Heading out west the slow-poke way.

 This blog is a week late getting written, our departure date was actually May 9th, but here goes..

We did a good job getting things squared away and thoroughly locked-up at home, and got on the road towards Cheaha State Park, AL on Monday morning.  We had reserved a chalet for 2 nights inside the park. Very pretty spot at about 2400' so things were budded-out and blooming. Rhododendrons, iris, peonys and others. We saw deer early in the morning. 

Chalet in Cheaha State Park, AL

The people around here were super friendly and interested in engaging with us in conversation at the drop of a hat.  The park was built as a CCC project, and as such most buildings (all?) are stonework.

They had a great trailhead with an impressive entrance "gateway". The wings of the gateway had leaf impressions of the varieties of trees in this area. Very cool.

We found the lush vegetation so very appealing, especially when combined with mid-70's temps.Lots of stuff in bloom, here's a few.

We saw more roses! Gorgeous, big bushes
of them all up in GA, AL and MS. I wish!

The big draw around here is the overlook from clifftop to the small mountainsin the distance. The Clifftop restaurant (closed - covid), has an incredible outdoor seating area and balcony out at the edge. From here you can see the lake way down the way.

A bit hazy for viewing but this is the highest spot in Alabama.

Close-up of the lake far down below the main buildings.

Lots of smallish lakes around the area, which we saw while auto-touring. We pack a lunch and find a suitable spot.  The first lake had lots of deer flys that wanted to buzz and buzz around your head so we skipped it,  but did take a few pics.

Pretty little lake, the place was deserted.

Just one example of the "neat & tidy" mentality around the area.

Next up we head to the Mockingbird Bay Resort on Lake Norfolk, AR. Stay tuned for that and thanks for dropping by.

The countdown calendar to Rocky is counting down.

 Here we go again, preparing to head out west to our 5th wheel in northern Colorado for the summer.  Very much looking forward to spectacular mountain vistas, cool breezes by the river and my small corner garden. We're a few weeks out, but that just gives us time to finish-up maintenance chores and get started organizing what we'll be bringing out with us.  

Giving the railings a nice, fresh topcoat to 
help it handle the summer sun.

Clothes are pretty much handled as we leave a pretty good selection out there.  Food is from scratch though, as any food items left behind can either attract critters or explode (cans) from freezing temps.

I'm also working through the food load here at home too. I made up another batch of the hash brown casserole, which helped clear some items out of the freezer. That will not only lead to some easy breakfasts in the upcoming weeks but also give us a nice breakfast after we leave town.  The plan is to take our time, stopping at some interesting places on the way out.  We'll be staying in cabins or airbnb's which will have kitchen facilities, so we'll take a few frozen things to help us at our first stop, Cheaha State Park in east-central Alabama. Highest point in the state with lots of wonderful overlooks and hiking trails, but not a lot of restaurants handy.

Hash browns, sausage, mushrooms, peppers, tomatoes
and onions with a yummy quiche-like egg & cheese layer.

I've had a few opportunities to play "floral designer" lately. Once, an upcycle of a macramé hanging basket, and secondly, making new funerary arrangements for the family plots. We'll be making our annual spring stop at the cemetery where Ed's folks are buried to spruce them up a bit.

Macrame basket ready to go. We'll wait to
hang it up outside until we are back in the fall.

Nothing real exciting although they did have some
pretty flowers at the Dollar Tree store - see the plumeria?

Yesterday I started weeding out which craft materials will head out with me and which would stay. The coloring book and pencils don't take up much room and are relaxing, especially the mandalas.

In addition, I really want to get back into making the trivets again, and I already have quite a few of the "tubies" stuffed and ready for the next phase.

Trivet; used as wall art or table protection.

My pretty collection of batik fat quarters, which
are the source material for the trivet "tubies".

So many, stuffed and ready, usually 4 pieces are
used, 2 each of complimentary colors.

