Super Mercado

I went to the supermarket today in South Texas and it was quite the experience. Since we are in south, south Texas most of the population is Hispanic and the stores and shops cater to their wants and needs. My visit to one of the local H-E-B supermarkets proved to be a very interesting trip.

When you walk into the store there are fruits and vegetables galore, just stacks and stacks of all kinds of peppers and right next to them are all the Mexican cheeses. I've never seen so many cheeses...and this was just the Mexican cheeses. What we would call 'regular' cheeses had their own section.

Of course there are tortillas, lots of tortillas!

There were shelf after shelf of tortillas. Stacks and stacks of them and they even had a tortilla making machine and oven and made them fresh in the store.

They had several warming chests that held the freshly made tortillas. Just take out how many you want, bag them up and take them home.

They had one aisle dedicated to the different flours and necessities for making tortillas and tamales. Corn meal, corn flour, masa and corn shucks all there for home use.

 Of course if you make tortillas, at least authentic tortillas, you need lard. And they had a little bit of lard for sale too.

 And the spices! They had one entire aisle of bagged spices from Mexico.

The meat department was just phenomenal! The fresh meat counter was the longest I have ever seen and the meat was just stacked upon itself. So fresh looking and so many different types of meat. A carnivores dream!

Beautiful briskets and racks and racks of ribs filled several meat cases.

Of course there were also some things that we don't always find in our typical supermarkets.

Rolls of pork skins.

Beef tripe.

And I know it's hard to make out, but it is what you might think it is. It's a whole pig's head. There was an entire cooler filled with these. Something I can say I have never seen before! I had to do a double take to make sure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing.

Something else we don't typically see in our supermarkets are the sale of religious icons and statutes.

Where we have flower departments and balloons included in our markets they also have pinatas and the required candy.

It was quite an experience going through this store and I know I didn't even see half of their inventory. Guess that gives me a reason to go back and see what else I can see that I wouldn't see in my own stores.

What a Way To Roll!

We recently went on a Segway Tour of Tampa, and I must say it was one of the most fun times I've ever had.  It was exhilarating and such a fun way to get around.

After arriving at the meeting point, an orientation lesson on riding the Segway was held. The first step onto the machine was a little unsettling since it rocked back and forth, but within a couple seconds you found your center of gravity and the Segway and you became one.

We practiced going forward, stopping, turning and going backward.  We slowly scooted around the area going through our maneuvers getting comfortable with our Segways before hitting the sidewalks and roads.

Tampa has developed a River Walk, a paved pathway along the river that extends over two miles.  It is a beautiful place to ride a  Segway because of such a smooth surface besides being so picturesque.  We went through beautiful parks, wealthy neighborhoods and we even scooted around the Tampa Hospital.

 Tampa has a Pirate Fest which we attended earlier, and we were able to stop at the Pirate ship to get a close up view along our way.

After tooling around the River Walk and some neighborhoods we ended up across the bay and enjoyed another look of the Pirate ship.

Tampa has a beautiful skyline.  It's not a huge city so their skyline is not over crowded with tall buildings.  This is actually the view of the city from the Tampa Hospital. Not too many hospitals have this kind of view!

We had a blast! When we left the meeting point it was a group of newbie riders who were very tentative and moved along slowly. However, after traveling over 11 miles on our Segways we were flying along the sidewalks and roads, zig zagging through tight places and handling corners like veterans.  Best ride ever!

Gene and I on our first ride on the Segways.