May 2017 – TooBusyForWork

Today was for onions and sewing

I make an onion dip that is really amazing. It is made with dehydrated carmelized onions, sour cream, and garlic powder. You mix 2-3 handfuls of the dehydrated onions to 16 ounces of sour cream, and add 1/2 – 1 tsp of garlic powder. Mix well, and let sit in the refrigerator for 12 hours or so. As the onions rehydrate, they absorb some of the moisture in the sour cream so the resulting dip is quite thick. Part of the trick is how to make the onions themselves. I chop 3-4 pounds of onions, then carmelize them in a skillet (my cast iron works great for this). When the onions are light brown, add 1/2 c white wine to deglaze the pan. Cook another 5-10 minutes to evaporate the wine, then add another 1/2 c of wine and deglaze the pan again. Continue cooking until the wine has evaporated. Dehydrate for 12 hours or so at 135 degrees. If you plan on using them quickly, they can stay at room temperature. I leave them in the refrigerator if I don’t use them in a couple of weeks. Here are some pictures of the process.

Ready to take off the stove. The onions are a lovely caramel color.

The final product. Obviously less volume than about 4 pounds of onions!

I also did some preparation for sewing. I have my grandson’s baptism outfit cut out and the interfacing fused on the waistband. I have the most beautiful fine broadcloth that should work beautifully. Tomorrow I will practice my pintucks on scrap fabric, work a bunch of them on the romper front, and hopefully start construction. We decided to leave here on next Wednesday instead of a week from Friday for our next trip, so I have a few less days to get the romper finished. I can do the skirt later, but I want to make sure the romper fits; this kid is growing like a weed! We decided we are going to Fossil Butte National Monument (spending the night on Green River Reservoir), then someplace in the Bighorn National Forest, followed by a night at Devil’s Tower KOA to clean tanks before heading near Spearfish, SD for a vacation with our kids and their families.

Yesterday Kevin went back to the surgeon who did his knee surgery. The surgeon says there is still swelling and a small MCL strain left over from the surgery. That is the reason he still has pain and stifffness. It is nice to hear an explanation, but fairly frustrating too. He has been riding his bike as much as he can since that is a good rehab exercise.

Antelope Island State Park

Yesterday Kevin and I decided to take a drive to Antelope Island. Usually there are dreadful biting gnats that love to chew me up, but the stiff breeze must have blew them all away. I have never been there with such beautiful weather and no bugs. We were not the only people with the idea – there were lots and lots of people there.

See all the tiny dots of people in the lake? I haven’t ever seen as many people in the water.

It was also a good day to see animals. We saw deer, pronghorn, coyotes, and a chukar. Chukars are some of my favorite birds. They were imported for bird hunting, and they are similar to quail but larger. They generally walk through the campground in small groups with an interesting clucking sounds. We saw just this one, but we heard a second nearby.

Oh, and we definitely saw bison. Lots and lots of bison! The nursery herd has broken up into smaller bands of a hundred or so, and the bachelors seem to have coalesced mostly into one big herd. There weren’t very many of the solitary bison bulls that make such good photographs.

This group was on a mission to head to a different spring. While we were watching they just decided to get up and go. You can see the calves are getting big but still have their reddish color.

This group was quite happy at the springs next to the lakeshore. See how green everything is?

Here are just some more beautiful pictures of the Island. This is looking east across Farmington Bay to the Wasatch Range. Not much snow left where you can see it, but there is still a lot in the backcountry.

This is looking northeast across the causeway (the only access to the island) and Promentory Point, site of the Golden Spike National Historic site.

I know I post a lot about Antelope Island, but I really love this place, and it is close to home. The combination is unbeatable.

Springtime in Utah

We got home on Monday afternoon. I tried to time it so we wouldn’t hit bad traffic, but I obviously didn’t delay long enough. Bumper to bumper doesn’t really bother me (I just zen out), but it is tedious. We ate a huge lunch of chicken fried steak at Bella’s in Wells, NV again for lunch, so we just did some snacking for dinner. Unpacking isn’t as hard now. I have decided to just leave the trailer refrigerator turned on and keep all the basics there. Butter, maple syrup, ketchup, mustard, pickles, etc are just going to stay stocked and not move to and from the house each trip. We just moved our clothes and toiletries. Of course we also had to start laundry right away. My Samsung washer and dryer at home are better than anything found in a campground laundromat.

On Wednesday I went back to my family practitioner for a re-check of my right knee. The Celebrex just wasn’t beating the pain. I got a steroid injection, and two days later I am much improved! I am hopeful of more walking and biking in the next few weeks. Kevin and I are a matched set. His left knee is the problem and my bad knee is my right. We have to get better before the family trip to Black Hills in a couple of weeks.

