A Tale of Two

Caramel sauces.

I saw this recipe right before Halloween and decided to make it that afternoon for us to have while we watched Linus wait for the Great Pumpkin.  The picture looked so good, like Cracker Jack. I even added some peanuts. I followed the recipe precisely (yes, really!) and poured everything out onto two baking pans lined with parchment paper.

Big disappointment. The syrup was thick and never smoothly coated the popcorn.  The texture was rather grainy, too. This isn't to say the popcorn wasn't rapidly devoured--we're talking butter & brown sugar, after all.

But I remembered another recipe I'd tried a while back, also without complete success.  The main problem there was that I didn't make the sauce far enough in advance, and poured screaming hot sauce over fresh popcorn, "melting" the popcorn. I did remember that the leftover sauce itself was pretty good, especially over pancakes the next day.

So I made that one again this afternoon. I used all butter instead of a combo of "healthy" butter & olive oil, but other than that, I did follow the recipe precisely. At first, I worried. The butter & brown sugar looked exactly like the Halloween debacle. Then I poured in the apple juice & cornstarch, and it magically turned into a sauce.  Yuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuummy. 

When I came back to it a few hours later (I left it at room temp in a glass container), it had separated into two layers, but they were easily stirred back together.  I made the popcorn tonight, and poured it over, and it worked really well. It wasn't dry like Cracker Jack, but the taste & texture were great.

I mentioned how much better I liked this one than the Halloween one, and Sarah said she had liked that one better. "It had peanuts." Well, if you don't take the peanuts into account?  "I still liked it better." Maybe next time I'll try baking it after to dry it out a little, like the first recipe, but that Grandbaby Cakes wins this one hands down as far as I'm concerned. 

. . . And the second

I finally got Lauren's costume done last night. The coat was done in time for her party on Sunday, but she was unhappy not to have the hat or boot covers.

The picture that she referenced was this one, Pokemon Trainer Dawn. I decided that a basic double breasted pea coat was the way to go:  Simplicity 2534.

I had hoped to use fleece, because it's easy to work with and pretty warm. And although the vest pattern suggests fleece for the vest, it suggests denim, corduroy, or wool for the coat/jacket. I realized that's because you need to interface the front of the coat/jacket, but not the vest. You can't iron interfacing onto fleece.

When we went to get fabric I realized that there is a dearth of light pink wool/cord/denim at JoAnn's in October. Go figure. Lauren said that the color was the most important part, and I saw her point.  There was some light pink quilted fabric, but I thought it would be too bulky in front, it was $10/yard, and I didn't have any coupons. Finally, I thought, "I'll use that sew-in interfacing I have down in the basement." We grabbed the bolt of anti-pill pink fleece (already 50% off, score!), and were on our way. Since fleece is so wide, I only had to get two yards.

When it came time to put it together, I managed to get most of it done in about three hours. Cut it out, sew the side seams, gather and attach the bottom, put on the front, put in the sleeves. Then I stopped. I decided I wasn't going to line it. I still had to put in the front facing, top  stitch it, and do the buttons & buttonholes.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to that last bit until a few hours before the party. Attaching the front facing was fine, and top stitching was fine. Then I got to the buttonholes. I have an automatic buttonhole foot, and it worked fine for Sarah's coat, although it took me a while to remember how to use it. But when I tried it on two thick layers of fleece, it wasn't working. It wasn't moving smoothly over the fabric, and got stuck.  I hate having to rip out button holes and start over--it's hard on the fabric, and it's hard on me.

Gotta catch 'em all!

I remembered that I had some Velcro left over. I sewed it in, and then sewed the buttons on top. It's not as nice as if it had proper button holes, but it was DONE, and we could go to the party. Of course, then there was the issue of what she would wear under it, and as it turned out, she took it off for most of the party anyway.

