Frugal Friday....the July 28th Edition

Welcome to Frugal Friday!   

There are very few Frugal wins this past week and not everything here may be considered frugal but here goes......

*  Hit some great produce clearance deals at Kroger this past Tuesday as we were over near that store(after PT).... 4 bags of Collards @ $1.68 ea., 1 bag of Spinach @ $1.20, 4x8 oz. containers of organic mushrooms for .75¢ ea., 2 x single serve Caesar salads for $1.10 ea., a Cranberry/Walnut/Apple/Bleu Cheese single serve salad for $1.76, my 2 Zucchini rang up for the .59¢ cucumber price and a big hunk of good Parmagiano Reggiano Cheese for 10% off as well as some reg. Kroger specials (and some of them had Ibotta rebates and/or digital Qs).  The freezer is packed with food for Hubs to eat(that are not part of what I can consume right now), so as long as he remembers to thaw something, he eats. lol

*  Been uploading videos to my You Tube channel and getting posts ready to go.  I still need to figure out the updated version of my photo editing program so I can edit photos from Alaska and beyond.  There's a learning curve on that one. sigh

* Been able to type with my new neuro meds but still can't hardly handwrite.  At least I don't strike a key multiple times anymore(usually)but I still make typos.  Messaged the doc to up the dosage.

*  Went to Physical Therapy for my back again this week.   Basically did water aerobics in their pool.  No copays so again FREE.  I go back 2 x next week and the week after, and the week after, etc.

*  Had the "dreaded" procedure".  Well the procedure isn't too bad because they knock you out but the "Prep Day" before is nasty.  At least being on this diet where I eat so little I really didn't feel deprived or hungry that day by not eating but parking my a@@ on the toilet most of the day and 4 hours the morning of the procedure was the ultimate in fun(NOT!).  Cost of nasty stuff to drink, Zero!

*  I found money! 
Nope.  Nada. Zilch.

Total Found in last Week.... .00¢
Total Found this Year.......$2.49

That's all for this past week.  Just sitting home is frugal, right?

It's too damn hot here(triple digit heat indexes for weeks now!)so I rarely leave the house except to hobble to the car with a/c then to wherever I am going that also has a/c.  Can you say I am over Summer down here on Satan's front porch??

Any frugal wins in your neck of the woods?  Let's hear all about them!

Sluggy  

Well That's Over For Another 10 Years!

If you know, you know....

Sluggy

Great Road Trip of 2017.....Part Six/Day Five

**I'll be out of commission for a couple of days but should be back up and running by Friday(medical stuff).  I had this post ready in the chute so enjoy. 8-)

Part One of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Two of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

Part Three of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Four of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

Part Five of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

So we veered North ........

And the topography took on a decidedly different turn.

After a while we came to town........

                               

The site of "Carhenge"!

                    

I apologize for the sound quality but it was quite gusty that day.

                                 

This America's answer to Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain in England is mathematically/geometrically the same as the famous antiquity in the United Kingdom.

                                         

The man who decided to build this used junked American built cars instead.  American Druids come here to celebrate the Solstices and Equinoxes.

                                        

And unlike the one in England, it's not cordoned off so you can't get close to it, you can wander all around and through the grounds to your heart's content.

They also had other quirky art installations made from metal.  Like this fish.

                                        

We didn't get close enough to these art pieces to figure out what they were.  Remember it was blazing hot out that Summer!

                                       

This was cool.  In their small gift and snack shop they had a wall with every state's license plate on it.

The lady manning the shop said Alliance NE was dead center in the path of the Solar Eclipse that blanketed North America that Summer.  We were also traveling westward that Summer and just a week or so ahead of it's arrival in most every place we stopped.  The site was expecting about 15,000 people camping in the fields surrounding Carhenge on the date of that Solar Eclipse.  Not liking crowds I was glad to get a t-shirt and move on NOW! lol

Oh look!  A sign for another Runza restaurant. lol

A  sign for Buffalo Bill's Ranch.  We didn't have time to stop there in North Platte, Nebraska but you can read about it HERE.

OMG!  How did we get this close to Hershey?!  Oh wait, this one isn't in PA. ;-)

We stopped for the night at a little hole-in-the-wall motor inn called the Meadowlark Motor Inn outside of Bridgeport, Nebraska.  Nothing fancy but they had a restaurant and a liquor store attached to it. lol

 

Home Sweet Home for one night.   You know you are in a part of the country where they get a lot of snow when your room has both an outside facing door(shown here)plus a backdoor in the room facing an interior corridor that feeds out to a central entrance/exit.

              

                                 

Hubs went into the liquor store(that's where you checked in)and found a great deal on a bottle of bourbon or whiskey or something of that ilk.

We also got a discount coupon for breakfast the next morning.  The clerk there also told us that if we lost our room key(??)after the store and restaurant closed up for the night there would be no one to let us back in our room.  So once we had dinner we stayed in the room.

It was by no means a 3 star motor inn(do they even give stars for motor inns?)but it was roomy by modern motel standards, had a bathroom, a bed and a tv.  What more could you ask for?  

Thus ended Day Five of the Journey Across the Country.

Sluggy

Great Road Trip of 2017.....Part Five/Day Five

Part One of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Two of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

Part Three of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE
Part Four of the Great Western Road Trip is HERE

We hit a local diner in Grand Island Nebraska for breakfast before hitting the road for the day so we could meet a reader who lives nearby, Gerlyn.