I took a fun sewing class last night at a local quilt shop. It was on making bowls from laundry line, the cotton or cotton/poly stuff. I have made the, before, but I really wanted to know how to make some that had smoother starts and finishes. I made one for Kevin to use in the trailer to keep next to the bed. I used blue variegated thread to spice up the stitching plus some lovely strips of a blue batik. I also made a smaller one which will be used for something eventually.

I like the strips of color. The bottom is about 7.5″ so a good sized bowl.

I have also made these as trivets I use in the trailer. The sloppy ending on these was what made me want to take a class. The new bowls aren’t perfect, but they are much better than the trivet made before class! See the fuzz at about 7:00 o’clock? These are also about 7″.

This just came out of the washing machine.

We finally turned on the sprinklers for the lawn and garden yesterday for the first time this year. I don’t believe in spoiling my plants with lots of water; I want them to work for it! The flowers are doing beautifully.

Front garden has iris, roses, and a service berry tree I try to keep pruned to a shrub (I need to take it back more soon).

The back garden is mostly xeriscape plants.

See where something has been bedding down in the middle? We have a neighborhood cat I have seen on my security cameras wandering around at night. Since we don’t have rabbits, I figure the cat is doing the damage.

This evening we are having friends over for dinner. I am making layered green chili chicken enchiladas (using my new oven), pinto beans with chipotle peppers (Instant Pot), and I made a flan (also with the oven). The flan is definitely an experiment I haven’t ever done before. We will see how it works. It looks good, but I haven’t cut into it to see. The friends are bring a salad, and I have two bottles of Sangria to go along with the meal.

Edit to add that the flan was a success! I will definitely be making it again.

Gold country living history, trains, and heading home

On 19 May (Friday) we went to Columbia State Park for a living history festival called “Columbia Diggins 1852”. It turns out the entire state park is a living history location. It was great fun. There were hotels, restaurants, homes, stores, etc. that were from the early gold rush days – blocks and blocks of them. There was even a stagecoach ride that I had to take, just because. The stage was “held up” by a masked bandit, causing the children on the stage enormous amounts of fun.

The “Diggins” was a tent city with lots of costumed docents teaching (mostly children) how to do laundry in a wash tub, how to pan for gold, how to use a sluice and a rocker for gold, how to bake in a wood fired brick/stone oven, and other fun things.

We bought some food and some very small presents for the granddaughters.

On Saturday we went to Jamestown and their 1897 Railroad Park. This is another California State Historic Park. There is a working oil fueled steam train and cars that you can take on a short excursion. Of course we did it. The train only runs on Saturday’s and Sundays, and the entire trip took 45 minutes. It was well worth the $15 per person cost.

The only known woman steam engineer was running our train

Saturday night was pizza at the Pizza Factory in Groveland with the remaining rally attendees. The pizza was very good, and I highly recommend the place. No atmosphere but good food.

We decided to do most of the cleaning and packing on Saturday so we could get an easy start home on Sunday. It worked; we were out of the campground by 8:00. The original plan was to find a Forest Service campground somewhere near Lake Tahoe or Reno, but the Tahoe area was too crowded for us. It was a beautiful lake, but not worth the number of people. We decided to just head home in two days instead of our planned three, so we ended up in Winnemucca, NV again. This time we stayed at the KOA which is actually quite nice. Real cable TV so I can watch the news is very pleasant. The internet isn’t very good from the campground, but I am running great on my Verizon hot spot. Since we have a full hookup site we can get all the tanks dumped and cleaned before heading home. I really like being able to do that on the last night of a trip. There is some road noise from I-80, but I expect much of that to die down later tonight. We have the windows and doors open right now, cooling off in the lovely evening air. Home tomorrow!

Driving and biking in the Yosemite area

Yesterday we took a drive through some very scenic country. We headed to the park and first visited Hetch Hetchy valley. The lake is below its high water bathtub mark, but not by much.

We then continued on highway 120 to highway 140 to Mariposa then back to the RV park via highway 49. Highway 49 is a very narrow and windy road not recommended for motorhomes or trailers over 30′. Yup, it was great! We didn’t take any pictures, but the country was very nice. Lots of mining history there, and there were a number of old mines we could see pieces of.

