food – Page 4 – The MoHo and Other Traveling Tales

Summer Solstice

The longest day of the year, the shortest night, the beginning of summer, time to celebrate. I love to celebrate the turning of the seasons, the changing of the light. I ring bells at Winter Solstice, with that wonderful feeling that winter light will be lengthening and summer returning. In the midst of the summer solstice is the thought that already the sun is turning away. Strange thought when summer has only just begun to warm the forest here and the trees are only now fully leafing out. The weather on this first day of summer did not disappoint us, with the hottest temperatures of the year so far. It was a gorgeous, crystal clear, beautiful, 80 plus degrees today, and I think I could see the tomatoes growing taller as I watched them.

We didn’t do a Solstice party, but we did have a bonfire last Sunday night. With the formal notification of the beginning of fire season, the last day for outdoor burning was June 20, so we invited the neighbors and built the last big outdoor fire of the season. Wes and Gayle live most of the time in Arizona, relocated there after many years in Oregon. Their place here is a lovely mountain home, just across the road from our house, and it’s nice when they return for the summer. They waited a bit this year because of our cool temperatures, so we were glad to see them come back in time for some neighborly visits before we leave for Alaska. Of course, it’s also nice that they are here since Wes is our resident summer lawn mowing person and house care-giver while we are gone. Wes has no grass to mow next door and seems to get a kick out of riding around on Mo’s mower. At least that is what he says. Personally, I just think he is a truly kind and generous neighbor! Gayle has treated us to many lovely meals, both here in Oregon and when we have visited them in Arizona in the winter.

When I invited them over, I said to come for hot dogs and a meal composed entirely of non-home-cooked food. Most of the time I love to cook, but lately with the extra work weeks taking most of my time, not so much. Our get-together was more about a chance to have a fire and enjoy the outdoors than it was about eating. We did have a good time, in spite of the store bought picnic, and the hot dogs roasted over the fire on a pitchfork hit the spot. I even found humongous marshmallows, big as a fist, labeled appropriately “campfire marshmallows”. I laughed so hard when we tried to eat them, they were HUGE and sticky and Gayle needed a fork and a plate to deal with just one.

In the past couple of weeks we had 7 cords of juniper delivered, huge rounds that Mo splits with the hydraulic splitter. It’s a hard, hot, and nasty job, and this time she has avoided huge divots in her legs created by flying chunks of wood with the soccer shin guards I got her for Christmas. Mo does all the splitting and we share the stacking chores. The loads come 3.5 cords at a time, and it took us three days to do the first load. Today we started on the second. The juniper is reasonably priced firewood, but it is full of huge knots, one of the reasons it looks so beautiful in woodcrafts. Juniper is encroaching on the native grasslands in Oregon, and the juniper eradication program is making an attempt to take it back a notch. The result is lots of big, dry juniper, needing a home for the winter. We are happy to oblige. I love it. It crackles and snaps, not a problem in our enclosed stove, and it burns hot and long. Mo loves it less, see previous entry regarding shin divots. Today she said something to the effect that we had enough juniper for a couple of years and next time we were going to order it split. She thinks the cost of split wood might not be as much as a busted splitter.

Mo fed our campfire with some of the huge rounds that were impossible to split to a reasonable size. I brought out the fancy Thermocell mosquito repellent device, along with the Off Clip-On device and tried to keep the biting monsters at bay. Wes was about ready to head back for Arizona, since even with the fire smoke and all the devices, the mosquitoes still were trying to have us for dinner. Must have something to do with the nice days warming up and everything is hatching beautifully.

The weekend of the 12th was the big graduation weekend in Klamath, and town was filled to the brim with celebrants, including my niece Savannah. My granddaughter Hillary will also be graduating in a few weeks from Klamath Union High School. Hard to believe that little baby girl is through with high school.