Finally, I baked some cowboy cookies the other day - yay! Basic Toll House recipe with coconut, pecans, and a 50/50 split of dark chocolate chips and butterscotch chips. Froze some, gave some away and are enjoying the rest in the evenings. Life is good!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day! 😊

Birthday Celebration, Kayaking, Pizza and puzzle

 Not a whole heck of a lot to report on here, but we are definitely having a fine time. We celebrated Ed's birthday the other day, and between racing sports cars (SCCA) and riding motocross bikes competitively out in Texas, he was pretty sure that he would never make it to 30, much less 40. It got me to thinking about birthdays in general and how we feel about them.  

I'm sure we've all heard the anecdotes about how when you're a little kid every birthday is a huge, big deal, then, not so much in the middle years, then again, back to being a bigger deal once you've passed a certain age; my neighbor says (quite proudly) "I'll be 92 next month!"

We typically don't do much celebrating of birthdays around here beyond having a wonderful meal, (here or out), and receiving a suitable card. This year we did have a wonderful, full-blown steak dinner with all the trimmings, and we did have a lovely card, but we also gave a gift! (book), and a birthday balloon! and a lava cake with candle! Wow! who knew - it was fun to make a bigger deal about it. He also received some thoughtful, catch-up phone calls from good friends and family. He's certainly special to me so I'm glad I could help him have a memorable (or at least fun) day.

Happy Birthday, Honey!

Well, what else has been going on? Pizza night came around, which we thoroughly enjoyed.  I cheat and use a ready-made crust from the Publix bakery. I've found I can let it get really warmed up and loose and stretch it to a 10x15" baking sheet pan size. That ensures we'll get a pizza breakfast and a lunch too. 

Everything except the cheese.

Plus, some Italian cheese blend and Parmesan 

We had some beautiful weather the other day which Ed took advantage of by loading up the kayak and hitting Black Creek. What a beautiful area! Here are a few shots he took while out.

Where's the fishing pole?

Must be Turtle Rock

Serenity alert!

Relaxing in a secluded spot sipping a Dale's.

I have a closet shelf half full of puzzles, so I don't mind re-working them from time to time. I'm in the middle of a new one now, which I'll post a pic of later, but I also reworked the cat/bookshelf puzzle in between some jewelry making.

Really easy and so relaxing - zone out time, lol.

Well, I hope you're doing well and weren't too bored with, (to coin a phrase from the Old Fat Man), my efforts at trying to have too much fun. Thanks for taking the time.

 

Rainy weather, assorted breakfasts and jewelry making

 We've been having a spate of rainy/stormy weather lately which makes me glad I shopped-up well on Wednesday. Earlier today, a warm front  passed through with strong winds, rain and a tornado warning for parts of the area. Behind it we're having strong, fresh westerlies which are  bringing in some delightfully cool, dry air, allowing me to open the windows and air out the house.

During these past few days we've been occupying ourselves with a nice mixture of chores, mild exercise (tai chi and light stretch bands for me, weights and strong stretch bands for him), cooking activities, youtube videos, reading and jewelry making. It always amazes us how fast the week fly's by.

6am this morning, gloomy and wet out front.
At least the bottlebrushes and azaleas are enjoying it.

12noon and all is well - sunny and breezy.

Since there's nothing new to talk about that doesn't include the Ukraine, politics, inflation or covid 😟, I'll talk about my passion for breakfast in all it's forms, but mostly involving eggs, lol. I'm a proud egg eater, have been all my life, and to me, nothing keeps me going throughout the day better than a nice, big breakfast.  Some people say "I could never find the energy at that time of morning to make a full breakfast!", or "toast or granola is fine", and hey, no judgement here. 

I do take steps to make it easier and less work to gen-up a nice meal, like making/freezing french toast in advance or using frozen, store-bought Potatoes O'brien, and making it my mission to always having a big bowl of fresh fruits cut up and handy. Here are a few examples.

Here's a favorite; egg on leftover pizza, fresh fruit & coffee,
it doesn't get much easier - nuke the pizza and fry an egg.

Here's a good one; scrambled eggs, sausage and french toast
plus fresh fruit and coffee.

Potatoes O'brien with diced ham, fried egg, and toast
plus fresh fruit and coffee.