Yesterday, I stopped to get some white fleece for the hat and boot covers, I thought. I forgot that the boot covers were supposed to also be pink. It was a very near thing, but I had just barely enough pink scraps left to make rough boot covers. The hat is a simple tube; I hand stitched the designs on the front, and also hand stitched the back closed. I think the back looks a little odd, but Lauren says it's right for the picture. OK, she's happy, so I'm happy. And I'm done with Halloween this year, so I'm VERY happy.

Kitchen Experiment, Week 1

A few weeks ago, I decided that I no longer cared to bear the brunt of Kitchen Duty alone. I realized that the whole family should be taking part in this aspect of our lives.

First, I asked for help with the dishes. Our dishwasher has been out of commission for a while, and I don't have a lot of interest in replacing it in the foreseeable future (unless we win the lotto, in which case I will happily get a beautiful dishwasher for the maid to use). I asked Lauren and Jeff to each pick one night a week to clean up, and Sarah to take two nights. That's still three nights for me, which is fine. 

There are two provisions:

1. If you don't get it done on your night, you will also be responsible for it the next day. So far, I'm the only one who has fallen down on the job there.
2. If you can't or just don't want to do the dishes on your night, it is your responsibility to find someone to cover for you. Negotiate a trade of days or cash payout, but get it done. 

So far, this plan is going quite well. It's verging on pathetic how happy I am at having someone else clean up. The only trade so far was last night, when I asked Jeff if he could help Lauren with her science lesson (kinetic energy, potential energy, energy transfer--I didn't have the energy for it) in return for my taking his night at the sink.

The other part of Kitchen Duty is making dinner. I like cooking, but I get so bored with making the same things over and over. The girls are certainly old enough to pick up the slack in the kitchen.

So in addition to cleaning up, each girl also gets to cook dinner once a week. This isn't as much a time savings for me right now, but I think it will pay off. One difficulty is that I have classes four evenings a week, so timing is challenging.

Last week was the first time I asked what they wanted to make on their respective nights. Sarah said "pancakes & bacon" and Lauren said, "biscuits & gravy."  Hm. Not the healthiest, but for the first week, ok.

Sarah was making her dinner as I ran out the door to work (she's made both pancakes and bacon before, and I supervised the batter ingredients, so I wasn't too concerned); when I got home, there were three very crispy pieces of bacon left. She said that she ate the burned pieces herself. I've noticed that both girls tend to get distracted and forget about the food while it's cooking.

Lauren did her cooking on the weekend, because I knew she'd need substantial guidance making it. We used canned biscuits, because I didn't think we should do more than one recipe at a time. She did a good job with the gravy, but when it came time to eat, she said, "I don't actually like gravy very much."

Um. . .  whose child are you, and why exactly did you ask to make that?

At any rate, I'd call the first week of our Kitchen Experiment a moderate success. Week 2: Potato Skins and Tomato Soup.

Pulled Pork

A couple weeks ago, Jeff requested pulled pork for dinner, with a mustardy sauce instead of a tomatoey one. We'd had something similar a few months ago at Noble Pig, my cousin's BBQ place on the east side, and he really liked it.

I found this recipe, which seemed promising:  dry rub, and a separate mustard sauce.  Aldi didn't have pork shoulder/butt, but they did have the next best thing:  country style ribs.  I cut the recipe in half, which seemed to be about right, and cooked the ribs in the oven. My crockpot seems to get a little too hot sometimes, and I was worried the ribs would turn to mush if I left them in there too long.

It turned out really well. In an interesting turn, everyone else in the family thought it was better than I did. I thought it was good, but not as good as Noble Pig. Jeff said, "Well, if you're going to have unreasonably high standards . . ."  I liked the sauce better than the meat itself. We dipped soft pretzels in it, and I put it on my hash browns under my eggs in the morning.

Everyone liked it so much that when I saw a pork shoulder yesterday, I grabbed it. I've made the rub (I'm now totally out of paprika) and it's in the crockpot in the refrigerator right now. Since it's rather massive, I'm not worried about it going several hours tomorrow. As for the mustard sauce, I got some grainy mustard, and I think that will zip up the sauce even more. This is a recipe that is going in the keeper book.