On Friday, the 10th, my friend Maryruth ( we are getting close to 50 years of friendship) and her husband, son, and daughter-in-law returned from an Albany graduation via Rocky Point. Mo and I turned over the big house bedrooms to them and spent the night in the guest cabin with Abby and Jeremy. It was a great way to be sure that the cat didn’t do his friendly cat thing and scratch at the guest room door till they opened it and purr all night on Maryruth’s chest. The cabin is a real treat, with morning sunlight and a warm little wood stove for the night chill.

I cooked a real supper for them, no store bought stuff this time, plank grilled salmon with lemon hollandaise, fresh asparagus, and salad from our greenhouse garden. I even made an old fashioned apple dump cake for dessert. Yum.

One of the great old traditions of Rocky Point are the amazing little steamboats that come here every year. Not your average big boat, but beautifully built little water crafts that are operated by true wood-fired steam engines. We heard the toots from the house and decided we definitely needed to run down to the lake to check them out. We also wanted to check out the newly remodeled resort. Rumor had it that there was a new bar adjacent to the existing restaurant, so we were happy to find out the rumor was correct. After walking along the dock to admire the steamboats, we enjoyed the beautiful view of Pelican Bay from the restaurant for just the price of a round of drinks. It’s wonderful to have friends stop in and visit. It’s also nice to have a special little place close by to have a nice dinner with a gorgeous view. Note to self: dinner at Rocky Point Resort soon!

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Folks are following and all I am doing is “painting the living room” and cooking

While I was writing about our trip to the California coast, and working diligently to catch up on my cruise stories, a few more followers joined my list of supporters. I want to welcome you and thank all of you, visible and invisible for your support. I also think you might deserve better than the sudden silence that followed immediately after you joined.

Welcome to PB and J, a young family writing about their travels through some of my favorite places in the southeastern US. It’s nice to see young families out there adventuring together.

I have followed Connie and Tracy at the Gypsy GMas for some time now, as they create their full-timing life while continuing to work. I treasure reading the incredibly open stories and enjoy how much Connie shares her feelings about life, love, working, and creating a more meaningful life.

Welcome also to Erik, who does not yet have a blog, but plans to start blogging when he begins his full time journey, and in the mean time is learning from all those full time folks out there sharing their stories.

I have followed John and Carol for some time as well, while they kayak in the gorgeous clear waters of north central Florida, one of my favorite places in the world. Check out their great blog “Our Trip Around the Sun”.

But back to the living room. It is snowing again in Rocky Point, it is February, my least favorite month to be in snow country, so of course it’s time to do a nice big home project. When Mo built her home in 2002, she painted everything a lovely off-white, to create light and open airy space in the deep forest. On the other hand, when we worked together on the mobile where I lived in California, we painted warm colors and white trim that also created a nice environment that we both enjoyed.

It’s been a year now since I have shared Mo’s home, and we came to the joint conclusion that it was time for the white walls to exit and something a bit newer to enter. We spent the last year or so looking at colors and thinking about just how it might look with the change.

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Combining households at this stage in life is always an interesting process. Mo is understated and has great antiques, and likes neutral colors and not a lot of “stuff”. I am flamboyant, love the southwest canyon look, and love my ceramic chickens, rocks, jars of sand, and a ton of other stuff. Her paintings are European originals gathered from her travels. Mine are mostly inexpensive prints, a few good prints, and limited edition photos of rocks, sand, and other southwest themes. Pulling all this together in a cohesive unit has been a fun process, and both of us have a goal of creating a home that feels warm and welcoming to company, but most of all, comfortable to us.

It works! The color we settled on is a warm honey gold called on the paint chip “Chamois”, but we laughingly refer to it as our pumpkin/carrot soup bisque. It’s fun in that sometimes it is a nice warm yellow gold, and other times in turns peachy, or bronzy, or who knows what color to call it. Much like my beloved canyons, the color shifts with the light. I love that. We decided to accent with another darker warm butterscotch color that initially looked a bit like baby poop till we fixed it a bit. Now it also is perfect. Amazingly, the light is warm and the rooms aren’t a bit darker than they were when the walls were white.

