wings, pizza and beer. The above interior photo was posted in this group, undated and without photo credit.

Google tells me that the End Zone is now closed too. The addresses have been updated on that street so the old Flamingo was located at 2104 Kilgore Ave and now the address is 2430 Kilgore Ave.

The property is listed as land today and is under contract with a local realtor.

Maybe it’s nuts, but I enjoy finding these small scraps of the past and climbing down the rabbit hole to see what can be learned.

What Good Is It?

“What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives?” E.M. Forster

Wrightstown Church

It feels like the middle of nowhere. Which, of course, is the middle of somewhere to someone.

It’s called Bible Christian Church and it’s along a country lane in a spot-in-the-road called Wrightstown in Morgan County. Founded in the 1840s, it has been a church and even a township hall. We drove by earlier this month while taking a detour in my mother’s old stomping grounds.

She had stories about the long ago people who worshiped here but didn’t know much else about the history. Her memories of the place all come from her childhood and were vague. What I do know is that it’s a lovely scene, high atop a hill in a beautiful rural area. It’s peaceful and serene.

It was too pretty to not stop and capture.

Thankful Tuesday

Adventuring has been put on hold for the last couple of weeks as I focus on getting flower beds under control. I’m about halfway done but am hoping to work on weeknights this week to free up next weekend for something that doesn’t leave me dirty, battered, sun burned and covered in poison ivy.

It’s time to hit the open road and have some fun!

Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the exercise and the sense of accomplishment. It has been as good for my mental health as it has been for the flowers and, for that, I am grateful.