One Down . . .

and one to go.

That was a bit of a stretch for me.  The directions for the pockets was weird, I've never done a proper lining before, and organza made me nervous. I didn't follow all the directions exactly:

•  I didn't properly turn the sleeve lining & the main lining and hand stitch them together. Instead, I basted them together and then serged the seam to clean it up. It's not as nice as if I'd done it properly, but at least it's done. My hand sewing is garbage anyway.

• I didn't do a "narrow hem" on the edges of the organza. Instead, I serged the edges and then turned them under twice. I knew that if I just pressed it and sewed it down, it would be terribly uneven. From a distance, it looks kind of like a ribbon edge. Up close, I've decided it looks like "faux lace."  I would love to have a rolled edge foot for my machine, because I think that would be the nicest finish of all.

•  I topstitched all around the outer edges. I wanted to make sure that lining stayed in place, I didn't want to slip stitch the opening where I'd turned it, and I think it gives it a nice finished edge. 

Detail on the pocket.

• I did NOT make the fabric loops on the back and the tie to go through them. I hate making teeny narrow bands of fabric that I have to turn right side out.  I used satin ribbon instead, and I like the contrast in color. Also, I only did six instead of ten. Seriously--ten. No way. I didn't even bother with the measuring tape to make sure they were evenly spaced.

I did hand sew the collar on, using invisible thread.  I think it adds a great flourish on top.

The pockets had me so confused at first (that flap!), and I'm still not crazy about the directions, but I do like the final look of them. Still, I've told Sarah not to put anything heavy in them.

I really like the fabric we got--it irons up well (I've ironed the hell out of this thing), and from a distance it looks like it could be leather or suede. Originally, I wanted to line it with some cool print, but the more traditional lining fabric turned out fine. It's not a very warm garment, but I think a more substantial lining fabric could have made it too heavy. 

"Faux lace!"

The buttons were hard to get properly spaced at first, until I hit on the idea to overlay the cut buttonholes and use a pencil to mark the right spot. Yes, I know I'm supposed to use the pattern piece as a guide. That piece was downstairs.  In other words, totally unavailable.

Making the muslin first was a very good idea, because I realized that using quarter inch seams would screw up certain areas, such as those pockets, and I was able to avoid that. I did take the seams down as far as I could along the back though, which made pressing them open challenging. Moral of the story: MEASURE BEFORE YOU BUY.

She's really happy with it, and I have to say I'm pleased with the result. That's a big deal for me--in the past, many of things I've made just don't satisfy me. I liked Lauren's Easter dress, too, so either my sewing is improving or my standards are relaxing.

Oh, and I told her that a character like this definitely needs an original name, so she came up with "Detective Belladonna J. Skipworth." Yep, she's a character, all right!

Sorry it's sideways--I keep forgetting the camera doesn't automatically fix video the way it does stills.

My Dream Sewing Room

My Dream Sewing room would have:

• space for cutting table, sewing table, and ironing board (including enough room to move around all three easily)
• multiple outlets
• light, both natural and artificial, from multiple locations
• ample and easily accessible storage for fabric, notions, and tools
• a metal wall and numerous magnets strong enough to hold fabric and pattern pieces
• a rolled hem foot for my sewing machine
• NOT being in the furthest spot from the bathroom in the entire house 
• phone, TV, computer, and music access
• a self cleaning floor

Month of Crazy Sewing, Part 1

This is the (very rough) muslin of Sarah's coat. No sleeves, and no lining, but it was more to figure out those wonky pockets and check for size anyway.

I had a bad moment where I realized that Sarah, tall as she is, doesn't necessarily fit into the smaller pattern size. I really should have measured her better and looked at the pattern before I bought it; it was a bad assumption. I adjusted by using quarter inch seams instead of 5/8ths. This made it big enough across the back, but meant that the shoulders had to be adjusted, and the pocket flap didn't work right. That's the whole point of making a muslin first, right?  To figure out how to do it right when you're working on the final fabric.  I might make the pieces all a bit wider to give me a little more wiggle room.  And I need to make sure I use the sharp scissors and cut the notches when I do the real thing, starting tomorrow.  I still don't understand how to do the lining at all.