Gerlyn had emailed me about where to find good barbecue along the route of our trip since her DH is from Texas originally.  Her and her DH own a ranch outside of town here.

She was so sweet and brought me some quilted items her mom had made and she brought some home canned jam and such she had put up.  I left her with a bag of toiletries(mostly shampoo has she had a bevvy of teenage daughter at that time). lol

Then we got down to breakfast.  I had an unsweet iced tea(I don't "do" coffee), a fresh fruit bowl and grits.  

Gerlyn said she wasn't very hungry so just ordered a cinnamon bun.  Well, WTF!  That bun was bigger than our heads! lol  I believe she took at least half of it home.

The obligatory photo with the Big Cock. hehehe

Then me alone with Tommy's rooster making love to it. lol

Lastly a serious photo without any cocks(lol)of Gerlyn and me.  It was a real pleasure to meet you Gerlyn and I'm sorry it took me 6 YEARS to post this.

After we parted ways we drove about a block and I saw another ginormous animal I had to have Hubs take my picture with.....

The mascot for the Texas T-Bone restaurant.  That same shopping plaza had a discount food pantry store too!  Of course I had to go in there......

FAT-FREE Mayo???  Isn't that the point of Mayo?!  Isn't fat the point of Mayo?

Gigantic #10 cans of Gefilte Fish.  These could have fed every Jewish mother in the entire state of Nebraska I bet. lol

And this shelf was a head scratcher....

They had a DISCOUNT SHELF!  Um, I thought the whole store was full of discounted food.  How far past the sell by/use by date must have THIS stuff been!lol

So we blew out of Grand Island NE heading West and hit rain on 1-80.  Just as we were pulling off the interstate in Kearny, NE the rain stopped as we got out of the car to go to "The Archway".  Or the "Great Platte River Road Archway" experience as it's better known as.

On the grounds of the place were some fake buffalo......

And native Prairie flora(which was not fake)....

There was also a statue descendants of the Martin brothers who survived a Native American attack had had designed and created.  One arrow went through both of their bodies, pinning them together as they rode hard back to their prairie home.

There was an accompanying plaque describing the incident.

The incident from 1864 and what happened is described HERE in case you are interested.

So we went in and paid our admission and were greeted by this man.....

Some one dressed up like a mountain from the early days of the West.  Man did he look convincing and truth be told I thought he was a statue and when he moved I about jumped out of my skin!!

Then, with individual transmitters in hand we rode an escalator up to the exhibit.........

The West was settled by folks of all ilk.....those looking for land to call their own, those looking for adventure, those fleeing religious persecution, those looking for a fresh start in life, those evading justice, etc.

Then gold was discovered in California and that set off wave after wave of more settlers and adventurers.

At first there were only notable landmarks such as rock formations and the stars at night to point the way (besides a compass).

The Mormons set off for their promised land they called "Deseret"(later to become the state of Utah)after their leader Joseph Smith was killed in Nauvoo, Illinois. Many of these travelers had no animals for transportation and just a handcart to drag their possessions in.  Setting off too late in the year on foot saw many would-be settlers freeze to death along the way.

After a few years travelers could also use the trail of discarded home goods as a guide as well.  If your oxen or horse or your wagon broke down, you left treasured possessions along the trail.  You had no other choice if you wanted to keep going and survive the journey.

And there were many deaths along the way.......

If the Natives didn't kill you or you didn't get some disease that couldn't be cured, some other disaster may be fall you along the way.  You'd be buried as best your traveling companions could and left out along the trail in the wilderness.

I found this particular exhibit above interesting.  You had to decide which shortcut to take by sliding little windows to reveal your fate.  The shortcut you took might not necessarily take miles off your journey and if you chose wrong, it could mean your death.

My 1st cousin 6 x removed, William Lewis Sublette, was one of the original "mountain men" who explored the West beginning in the 1820's.  We share a common ancestor in Pierre Louis Sublette, a French Huguenot, who came to Virginia in 1700 escaping the persecution of Protestants in Catholic France.  I descend from "Peter's" son William Abraham and Bill the Mountain Man descends from Peter's younger son, Lewis. Bill did trapped beaver for John Jacob Astor's American Fur Company among other activities and is said to have guided the first wagon train of settlers West from St. Louis to Oregon.  He was known as Bill or "Cutface" due to a wound he received on his chin.

And something I didn't know is that one of the shortcuts or "cut offs" is named after him, the Sublette cutoff.  Taking this cutoff near South Pass Wyoming took about 50 miles off your journey to Oregon.

I have lots more photos of the exhibit and if you are out that way it's worth a stop.  But avoid the gift shop downstairs.  A bunch of Made in China crap!  And waaay over priced.

Let's leave Kearny, Nebraska with a picture of Hubs next to a statue of a buffalo on the grounds of the exhibit outside.....

We hit the road once more........

We stopped for gas in Ogallala.  Mmmmm, gas station fried chicken. lol

We stopped for lunch in a quaint fake Western town front with a restaurant.  A tourist trap for sure and the restaurant was so dark inside you needed a flashlight to see your food!  Probably by design so you didn't notice how dirty the place was. Pondering that awful lunch I got to thinking that gas station chicken might have been a better choice after all. 8-)

We then took a turn North.....to get to "Carhenge", America's Stonehenge.

 It's located in Alliance, Nebraska, in the Northwestern corner of the state.

They talk about Carhenge's creator and the site HERE.

This was a very interesting stop but way off our route.

Next time we'll pick up from here.

Sluggy