Today we tried to bicycle in the park. We left at 7:00 to get there before the crowds, and we did get a good parking place. Turns out we didn’t do much biking though. The detours they had in place for road construction in the valley impacted the bike trails too, and we weren’t crazy enough to ride on the over crowded narrow roads. We only got in 5.7 miles, but we enjoyed what we had. We spent quite a bit of time at the museum by the Visitor’s Center. There was an interpretive ranger playing Native American flutes that set the environment for the wonderful display of baskets woven by the native Miwoks. There is also a recreated Miwok village just outside the museum with a very good set of interpretive signs. After the museum we just wandered around. I got some more nice waterfall shots.

After the ride, we came back to the campground. Kevin took a nice nap while I enjoyed just sitting outside and relaxing. It has finally warmed up, and the skies were very blue as you can see from the pictures. Nice change! I also cleaned up the sewing I did on the two quilts I am working on. All the initial sewing is done, but I need to press the strip sets before subcutting the blocks. I can’t seem to find an ironing mat to buy, so I will probably just finish them at home. We ended the evening with a “last night” dinner with the rally attendees. I put that in quotes because the rally continues through Saturday night, but people are starting to leave a bit early. Therefore the dinner was tonight. The little restaurant we ate at was so-so. Standard small town fare, not too bad but not too good either (my salmon was overcooked). Oh well, we go for the company not the food.

Tomorrow is a living history day at Columbia, CA. It is called Diggings 1852 and supposedly has >150 reenactors in a tent city from 1852, the height of the local gold rush. I think it will be fun.

Yosemite and housekeeping

We arrived Sunday at Yosemite Pines RV Resort in Groveland, just off Highway 120 near the west entrance to Yosemite. It is ok. Definitely nothing to write home about, but adequate for visiting Yosemite. We had a nice Happy Hour with the other RV Forum rally attendees. Monday was my first time at Yosemite, and all I can say is “Wow!” It is truly spectacular. Since the winter was so wet, the waterfalls are roaring. Even more than the waterfalls, I just loved the valley itself – green, broad, a river rolling with whitewater, and surrounded by granite cliffs. Here are some of the obligatory photos.

We actually didn’t stay too long or do any walking. A light mist turned to a dreary cold rain, and we did not have adequate gear. We visited the park headquarters, had lunch in the lodge bar, and took the shuttle bus round trip through the stops. Back in camp we warmed up and dried off, then some of us went to the oldest saloon in California, the Iron Door. Fun local place, and they had a good local dark beer.

Tuesday we did housekeeping chores. After a week or so on the road we needed to do laundry. We also went to the little local museum in Groveland (quite nice) and had lunch at a local bakery. Happy Hour again with the rally folks, then off to the Iron Door saloon again for a beer and onion rings. I also did some sewing on a quilt for Quilts for Kids. It was a fairly productive day for just getting some things done.

Sonoma county excitement

After our fun trip to San Francisco we mostly relaxed on Friday. We did visit a couple of wineries (Rodney Strong and Kendall-Jackson). Rodney Strong was nice, but K-J was nothing to write home about. We just tried them to see how big wineries compared to smaller ones. Friday night was absolutely nuts at the campground. I have never seen so many children, most of them having a good time. Every site was filled including the numerous cabins, and the overflow parking was overflowing. We went for dinner with friends to Nick’s, a restaurant on Nick’s Cove southwest 20 minutes from Petaluma. It was a wonderful experience with good food, lovely wine, and good conversation.

It was still crazy at the campground on Saturday, but we got up fairly early to do some sightseeing. We first visited the Armstrong Redwoods, a spot recommended by friends. The weather was windy and damp discouraging walks. We did get to see redwoods though! There is no way I can take a picture that shows how big they are, but here are a couple of attempts.

We also went to the coast to drive part of highway 1. This is a road we could never do with the trailer since it is narrow and windy. We stopped at a number of beaches until we found real excitement at Duncan’s Cove (part of Sonoma State Beach). A pickup had driven over the edge of the cliff and fallen/rolled about 100′ to the shore. By the time we got there, the scene was fully in hand with multiple EMTs, sheriffs, park patrol, and two helicopters. One ended up lifting the injured driver out and the other did the airlift to the hospital. I was amazed the driver was alive, but the local paper said he was expected to survive. Lots of cool pictures watching the experts stabilize and then transport the driver to the cliff top.

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Petaluma KOA and San Francisco

We arrived at the Petaluma KOA yesterday evening at 5:30. It was a beautiful drive from Nevada, but I rediscovered how painful driving in California traffic is! The KOA is very nice with lots of trees, level pull-through sites, and it is remarkably quiet. I can’t believe how big the roses are; there are individual blooms as big as my outstretched hand. In general the place is nicely landscaped with lots of flowers in addition to the trees. The sites are quite spacious for a private campground too. It is expensive for us, though not unreasonable for a popular vacation area like this ($55 for Sunday through Thursday, $75 for Friday and Saturday for a water and electric site). We got a discount with our KOA card, and Saturday night was a special fee which made it less expensive. We also used some of our KOA points to reduce the cost.