However, she does love it and is excited at the prospect of the finished garment.

Total time so far, spent cutting out pattern pieces, muslin fabric, and sewing 15 seams: about 4 hours. 

Halloween Sewing 2013

Halloween is about a month away, and I haven't started sewing yet. Remember the Week of Crazy Sewing of 2006?  Sub out the word Week with Month and we're good to go.

Sarah is very into Steampunk lately, and she wants the coat from Simplicity 2172, which has some really strange pockets and about 3256 pieces. I have the pattern pieces cut out, have read the directions exactly 14 times, and have some old fabric to use as practice.

Lauren is still big into Pokemon and wants a trainer's winter look. This amounts to a double breasted pea coat, but quite short. I'm planning to shorten Simplicity 2534. I've looked at the instructions exactly 8 times, but haven't cut anything out yet, or even figured out what kind of fabric to use.

I have a couple hours to get a little work in before I go get some coffee with friends, then maybe a little more tonight. I'm going to be right by JoAnn's tomorrow and there's a good sale, so I'll try to pick up some final fabric then, as well as whatever trim I might need.

Travelogue: The Fiscal Round Up

I originally said that we spent about $3000.  I could say that with some authority because every time we got gas or ate or paid for a hotel, I made sure we wrote it down. Actually, Jeff did most of the record keeping there, and I'm confident he got everything.  I've adjusted a little to take into account for the full tank of gas we got the night before, and the food I bought to take with us, as well as the souvenirs we got after we got home.

Here's the breakdown.

Hotels:  $1206.41, average $100.51/day, 39% of total. 
I've already gone into detail about the hotels.

Food: $897.07, $69.01/day, 29% of total.
I wanted us to eat as often as possible at places that we don't have here in Michigan, and for the most part we were successful. I packed a cooler for us the first morning, and we ended up eating a lot of (surprisingly decent!) gas station sandwiches.  We didn't eat at a lot of high end places, but many of them were utterly delicious!  See:  Fat Willy's, Shorty's, The Giggling Grizzly, Stanley Baking Company, Pond's, The Irma Hotel, Highway 21 Diner, Wicked Spud, and Corona Village, to name a few.

Gas: $539.56, $41.50/day, 17% of total.
The most expensive gas we saw was $4.29.  The most expensive we got was $4.26--both in Stanley, ID.  The cheapest gas we saw was $3.11. The cheapest we got was $3.26--both in the middle of Nebraska.  (Note:  our car has a digital gas gauge, which tells you how many miles you have left in the tank. We loved going down hills and "gaining" miles!)

Entry Fees: $265.00, $20.38/day, 8% of total.
The Badlands, Fort Bridger, Cody Rodeo, Yellowstone, Stanley Hotel, Craters of the Moon, Mt. Rushmore, Rocky Mountain Park, and Colorado Rockies baseball game (this could also have gone under "souvenirs") .

Souvenirs:   $175.41, $13.49/day, 6% of total.
Sarah got a couple t-shirts, a necklace, and a dreamcatcher. Lauren got a necklace, a ranger hat, a dreamcatcher, and all her Junior Ranger patches/badges (I'm not sure if I counted her fleece from Yellowstone in this, since I think Grandpapa picked up the tab there). Jeff got a t-shirt and I got (of course!) my photo album.

Miscellaneous:  $38.40, average $2.95/day, 1% of total.
This was all tolls and parking in Denver.  Don't think we could have done any cheaper.



The exact total ended up being $3121.58, average $240.12/day.  All told, I think we did amazingly well financially. Taking into account everything we saw and did,  I figure we spent much less than one dollar per memory.  When I was originally thinking about the trip, I thought it would run at least four grand. I give full marks to Jeff for his diligence in finding hotels, because that's the place that we could have really racked up the costs.  It was the biggest family trip we've done, and it was fabulous.