In the midst of all this, an old folk song from the late 80’s keeps running through my head. I used to have it on a CD somewhere, or maybe it was a cassette tape, sung by one of the women singers I used to follow, but when I went to the internet, I could only find the actual authors of the song and the You Tube video. Don’t click on the title unless you want to get redirected to YouTube and a very silly bluegrass song, the gist of which is that the world is falling apart and so…

Why Am I Painting the Living Room?

Ah yes I can see how my tombstone will read
Here lies someone of exceptional worth
Though she did not do a lot for her kind
Or help hold together this crumbling earth
Here lies a woman they’re saying of whom
Sure had a good looking living room…

Sunday morning dawned bright and cold today, and I started cooking early in the day for the planned Sunday dinner for Melody and her family. One of my favorite magazines is Cook’s Illustrated. This time the star of the show was an old fashioned blade pork roast with the bone in, rubbed with kosher salt and brown sugar and steeped for 18 hours, then slow cooked for 7 hours until it was meltingly tender and encased in a crackling crunchy crust. I made roasted potatoes and an apple onion sauté to go with it and that great orange spinach salad that rolls around the internet recipes. Yum. By the time the kids arrived in the early afternoon the house smelled so dang good anyone would be hungry just walking inside.

I love having Melody and her family close enough to share a simple Sunday dinner, and I love that the almost 18 year old and the 12 year old still like to come and hang at Grandma’s house. Melody’s husband Kevin brought their Wii console and we all laughed ourselves silly over bowling, baseball, and tennis. Mo and I really cracked up watching our little Wii selves jumping and rolling on the tennis court. This week is Mo’s birthday, and the kids all spent a lot of time making handmade cards for her and I made her requested carrot cake.

It was a wonderful way to spend a very cold and snowy week, with temperatures dropping into the single digits. It was also a wonderful way to spend a perfect Sunday before I go off to work again tomorrow.

Jan 23 First Day at Sea

The Eurodam is a moderately sized ship, at 86,700 tons and carrying 2,104 passengers. After being christened by Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands in July of 2008, she entered service as the 80th ship for Holland America. She has 11 passenger decks with a split 12th deck for sunning and watching morning sail-in’s. Every day on the cruise has a theme, and today it was “Don’t Come as you Are”. I had no clue what that meant, so donned a pair of shorts and a shirt for the moderately cool day ahead.

On our first day at sea, we had a lazy morning and went upstairs to the Lido buffet for a delicious breakfast. I often have oats and yogurt with fresh fruit on cruises, but this time I just relaxed and enjoyed the the made to order omelettes with my fruit. The skies were no longer overcast but the air was cool and the seas were rough enough to keep the ship rolling around a bit. Our cabin was in the very rear of the ship, on the 5th deck. It’s a spot I wouldn’t have chosen, but with this cruise you are lucky to even get a cabin at all if you aren’t a previous cruiser. I had to jump through all sorts of hoops last year to try to get tickets for us. The cruise is so popular it is usually sold out by the time the ship is back in port. Even though we were low in the ship, the rear location kept us rolling around a bit more than is usual. Deb and I both wore wrist bands, and took ginger to help with seasickness, and Deb did just fine. After that night rolling around, I gave in a put on a patch, but they make me feel so creepy I was really wishing I hadn’t. I took it off after a couple of days and the wrist bands did their magic. They even keep me from getting car sick in busses and back seats!

The parties started early in the day, with the “Virgin” party on the aft deck at 10 am and the “Veteran” party downstairs in the Queen’s Lounge at the same time. We were entertained by one of my favorite bands on the cruise, “Big James and the Chicago Playboys”, and said “It’s five o’clock somewhere” when we were served our choice of unlimited glasses of champagne, bloody mary’s, and mimosa’s. Free drinks on a cruise are not the normal way of doing things, and while I am not a particularly big drinker, I did enjoy the free mimosas. Even though we had breakfast in the morning, by 11 am the Legendary Gospel Brunch was in full swing down by the main stage, with honey dipped fried chicken, catfish, greens, mac and cheese, bbq wings, pecan pie and many more southern delights. Maybe we could eat lunch a bit early?