And the last thing on my show 'n tell list today is a shot of the jewelry dabbling since my last posting. Some more fun, adjustable cuff bracelets and a couple of pendants that turned out pretty well. I'd be remiss if I didn't give some well-deserved credit to 2 of the wire-weaving mavens on youtube that I personally enjoy (there are so many!); OxanaCrafts, and Imbali Crafts. Wonderful, clear tutorials and great looking projects.

I'm pretty pleased!

 Well, thanks for checking in and I hope it entertained you for a few minutes! Have a great day.

1/2 way to summer and fresh food fun

 I always figure that by the first of March we are halfway to summer, although the weather temps are soaring like it's summer already some days. My sister, who lives in south central Florida, was saying how refreshing to have a 61° morning - a cold snap as it were, as she has been having mid to high 80's already. I think "robbed of springtime" is how she put it. Up here it's been about the same - 80's much of the time.  It does give the boss a chance to get out on the lake to row and enjoy the day.

We have a pair of swans on our lake that stay busy with patrolling the lake to chase off the geese and Muscovy ducks that try to hang-out. I'm all in favor as the geese/ducks can be messy.

Swans making a sweep.

The other afternoon our neighbor had a gorgeous heron on his deck railing. Nice to observe one in fairly close proximity. 

He's got his head tucked in as a
chilly north breeze was blowing.

After cooking that ham a couple of weeks ago I got to craving collards and cornbread, so nothing would do but to get a big bunch from Winn-Dixie. They tend to have a sale on them fairly often and the bunches are very generous. I get at least 6 supper time servings for the 2 of us out of a bunch, so I put them up in freezer bags and stash the extras in the freezer.

A fair amount of work getting them well-washed up before
chopping them up for my biggest kettle pot.

Also, I'm finally motivated to losing some the extra pounds I've put on during the pandemic, so in addition to cutting out snacking in between meals I've been eating my usual breakfast and having just homemade vegetable soup for lunch. 2 batches so far, and very enjoyable. The batch we're eating now has a small amount of ham for flavor, and uses homemade chicken & ham stock plus tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, celery, zucchini, onion, hominy, peas and corn. Much better than coldcuts, cheese and crackers.

I do doll it up with a bit of fresh parsley and some grated
extra sharp cheddar and serve with a few crackers.

Let's all b*tch and moan about food prices, specifically meat. I'm always trying to buy on sale or as a "bogo" (buy one, get one). This week W/D had thick cut center loin pork chops as a bogo, and these are delicious treated like a steak and cooked on the Ninja Foodie. Ed and I split one and usually end up with a nice bone portion to nibble on the next day. Lucky for us we don't eat a large portion of meat at dinner.

1 chop = 1 meal for the 2 of us. I use Montreal Steak
seasoning plus onion powder and marinate in a bit of soy sauce.

Last weekend after reading a few blogs that exhibited their delicious looking burgers, we decided to have a burger and fries for a late lunch.  So good and so filling. We enjoyed them out on the deck as the weather was perfect for it.

I prefer mine with sharp cheddar while Ed likes his bare.

Finally, I finished up the puzzle I had been slowly working on. It had some tough sections and so it took me a while. Plus I was distracted with jewelry making.

Last shot, some of the jewelry I've been practicing on lately.

Well, that's it for this post. Thanks for dropping by. 

Great "mini" Cruiser's Reunion and a sidetrip down memory lane.

On Wednesday the plan was to travel about 45 miles south to Palatka to meet up with former cruising friends from 3 other boats; Nancy formerly on Silver Seas, Marlene & Benno formerly on Diesel Duck, and Allayne & Dennis formerly on Audrey Paige.  

Nancy was also heading south, Marlene and Benno coming up from Ocala, and Allayne and Dennis coming inland from St. Augustine, one of the places here in Florida they have been visiting this winter.

We met each other while cruising in the Caribbean around 2006 or so and have stayed in touch over the years via email and social media.