Travelogue: Rocky Mountain National Park

 When it came to planning the Colorado leg of the trip, I had heard a lot about Rocky Mountain National Park, and really wanted to go, in spite of not really knowing much about it. It's a beautiful place, but if we'd had the time (and stamina!) to do some real hiking, I think we would have enjoyed it even more. If we want to go back there next time we go out west, I'll need to do some training first.

 Lauren got to do another Junior Ranger program; this one was one of the easiest but also one of the best, I thought.  I admit, I was dubious at first, when I saw the ranger reading the kids "Where the Wild Things Are."  Seriously:  huh?

Taking the ranger oath.

But then they all went out for a nature walk and I heard him talking about the wild things all around them and also calling the kids wild things, so it made more sense.  On their walk, they used four of their senses to explore the world in the park. At the end, the ranger made a point of mentioning the sense they didn't use:  taste, of course.

Beaver pelt.

 We also drove around a bit and enjoyed the views, but didn't get out and do much, aside from the girls climbing around on some of the rocks.

 

Travelogue: Colorado

We didn't have a lot planned for Colorado.  Frankly, I stopped thinking after "Idaho."  We had tickets for the Colorado Rockies game, and we'd already done Rocky Mountain National Park & the Stanley Hotel, but other than that, we didn't have anything planned.  The baseball game was fun, even though the Rockies lost big to the Dodgers. While we were there, we realized that their mascot is a cartoon-ified triceratops.  "Hey!  Colorado!  Dinosaurs!"

We decided to go to the Florissant Fossil Beds the next day, and realized we'd also head past the Air Force Academy as well as Garden of the Gods, which I had heard a lot about.

That was a lot for one day;  too much, really.

Sarah loved going through the Air Force Academy's visitor center, though she was peeved when she realized that if she did join the Air Force (something she's said she has no interest in), she wouldn't be able to fly for them because of her glasses.  She happily got a t-shirt, though.  Unfortunately, we decided that we couldn't spare an extra half hour or so to get to the chapel and walk around it. I've heard it's really amazing, and it's one of the places that I wish we'd taken time for.

Then we headed down to Garden of the Gods, and Lauren started on another Junior Ranger program.  This one wasn't as detailed as the one at Yellowstone, but it still took her a few hours to finish, including the ranger presentation about rattlesnakes.  For the record, their gift shop was the one where I had the hardest time keeping my wallet put away.  I almost got a bear keychain, and I really liked a lot of the earrings they had.  When we finally got to drive around the park, it was HOT again, and the kids didn't get out of the car.  This is another one of those places that I'd like to spend a whole day.  I'd especially like to see the formations at different times of day, to see how the light is different.

I was really irritated at all the people climbing on the formations.

Finally, we headed down to the Fossil Beds.  Jeff & I both thought  "Fossils = Dinosaurs."  Not so much. It was all plant and bug fossils, which are also cool, but not what we expected. The remains of the petrified redwoods were pretty awesome--it does look like wood instead of stone. Lauren & I got caught outside just as a HUGE storm hit. She was running back to the visitor center when a huge thunder boomed, and she freaked right out. That made it the most memorable of all her Junior Ranger programs.

If we'd planned things out more in advance, we probably would have gotten a different hotel, rather than going back up to Denver. But we already had the room, so we were trying to find a place for dinner, "What about that place we saw last night by the stadium, The Giggling Grizzly?"  To be honest, I'd taken a picture of the sign just because it was another bear, but it looked like a decent place. When we first walked in, "Shipping up to Boston" by Drop Kick Murphys was playing on the radio, so I felt like we'd made the right choice immediately. When the waitress came and told us that burgers started at $1.50 because it was Wednesday, I KNEW we'd made the right choice.  When I went in the bathroom, the walls were papered in old Pabst ads, but there was also this:

I kind of love this, although I don't think it would exactly work at Salem.

