Travelog: The Mesa Market

Visualize 4 tented rows, each about 2 blocks long, filled with stuff to buy -- that's the Mesa Market. It was located just a matter of minutes from where we were staying, and was open for business Thursday through Sunday. The intriguing part about it is that 99% of the goods were new, and only about 10% was junk!! "So what did you buy?", I hear you asking. After one day to just walk most of it we decided to return to purchase a number of things we couldn't live without, i.e. golf clubs, Arizona T shirt, sink strainers (it's an RV thing), Mexican Train Dominos (another RV thing), salsa maker, a carved roadrunner, turquoise chips, a mini-muffin tin, a leather belt, and a $2 pipe wrench. We passed up such wonders as Mexican metal art, silver jewelry, dashboard covers, red hats and purple boas, and baskets.

Another wonder of Mesa was Organ Pipe Pizza - a 2 story restaurant that could accomodate about 1,000 people. Yes, they did serve quite tasty pizza, but the drawing card was a gigantic organ, front and center on a mechanical stage that could be raised or lowered. The entertainment ran the gamut from old favorites such as "Take Me Out To The Ballgame" to the national anthems for both Canada and the US. And it played to a sellout crowd every night. If we didn't want pizza, we went down the street to the Mexican restaurant for $2 margaritas.

Remember I mentioned buying a salsa maker? It is truly a great gadget, but more important than the salsa maker is the recipe that came with it. This is awesome salsa:

Juice of 1/2 orange
1 or 2 cloves garlic
1/2 dry onion
3 or 4 Roma tomatoes
1/4 c cilantro
1 chopped jalapeno
Juice of 1 lemon
1 tsp salt

Process briefly in food processor and enjoy.