The music was great, with the Holmes Brothers, Denise LaSalle, and Janiva Magness carrying on as if it were the middle of a Saturday night in Memphis. After all that food it seemed like a good idea to do some walking, so I checked out the 3rd deck, delighted to find that it made a complete circuit around the ship and only required 3 laps to get in a mile. I usually prefer doing my walking on the upper decks, but this ship doesn’t have a really good walking deck on top, so this would have to do.

We explored the ship some more during the afternoon, checking out the Lido pool and the various bars. I was a bit disappointed with the pool, it was terribly small for a ship this size, especially with the aft deck pool closed down for dancing, and there was no way to get to an upper deck from the pool deck without going back to the elevators and then back outside. Because the roof slides open during the day and closes at night, we didn’t have the open decks above the pool to enjoy the sun and then run down the stairs for a cooling dip. As a result, I noticed that the pool area was quite still, with no access to the fresh ocean breezes. This was fine on a cool sea day, but when things warmed up enough to actually enjoy swimming, it wasn’t very pleasant.

After relaxing in the late afternoon with more music, we decided to try the reservations only “Cannaletto” Italian restaurant for dinner. The meal was quite nice, as the restaurant is located in a quiet corner of the Lido deck. There are two other specialty restaurants on the ship, but this is the only one that didn’t charge the extra $25 per person for dinner. With all the free food around, I find it hard to ante up that extra charge. The antipasto platter was especially good, although the surprise cotton candy dessert was a bit strange. Cute, but strange. It made us both laugh a lot. We had some time to kill, so wandered around listening to various musicians in the various venues until my favorite, Joan Osborne, showed up on the Main Stage at 10:45. My kids know it’s pretty useless to call me any time after 9 pm, so will be amazed at my stamina and ability to party into the wee hours of the morning.

The main stage theater on the Eurodam is a bit subdued after the gorgeous Celebrity Solstice theater, and is even less pretty than those on the Princess ships. The colors are dark and low key, and supposedly more sleek and modern. Gimme glitz, I say. Initially we sat down on the main floor to look up at the performers, but by the time the show started, fans were jamming the area in front of the stage and our front row seats were worthless. We opted instead to climb up to the balcony where we had a great view. Joan Osborne is a wonderful singer, but I was truly enthralled by the Holmes Brothers and their musical skills. What a great bunch of old guys playing blues. Wow!

We ambled back to our stateroom, admiring all the decorated doors on the way. It’s a “thing” on this cruise to decorate your door, and it is one of the many contest awards handed out at the end of the cruise. Once in our cabin, Surprise! We got towel animals with the turned down beds and little chocolates!! I was glad for Deborah, since this was her first cruise, and many ships are no longer doing this silly special little touch. We also received some of our Legendary Blues Cruise goodies, including a hot/cold cup, an insulated beach bag with the cruise logo, and last but not least, Legendary Blues Cruise logo condoms. Ok.

Our stateroom steward was close to perfect. He wasn’t visible much unless we needed him, yet every single time we left the cabin he was there cleaning up and refreshing everything. His skill at towel animals was excellent as well. We had big bottles of water in the cabin, and the documentation said somewhere that they cost 3.39 a bottle, but I never saw a bottle charge on my bill, so I’m not sure if it was really complimentary, or if our steward just didn’t bother charging us.

Yes, unless you were there, the photos are a bit boring, and won’t be otherwise until a couple more days when we actually get a port day. In the mean time, you can still check them out here if you are so inclined.

Company in the cabin

One of the delights of my last few years as a soil survey project leader was the chance to make some really great friends. After six years in the Air Force, and lots of other experiences, Chris arrived in Sonora in early 2009, an energetic, incredibly brilliant, funny, sweet young man, ready and willing to learn to be a good soil mapper. It was fun teaching him all the inside stuff about field soil survey that I knew, and by the time I retired last year, I had not only a great employee, but a true friend.

