Paddling for Pizza

What an extreme treat to have such perfect weather for the entire memorial weekend! One of my most favorite parts of getting to live in Abiquiu on the Chama river is being lucky enough to to play in the beautiful but silty water. It’s been such an unusual May. Almost every day I think, “today is the day that I’ll go in for my first dip of the year,” but every day it’s just been too darn chilly or raining with thunder and lightning. Until this last Sunday!

We had planned for my wife and I and four friends to kayak from one of their houses, a mile up river, to our shore, weather permitting. Sunday was the perfect day to do just that, so we all suited up, gathered our gear and a few of our more adventurous dogs and piled into the truck. We have done this float many times and are very comfortable with putting in and taking out, but my goodness, things were very different this time! The water was extremely high and moving very fast. We cautiously steered our vessels, nose first, into the rushing current, loaded gear and fur babies and jumped on hoping not to tip over right away. It was fabulous!

This trip usually takes around 40 minutes, but this time, it took only 20. By the time we came to our grassy shore, we were all smiles and wanting to do it again. We’d opened up our guest trailer for the weekend, to a family that we had not yet met. When we bobbed up to our bank, they were all enjoying the river. The two young boys were fishing with their dad and mom was soaking up the sun on a camp chair. The boys were shyly in awe of our arrival and mom looked very excited about the possibility of having this adventure herself.

They helped us out of the water, asking how our trip went, to which we all responded with exuberant “it was great and we’re going again!” I couldn’t resist the sparkle in their eyes of the obvious desire to join us, so said, “we have another kayak big enough for three of you if you’d like to jump in…”  A little more gear gathering and life vests for the boys, and off we went for round two. Again, it was a wonderful time made further enjoyable by getting to see mom and the boys have such a good time.

Being on the water always makes me hungry. Fortunately, my wife had thought ahead and remembered to order pizza for lunch, hoping to time it right for the post-kayak hangries. This can be a tricky effort when ordering from our local pizza joint. Mamacita’s Pizza is a valued business in our small community being one of the few options in the valley. I’m pretty sure that this is a one person show and can imagine it’s hard to keep up with the demand on busy weekends. That said, I’m often baffled by some of the experiences that we have had there. We tried to follow the previously instructed rules by calling the day before to confirm that they were open and ask if we should preorder now, call in early the day of, or just order when we were ready to eat. We were told an emphatic “it’s memorial weekend, definitely preorder at noon because I will run out!” So, my wife set an alarm and called on the dot, at noon the next day but was chastised anyway for trying to pre order for later that afternoon on such a busy day, and that if she didn’t order right now, pay and come to get it, she’d be *#$@ outta luck! This is what I’m referring to by “tricky”. So the wife obediently ordered, picked it up and stowed it in our oven on the warm setting to dig into several hours later.

​The pizza was good. It’s always good. A nice, I’m guessing, sourdough crust, layered with a balanced savory sauce and a melty mozzarella. We ordered two pies, the Veggie Supreme and the other extra pepperoni, green chile and red onion.  The green chile was sparse, but perfectly spicy and any more would likely have caused a fire on my tongue.  The pepperoni, of which I would consider to be a “regular” amount and red onion balanced and enhanced the spicy chile. The veggie pizza was excellent and had plenty of green peppers, onions, tomatoes, olives and mushrooms embedded in the saucy cheesy pie.  As always, we over ordered and we’re very satisfied and happy laying on our grassy lawn with plenty of slices left over for future lunches. The portions from Mamacitas are generous, but not on the cheap side. For two jumbos, the total was about $62.  On the menu I see more than pizza, including wings, subs, salads and “garlic stix.”  Next time I will try to branch out a bit and let you all know how it goes. I also look forward to future river adventures this summer and to enjoying the likely new friendship we will have with this lovely family that we got to share our weekend with.