Pie Town

Pie Town is hardly a town. There are about 500 people that live there and is mostly a ranching community. I heard of it first from the emigrant photos from the 40s. I imagine some people there are relatives of some in the photos. The truly unique thing about Pie Town is the Toaster house. I don't know of the origins, but since I've heard of the CDT, I've heard of the toaster house. A trail angel is someone that helps hikers along the trail and lend support. Maybe in a water cache, maybe letting you stay in their home. Nita, the owner of the toaster house, has always gone far beyond that. She moved out of the house a few years ago and now just lets hikers stay there without supervision. It's called the toaster house because of the collection of electronics on the fence outside the house, including a lot of toasters. Pie town has two resturants. The Pie Cafe has the best breakfasts, and we went there and were not disappointed. It was also the local hang out for the ranchers to get their breakfast after feeding the cows. As each would come in, they would go around the room saying hi to the familiar faces. All were in western ranching outfits, a few with spurs, rifles on gunracks in the back of trucks. Coming into pie town we had also met Clement (Cle-mon') a guy from France also hiking the CDT. He was particularly amazed at how movie like the atmosphere was. Everyone was exceptionally friendly and knew exactly what we were doing there. After breakfast we went to the post office and picked up more packages of groceries. We ran into another local who said he had left a dozen fresh eggs at the toaster house for us. They made a great breakfast the next day. The toaster house is very rustic in a great way. There is a covered porch that stays cool in the shade well past noon. It has a wood burning stove which was an experience to cook on, and is the primary heat source of the house. It is a great place to hang out and it was hard to leave after a full day off. The second restaurant is the Pie-o-neer cafe. We ended up having a 3 hour lunch, hanging out and just enjoying the slow pace of town. We had our required piece of pie there and I had the Green Chile Pine Nut Apple pie. It was tart and savory and delicious. And apparently it's nationally known. After lunch, Nita took us on a driving tour of town. We stopped by a telescope that is part of the Very Long Baseline Array, not the VLA, but was the first iteration of that project. From there we went out to the town sasquatch and alien that someone carved. Apparently the sasquatch raised complaints because it's technically naked. Then Nita took us by the Stool Bus. It's a sanitary waste truck that is all puns. They have a website www.stoolbus.com. But that really skips the amazing puns and word play. My favorite was the sTool Box. And if you can't see in the picture the stools in the picture have names: Turdy; Pu-Wee and Stinky; Skidder; Corny; and Loosy Stool. Poop jokes cross all sections of life. We had the fresh eggs for breakfast after starting the morning fire, and it was hard to leave. Pie town is a place I'll stop in again.