The weather was pretty favorable although a small sprinkle passed by rather quickly. The park, Ravine Gardens State Park, is situated within a ravine, carved out over time by a spring-fed river. The park is well known for it's springtime azalea bloom and it's small formal garden and hiking/biking paths.  This is an akward time of year horticulturely, the trees are mostly bare with a few blooms here and there. Lots of spanish moss and leaf litter around too. Personally, I don't find that too terribly appealing, which is probably why I didn't take many photos, but here are a few.

The group: L to R - Marlene, Me, Nancy, Allayne, Dennis
Back row - Benno, Ed 
Harley the dog

 

Summer view of the Formal Garden
(Photo courtesy of floridastateparks.org)

I would definitely like to head back there in May after things have leafed out somemore. However, it was a really nice spot for a picnic, and we had a ton of food - it was a potluck after all. It was also a gabfest! So fun catching up with everyone.

All that made me feel a little nostalgic for the Caribbean and Venezuela so I thought I'd put a link in for one of my slideshow videos I made up quite a while ago. The length is about 3:30 so it's not a snoozer (I don't think, lol). The music is nice too.

Here is the link to the youtube video on our channel of s/v Dreamtime and s/v Paradise sailing into Laguna Grande, Venezuela and on up the Rio Carioca where the Scarlet Ibis nest. https://youtu.be/BICkg9FOV6g 

Laguna Grande in the Golfo de Carioca, Venezuela

Thanks for the visit!

February fun, food and jewelry making.

 It is nearly mid-February and it seems like Spring is about ready to be sprung. We had a dandy start to the blooming season of the azaleas around here, however a cold snap to just below freezing put the kibosh on that. There are more blooms in the offing so we'll just have to be patient.  In the meantime, during these chilly and rainy days it's all about passing the time with chores, cooking pleasures, books and other generalized amusements.

Over the past few year's I've enjoyed making up a big batch of enchilada wraps and freezing them individually. That way I can pull them out one at a time and have a ready-made easy dinner, just add salsa, raw onions and cheese to the frying pan with the wrap and cover. Voila, in 30 minutes you have the tastiest treat. 

What is my dilemma you ask? All the leftover flour tortillas sitting in my pantry until they get so old/dried out that I toss them. Enter the tortilla wrap sandwich, which I understand had a huge showing on the internet a while back. You've probably seen the videos of people making them. Well, I'm here to say that they've become quite popular in our house for a lunchtime treat. Usually, we each do our own thing for lunch but occasionally I'll make up a "specialty wrap" which we will share. 

So, the other day I had some leftover caramelized onions and cooked bacon which together with smoked turkey coldcut meat, sliced tomatoes and pepperjack cheese made for the perfect wrap sandwich. Very easy to make once you see how to fold them. Basically, you cut from the center out to the edge (radius line) and think of the tortilla in quarters. Dress each quarter as you wish then fold one quarter onto the next. I generally fold in a counter-clockwise direction. Then I give it a bit of a spritz of olive oil, and pop it into the air fryer for about 5 minutes, flip and let go for another 3 mins and you've got it.

Just serve with some chips and you've got it. This is 1/2 of 1/4
of the sandwich - uh, 1/8th I guess, lol.

Moving on, I read blogs where "certain people" do a lot of home improvement or difficult home repair projects. While I applaud their diligent efforts, I'm afraid I'm not up to those tasks (anymore). Once, I was able to shimmy and squeeze myself down into our lazarette bins on Dreamtime in order to TSP clean and paint them (and a hundred other difficult and tedious jobs). Now I'm lucky if I can find the wherewithal to finish sand, and stain an oak banister. It was fun though.

I have managed to find time, in between my cooking exploits, to practice making copper wire-wrapped jewelry, It is time consuming but pleasurable. Herre's a couple of examples.

A little blurry in this shot. I like how it came out.

This is my first attempt at "hammering",
I love the texture it gives the piece.

And lastly, I did find time to make more cookies, pecan, butterscotch, & coconut with a few dark chocolate chips thrown in for good luck. Hot tea and a cookie is a great way to wind up the day.

A sweet treat for sure.

Thanks for taking the time to visit and as always, I'd love it if you wanted to comment! Have a great day.