We met up with Mike and Cathy Boice for a couple of days while we were in Albuquerque. Jan and Cathy started at Broadcom on the same day 13 years ago, and were terminated the same day in January of this year. Jan was the travel consultant for the top 20 executives of the company, a needy bunch of people who had to have their hands held almost every trip. Cathy was hired as the Admin for the CEO and CFO of the company, a quite more lofty position although I suspect that she had to do a fair amount of babysitting for them as well. She and her husband Mike moved to Sandia Crest, a little out of Albuquerque in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains. They built a beautiful home there, located on the 18th fairway of the Pa’ako Ridge Golf Course, a beautiful tract nestled in the foothills of the mountains.
The first time we met up with them was at the Unser Racing Museum in Albuquerque. As a lot of people know, I’m a huge Indy car racing fan, and I avidly followed all three of the Unsers who raced Indianapolis and won; Bobby, Al Sr and Al Jr. So this was going to be a pilgrimage of sorts for me, and the other three were just indulging me.
The Unsers’ grandfather and grandmother immigrated from Switzerland in the early 1900’s and eventually settled in Colorado Springs, right near Pikes Peak. The father, Louis, became quite handy around those “newfangled” things called cars, and eventually led his children into the sport of auto-racing, the family laying claim to the title of kings of the Pikes Peak challenges. The whole family, cousins, uncles and nephews were involved in racing in some degree or another and the success the family has had in motorsports is unrivaled. Al Sr won Indianapolis four times, one of three men to do so (A.J.Foyt and Rick Mears being the other two), Bobby won once and Al Jr won twice. Not a bad track record, and their other victories are impressive as well.
The museum is an homage to the Unser family history in automobiles, and in addition to the racing cars there is a great collection of vintage cars as well. A very well documented collection of cars.
The Penske PC23 Mercedes Marlboro #31 Indy 500 winner 1994 driven by Al jr.
Two of the cars Al Sr won in (1 and 25), and one Bobby won with.
Some of the midget racers and Pikes Peak racers.
The vintage cars were so well cared for and nostalgic.
And there was an interactive video console that duplicated a 2 1/2 mile oval similar to Indianapolis. Mike tooled around at 90moh, Jan collected up a bunch of fellow racers and I did quite well. Cathy was a cheerleader.
We were staying in an RV park in Tijeras just outside of Albuquerque on historic Route 66 and it was just past the exit off of I-40 where Mike and Cathy turn to go to their house. They mentioned that there was a pseudo biker bar called Molly’s that they had been hesitant to go to by themselves and since we were along they thought there would be good in numbers. Like Jan and I would be a big help…
There was a loud country band playing in the garden behind the bar, one pool table and a juke box inside and a rather large elderly couple sitting at the bar. I have to admit we were kind of overdressed for the bar in that we didn’t have leather or long hair and we got a some long looks while we were looking for a table outside. There were none to be had so we retreated to the inside where we were served by a disinterested waitress who announced her name was Story, or Storry, or Storrey…and that Molly’s had the best margaritas in Albuquerque. I ordered a chardonnay and the other three had two rounds of the best margaritas to be had that day. Story (?) returned to say that if we were hungry the best pizza in town was available from a trailer next door and that they delivered. We passed but I wonder if we missed out on something.
We moved on to Mike and Cathy’s house, a beautiful home with a great kitchen and an even better wine cellar completely stocked. Mike made ribs and a baked bean casserole. Now, I’m not a huge fan of baked beans, but these were really good and are the subject of today’s recipe. The red wine flowed and we had a great meal. Enjoy the recipe.
the wooden spoon - a travel/photo blog 