While we were eating, we kept seeing people on bikes wearing Where's Waldo gear. There were other bikers, too, and we couldn't figure out what was going on. As we were leaving, I told Lauren she should ask someone what the deal was, so she found the nearest guy and learned that they always have a bike parade on Wednesday nights. What a cool town! 

Travelogue: Yellowstone

Is anyone getting burned out on hearing about our vacation?  I'm getting a little burned out on talking about it, and I haven't even hit the rodeo, or Denver, or the rest of Colorado.  I think I'm going to try to cram the rest of the vacation into two or three more posts.  I actually have other stuff to talk about!

Yellowstone was really great, even if we did practically run through it. I remember going to Old Faithful when I was a kid, and being distinctly unimpressed. I mentioned it to my mom a couple years ago. and she remarked that we were all exhausted from a long day's drive; no one was really thrilled to be there.  I also saw Yellowstone in the winter via snowmobile one year, which was really cool.  That's where I stupidly stopped way too close to a bison to get a picture of it and got reamed out (deservedly so) by my stepmom.

This year, we got into the park early. I did not remember seeing any waterfalls in Yellowstone (though I can't imagine we would pass them up), so that was a big priority for me.  They don't disappoint. 

Soooooo many photo opportunities!  I ended up with 38 pages in the album--most places got one page.  Yellowstone has four. 

The wildlife was prevalent, too. We saw about 40 bison over the course of the day, including some babies.  I didn't get any good pictures of the calves, because they were quite a ways off from the road, and it was toward the end of the day and Jeff had no intention of stopping. 

My favorite picture of the whole trip is "my" bear. There were a TON of cars parked along the sides of the road, so we weren't going anywhere right away, so I decided to get out and see what I could get.  There were a lot of people much closer than I was, and I only took three pics ("c'mon, quit eating whatever's on the ground, pick up your head so I can see you, ok, got it!") before I scampered back to the car.  We managed to make our way out, just as we saw an extremely irritated looking ranger driving in with his lights flashing.

Yellowstone was Lauren's first ranger badge, and she put a lot of work into it.  There was a whole booklet of questions, and we were lucky enough to catch a ranger talk (about bears, no less!)

We also stopped at the Paint Pots, which I did remember as being pretty cool.  The thing I noticed most on this trip was the number of footprints that were off the boardwalk. A ranger told us that she had to tell people to stay on the boardwalk at least a few times a day.  Their excuse is usually that they want to get a picture.  Ahem. 

Our last big stop was Old Faithful, where Lauren finished her booklet while we were waiting for it to go off. 

It was probably the most packed day we had, even though there were a lot of things we missed, too. It's high on the priority list for a return visit.

Travelogue: Craters of the Moon

I think this is the last of the Idaho posts. Tomorrow:  Yellowstone!

I've been to Craters of the Moon several times, and it was pretty high on the list of stops.  It also had the virtue of being right along the road we were traveling on, unlike ISU.

Lunar Ranger getting sworn in.

Conversation as we're passing Idaho Falls:
Jeff:  Are you sure you don't want the kids to see where you went to college?
Me:  Of course I want them to see it. But I'm not willing to drive an hour out of our way to go down and see a few buildings, most of which will look totally different from when I was there,  then back another hour.  It's another one of those "next time" stops.

It was also another one of those unusually hot days. We were glad of the awning for the kids' ranger talk, and when we drove around, we didn't get of the car much. Lauren was more interested than Sarah; she especially wanted to walk up the Inferno Cone, and didn't understand when I told her that it was MUCH higher than it looked.

Seriously, I remember being 13-ish and walking up it, thinking it didn't look too far from the ground.  Then you get to what you thought was the top and realizing there's still another hill to climb that wasn't previously visible. Then you go through all that yet again, and by the time you do get to the top, you're exhausted. Yes, there's
a nice view, but it wasn't spectacular to my eyes. 

So we didn't do that. We also didn't go into any of the caves, which was a bigger disappointment to me, but it was another thing we just didn't have time for.