Another delight I enjoy by sharing a home with Mo, is the pleasure of the guest cabin just next door to the big house. The cabin was the first thing on the property when Mo acquired it many years ago and is still a great little cozy spot to hang out. Complete with running water in the summer, a composting toilet, and a great wood stove, it’s a lot more fun for guests than hanging out on the living room sofa or in the guest room with the bath across the hall. Chris loves the snow and loves to come and visit so we welcomed him with his friend Karen for the weekend.

They arrived on Friday night armed with salmon that Chris smoked, along with all the ingredients for a great Smoked Salmon Chowder. Gotta love friends that come with dinner and Chris is a great cook. Many of the co-worker bar-b-que’s at my house in Jamestown were enhanced by some of Chris’s amazing grill roasted rosemary potatoes.

You know how cold it has been here, with all the deep snow, so Chris and Karen came prepared with snowshoes ready to tackle the deep high snows at Crater Lake. Ever heard of a January thaw? We got it big time this weekend with long warm hard rains on the deep snows, making a great big mess of everything. Even at 8,000 plus feet at Crater Lake the snow was mushy and almost impossible to slog through. Instead our friends spent more time in the big house with us, watching football, while Karen and I knitted, and playing killer Racehorse dominos.

On Sunday afternoon, Chris and Karen went ice skating at our local ice arena at the Running Y Resort. It was a first for Chris and the movies were truly funny. Mo made her famous waffles on Saturday, I cooked some sour cream apple pies and a Guiness Irish stew, and Chris and Karen made fat, juicy breakfast burritos for us on Sunday morning.

I noticed that a lot of the RV bloggers down in Desert Hot Springs are having great times catching up with fellow RV’rs and it sounds like a ton of fun. Having company now and then is a lovely reprieve from the cold, dreary days of winter, especially when the company is as wonderful as my friend Chris.

Hiking on Christmas Eve, and heading home

I ’m sitting at my desk once again at home in Rocky Point, with snow outside the darkened windows, a blazing fire in the woodstove, and all the glory of high def big screen television illuminating the living room down the hall. Seems almost impossible that two days ago I was feeling the warm sun on my body as I hiked through the Coachella Preserve in a pair of shorts. In spite of many internet searches and phone calls, we never did find a dog friendly trail for Abby, so instead Mo spent the morning relaxing in the MoHo while I took off hiking with Laurie and Odel, who graciously offered to drive. It was the first time that I have entered the murky gloom of a desert California fan palm oasis, and I was completely enthralled. The hike through the palms was less than a mile, however, not enough to even touch the 10,000 steps that are the daily goal of my hiking partners. Instead we opted for a 4 mile mostly ridge run through the desert.

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The trail offered magnificent views in all directions, and the snow frosted peaks of the surrounding mountains made everything look all the more dramatic. With temperatures in the mid-60’s, the hike was perfect, just a few short climbs to get the blood moving, and long strolls punctuated with many stops along the way to talk about all the things that we don’t blog, aka politics, religion, and of course, all the other RV bloggers that we both read and enjoy! Stopping at a particularly gorgeous overlook, Laurie commented that she thought the huge rift below us looked like a fault. Bingo, Laurie! That was the San Andreas Fault, bisecting the park, lying beneath us. The fan palms are there due to the seeps and springs coming from the fault zone, and the fabulous warm waters of Desert Hot Springs are also a result of the active fault. Lucky us! Great hiking, hot pools, palms for shade, and no earthquakes!

Back in camp, Mo and I sat outside in the sun for a long time, until the lengthening evening shadows forced us indoors. Once it was all the way dark, we strolled through the park, enjoying all the Christmas light displays and listening to the music drifting on the evening air. With only two days of brilliant sun, and that luxurious hot water pool, the trip felt like a complete success, even with the crazy weather.

