Friends and Family…Nothing Better

Friends and family…nothing better, but maybe SPAM? 🙂

Dave and I were excited this year’s RV trip took us into Minnesota again, so we were able to stop and visit with my Aunt Loretta and cousin Jennifer in Rochester, Minnesota. It was so good to see them again. And wouldn’t you know it, I forgot to take a picture. Dratz!

We are also excited that for the rest of the trip this year, we are joined by our good friends, Greg and Helen, from St. Paul, MN. If you follow our blogs, you may remember we met Greg and Helen on the Great Loop; then they joined us on our 8-day bike ride along the Erie Canal trail along with St. Pete friends; last year we cycled through Slovenia; and most recently we spent a week together in Costa Rica at their vacation condo. And now, we are off to explore Alaska and more. Greg and Helen bought an RV for this trip and named her “LC” (for land cruiser). Mini-T now has a traveling companion. Greg made us yummy chili for our first night together camping. Fun times ahead!

So that covers friends and family, but what about SPAM? Well, Dave noticed that close to Rochester, MN was Austin, MN home to Hormel’s largest manufacturing facility (Hormel makes SPAM), their corporate office AND the SPAM museum. I remember eating fried SPAM sandwiches growing up. My mom swears she never made them but she said my dad liked it so perhaps my dad made me those sandwiches. It must have made quite the impact if I remember eating them.

Ready for a bit of SPAM history? Oh, come on…it’s not that bad. (I think). SPAM has just six simple ingredients: Pork with ham, salt, water, potato starch, sugar, and sodium nitrate SPAM luncheon meat was introduced in 1937 and…

-Over 100 million pounds of SPAM was shipped abroad to feed allied troops during WWII.

-There are now 11 different varieties of SPAM products.

-Over 9 billion cans of SPAM products have been sold.

-Hawaii eats seven million cans of SPAM products every year.

-There are 12.8 cans of SPAM products eaten every second.

Are any of our blog readers SPAM lovers? Don’t be shy and comment on how you like it prepared.

On one of our RV Facebook groups, it was suggested that if you stop at the SPAM museum you also need to try a hamburger at Tendermaid, just a few blocks away. And what was so special about their hamburgers? Well, they are “loose meat” hamburgers. Dave tried one (and they even gave a small bit of meat for Murphy). I had a bite. To me it tasted like a Sloppy Joe without the “sloppy.” Um, I think I’ll pass. But it was fun to try a regional dish.

Well, that brings me to Tuesday and we have the rest of the week! I think I will publish this as a mid-week blog. As a side note, someone recently asked me if I can enlarge the photo’s I post. When you read the blog, if you click on a photo it will enlarge it and then you can easily scroll through that grouping. I hope this helps!

Thanks for reading along, especially mid-week.

I tried Jalapeno SPAM at the museum Brenda, Hot and Spicy Ham Dave, and I did not get any SPAM Murphy,