But before we got to Craters of the Moon, we had lunch in Arco, at Pickle's Place (home of the Atomic Burger!).  Why the Atomic Burger?  There's a nuclear test facility nearby, of course. 

Before we left, Jeff asked me what kind of food Idaho was known for.  (He knew better than to bring up potatoes more than once.) Detroit has great Middle Eastern food, Polish food, and of course cherries and Coney dogs.  What about Idaho? 

Um.  "Don't say Rocky Mountain Oysters, because I'm not eating that!"  OK, then.  I honestly couldn't think of any local/regional specialties until I saw "finger steaks" on the menu at Pickles.  "Ooo, we have to get that!"  Finger steaks are like chicken fingers, but with steak instead of chicken. Easy, right?  But I never see them around here. The ones at Pickle's were good but not amazing, and I'll probably make my own version sometime later this year.

Travelogue: Before the Ranch

On our way between Stanley and the Diamond D, we made two stops. I'd never been to either place before, which is why this post doesn't get a "home again" title.

The first place was the Yankee Fork Dredge.  Although the dredge was around, along with the resulting ponds, when we were in Idaho, you couldn't tour it. 

That said, one summer weekend when I was 15-ish, I went camping with my friend Deena and her mom (Karen--the cook at the ranch the first year we went and the nicest lady ever), stepdad (Harry) & grandma. We went fishing in the dredge ponds, ducking whenever we saw a truck go by, because we only had one fishing license among us, and caught a good 30 or 40 fish.  Her mom cooked those fish for dinner, and it was one of the best meals I'd ever had. Her grandma found a puffball mushroom and blithely ate a piece, while we freaked out and waited for her to keel over dead. She was fine, of course. Karen & Harry slept in the camper, but the rest of us were in sleeping bags under the stars.  Until it started to downpour sometime after midnight, that is.  Deena didn't budge, but her grandma & I ran for the truck to get out of the rain. We all had a damn good time.

So the dredge was fun, although we didn't take the tour itself.  The guide was hanging around outside, so we talked with him for about 20 minutes.

Custer is a ghost town from a mining boom town in the 1800's.  We'd never gone, because it's after the road forks on the way to the Diamond D and I think it's improved substantially in the past few years. The museum has a lot of artifacts. We walked around for about half an hour, but could have spent much longer. There are several buildings that we didn't walk down to, partly because it was getting hot and partly because I was antsy to get up to the ranch itself. 

Travelogue: Home Again, Part 3

I've already talked about our trek over Loon Creek Summit.  Staying at the Diamond D wasn't in our budget, which is why we decided to drive in and back out the same day.

Maybe the stress of the road was what did it, but going into the ranch felt downright anticlimactic.  Really, that was the one place I had to go to, no matter how difficult I thought it was going to be. And it hasn't changed much since the last time I was there. Yet I still felt kind of disconnected from it. It was also another one of those super hot days, so that didn't help.

When we pulled in, the cook came out to greet us and looked surprised when I started asking for people by name. Sadly, Kara and Dana were both away from the main ranch area, and Linda was taking a nap.  So we sat down to eat the sandwiches we'd brought. When Linda came out, one of the kids asked me, "Who's that?"  As I started to say, "Grandma Garvan's best friend in the whole world," I started to tear up.  By the time I got over to give her a hug, I couldn't say much of anything for a few minutes.

Click to embiggen.

Eventually, we sat chatting on the back porch, and I saw a bird flying over the mountains closest to us. Linda said that she thought it was a golden eagle, and I put my new toy to the test again. I got two pictures, and it's hard to see, but if you zoom way in, that sure looks like a bald eagle to me. Another animal I hadn't ever seen in Idaho (although I have seen one in Michigan). 

It was still really hot, and this time the kids did have their bathing suits, so they jumped into the (ICY COLD) pool.  They had some fun splashing around, but then I wanted to walk around  I particularly wanted to find the chapel that Linda built some years ago, and she gave me directions to get there.