We planned to drive on Christmas, hoping for light traffic and good weather, and we weren’t disappointed. Christmas morning was beautiful, with so little wind that the mighty windmills were still for the first time since we have been here in the desert. Traveling I-10, to the 210 through Pasadena (close to my birthplace in Sierra Madre), then to I-5 and over the Grapevine was completely uneventful, except for the ker-thunkety ker-plunkety road sounds that frustrated Jeremy more than any of us. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t settle down in his usual spot on the MoHo dash. The road surfaces in California in many places are very old and very tired, and nowhere more so than on these major interstates. My truck driving daughter says they are some of the worst highways in the country. I would agree, especially after just returning from Florida where turnpikes and road fees make for some highways as smooth as butter and as well lit as a videogame. Ah well, eventually the I-5 smoothed out a bit, the rain stayed north of us and we made our way to Coalinga. I spent some good phone time with each of my four kids scattered around the country, and talked with friends here and there as well. Just exactly what I would have done on this day if I had been back in Rocky Point.

Near Coalinga we passed the Harris Ranch, a huge complex of restaurant, store and inn, with an interesting history. Mo spontaneously said, “Hey, how about a steak!”. We parked in the huge lot to the west of the complex and decided to see if it was possible to get in for dinner. To our surprise, we didn’t even have to wait. Did you ever eat a 32 dollar steak in a tee shirt?? It was totally comfortable, with some folks in diamonds and glitz, and others fresh off the road as we were. The service was fantastic, and the steaks were all natural, no hormones added, grass fed beef. I had a glass of knarly oak old vine zinfandel that was an experience to itself. I wouldn’t want to drink that wine alone, but with dinner it was perfect. I swear I could taste the dirt beneath the old vine in that glass. The ambience was lovely, with a huge old fireplace blazing brightly, Christmas music in the background, and twinkly lights everywhere. Turned out to be the perfect Christmas dinner for us, and I didn’t even have to cook a thing.

Back on the road for one short hour of hard driving rain and wind before we found a little KOA at the San Luis RV Resort near Gustine, where we had reserved a space by phone earlier in the day. The site was pull-through, and it just took a few minutes to hook up in the rain. We lit the flameless candle, turned on the flickering snowman, pulled all the shades, and were suddenly in our own little heaven, safe and warm, watching Christmas shows till bedtime. I love that part about RVing, the quick changes, the variety, and then the nesty safety of it all. No suitcases to lug around, to fluorescent lit front desks to deal with, just pull in, plug in, and you are home.

We spent the once again sunny Sunday morning driving to Redding along I-5, again just out of reach of the hardest rains until we landed in our little boring Redding RV Park along the freeway. There was enough time left in the day for a quick trip up the hill to Mo’s uncle living in Shingletown, so we made a quick call and left for the hills. Uncle Don was a World War II pilot, and then a commercial pilot, married to his sweet Maxine for many decades. Maxine left the world a couple of years ago, and Uncle Don is on his own now, and doing absolutely great for a man in his 80’s. We had great fun visiting and listening to airplane stories, and playing with his little Boston Terrier, Spike. Down the mountain in the dark, and before long we were again safely tucked in to our little haven. We spent our last night on the road for our big cross country trip here, and now we are here again. I would imagine we might use this park quite often, since it is just a mile or so down the road from where we store the MoHo. At $15.40 cash only with the CampClub USA card, it’s a deal.

This morning was easy. We found a place to fill the propane, and a great self service car wash big enough for the MoHo to get her all cleaned up for a few weeks in storage. Have you ever heard of a coin car wash that takes credit cards?? It was great, no quarters clinking away and no bells beeping. We just washed till we were done and paid the bill. $7.25 a steal for sure! By eleven she was tucked away in her berth and we were on the interstate driving north toward Klamath Falls. Somehow that last 150 miles seemed soooo long. For one thing, we were in the baby car, not the big cushy leather seats of the MoHo, and the cat couldn’t figure out where to be and the dog thought the cat was in her space and wasn’t happy about it. Jeremy, who is really a sweetheart most of the time, reached around the seat and slapped Abby for no good reason at all. Reminded me of a couple of kids in the car fighting for space.

Now here we are, all settled in at home. The car is unloaded, the laundry is running, the dog is sleeping at Mo’s feet and the cat is sprawled out on the back of the sofa. Just like we never left. Amazing to me how that happens.