Today we took a tour to San Francisco. There were 14 of us, a driver, and the tour guide. The guide was informative and the stops nice. We did all the standard stuff – Golden Gate Bridge, Presidio, cable car, Fisherman’s wharf, Golden Gate Park, Fort Point Historic Site, and Chinatown plus just driving some of the wonderful neighborhoods. They picked us up at 9:00 and we got back to the campground just after 6:00. This was worth every penny so we didn’t have to drive (and park) the truck in town. Here are some of the pictures.

Overlooking the city and the bay from the 9th floor of the De Young museum

Golden Gate Bridge from Fort Point National Historic Site

We were very lucky in the weather. It was cool and windy, but no fog or rain. I really like San Francisco, but it is still a big city with traffic, congestion, and no parking. I wish I could stay for a week sometime but I doubt it will ever happen. We just like open spaces too much. I always feel closed in when I am in a city. I guess I am just a western girl at heart.

Tomorrow is a wine country tour (driving ourselves), and dinner with an old high school friend.

Water Canyon BLM campground outside Winnemucca, Nevada

We left the house at 9:15 MDT in lovely weather. After taking our time with a stop for breakfast (McDonald’s Egg Mcmuffin for me in Magna, UT) and lunch (incredible chicken friend steak at Bella’s in Wells, NV – I highly recommend it), we arrived at this wonderful BLM campground around 3:30 PDT. We found a shady campsite next to a fast running creek. No neighbors anywhere within sight or sound, and the campground is free! The site is a huge pull through and we kept the truck connected so it will be easy leaving tomorrow. We sat outside in the recliners next to the water for a long time.

Kevin took a bike ride up the road some. This is just a general area picture he took plus a closeup of a chukkar, one of my favorite birds.

The moon came up over the mountains just as the sun was setting.

Tomorrow we head to civilization, Petaluma KOA. It definitely won’t be quiet and dark like tonight. Urban California (or suburban California) is tough to drive in with the truck and trailer. The roads are much better for smaller cars than our 55′ combination. I can handle the traffic, but there just isn’t any parking even in shopping centers.

Oh, and we only forgot a few things – both sets of house shoes and my cotton kitchen towels. Both should be easy to replace somewhere tomorrow. Dinner was a one spot meal – Knorr’s Chicken Fettuccini plus frozen rotisssrie chicken from Costco. We didn’t need much with such a big dinner. Now if only I can stay awake until 10:00 pm PDT …

Antelope Island (again) plus the sewing show

I spent five hours at the Utah Quilting and Sewing Marketplace show yesterday. Four of those I staffed the booth for American Sewing Guild, and one hour I had lunch and shopped. I didn’t get anything cool (just needles and bobbins for my quilting machine – 20% off!) so I didn’t take pictures. I then took a trip to Ikea to get some more storage containers for the trailer and headed home. Since nothing at Ikea is quick, it was a long day. I baked some nice salmon with a honey and mustard glaze that was tasty.

Kevin decided he wanted to try again to see the bison calves at Antelope Island so we took off about 6:30 for the 30 minute trip. What a good choice! We saw our first deer while still on the causeway; it was running along side us. I guess folks who say early dusk is the best time to see animals are right – we saw deer, pronghorn, coyotes, and lots and lots of bison. The nursery herd had finally gotten a bit closer to humans. Not too close as you can see from the picture (take with a zoom), but at least we could see them. Notice some low and some still high on the hills.

This picture was taken with my new camera. It is definitely better than my iPhone, and I have discovered how to transfer the pictures wirelessly. No more having to fire up the computer, pull out a memory card, transfer to computer, then transfer to the iPad! I love it.

The Wasatch Mountains still have their heads covered in snow. This is looking across Farmington Bay.

Again it was a zoom from the new camera. The next one was a lovely surprise. This is taken looking west from the Island. The best sunsets in the Salt Lake Valley are from Antelope Island.

Today we pack the trailer for the trip to California. Tomorrow we are having a natural gas line run into the kitchen and the new stove put in. Samsung, dual fuel (gas range, electric oven) with 5 burners all of varying BTU so you can simmer a sauce while boiling another big pot of water for pasta. I am pretty pumped! We have an old builder grade electric stove with a glass top that I just hate. I much prefer gas so I can judge the heat much easier.