Loon Creek

We walked through the corral and down past Loon Creek. I started heading up the hill on the other side, while Jeff & the girls stayed down to play in the cool water.  Linda had told me not to go all the way up to the lake, but I missed the path opposite the gazebo, and before I knew it, the lake was in front of me.

View from the lake.

So I'd gone too far, and I was getting tired, and I hadn't really told the rest of the family exactly where I was going. I didn't want to go all the way back down to the creek, though--I knew I'd never go back up the hill once I was all the way back down.  As I was about halfway down, I saw a little path and thought, "Aha, I bet that's it," and followed it. Sure enough, there it was.

The Little Chapel in the Wilderness

It isn't very big, but blessedly cool inside and beautifully simple. The stained glass is really lovely.  Its story is wonderful--in fact, Jen's whole blog about winter caretaking up there was beautiful and fascinating.  It really opens up a whole new world, and her photography is absolutely stunning.

By this time, we were getting tired, so we went back to the lodge to talk with Linda some more.  The kids were getting tired and antsy, but just as we were getting ready to leave, one of the ranch hands  asked if we wanted to go pan for gold for a little bit. Regretfully, I knew we didn't have time--add it to the list of things we have to look forward to!

Did I have a good time there?  Yes, absolutely!  Do I wish I'd had more time?  You bet!  And if the road wasn't such a bear, or if we had a different car, it might not have been so exhausting for all of us.  I'm very glad we went, but I don't know if we'll make that part of the trip again the next time we're in Idaho. 

Travelogue: Home Again, Part 2

We headed north from Ketchum, and when we got to Galena Summit, I heaved a huge sigh of relief. Thank God THAT still looks right, I thought.

Never mind that the overlook itself looked totally different. There was a rock wall, and plaques I had never seen before, along with a binocular viewer. The little building with maps on the outside wall was gone.  But the view . . . ah, the view. 

Even that tree on the left is the same.

Heading down into Stanley was also almost entirely unchanged in 35 years.  There were a few more houses, but it was still mostly cows and sagebrush, with mountains along the sides.

The view from the chapel was also just the same as when my Dad & Sharon got married there in 1984, though I don't remember the stained glass panels. To be honest, Stanely HAS changed a little. It's more touristy now, with kind of a hippie cowboy vibe and not a lot of honky tonk left. But it still feels small town, unmarred by big developments. Of course, it still costs $250K if you want to buy a small house in town.


High on my priority list was Redfish Lake. I remembered that there was a good beach where the water wasn't too deep for quite a ways out from the shore, and we found it easily.  The thing to realize here is that we'd been preparing for cold weather before we left. I was actually worried that I'd forgotten to throw our winter coats in the trunk, because I knew it was still getting pretty chilly at night.  Instead, they had a massive heat wave. Seriously, Stanley NEVER gets to 90 degrees!  So that cold water felt pretty good, and we all enjoyed it at least a little. The kids wanted to go get bathing suits on so they could do real swimming, but they had to make do with their shorts.

We met up with my friend Pat (note: Pat & I knew each other in high school, but weren't friends. In fact, we barely tolerated each other. It took college and a mutual friend with terrible taste in music to make us realize what a great team we were.) He took us out to dinner and then said that since I'd never been to Stanley Lake, that was where we should go.

WOW.  Every bit as gorgeous as Redfish, but only about half as many people (that would be 4 at Stanely, and maybe 10 at Redfish, by the way).  The kids again had a really good time playing in the water, and the rest of us just hung out on the shore, laughing our fool heads off trying to explain our particular brand of college stupidity to Jeff.

The real high point, though, was when Jeff told Pat that he was relieved that he was a real person and not just a figment of my imagination, humph.  Ever the smartass, as he was leaving, Pat leaned over and stage whispered, "So can you pay me now, or will you send the check to my agent for this performance?" (I know; I told that story already.  It's worth repeating!)

Next up:  The Diamond D

I love this "toy camera" setting.