This goes through Thursday. IF you just want to see the photos, click here
Sunday Cindy and I went out to Harding Lake and in my true form in getting anywhere, I got lost.
Fortunately texting still works that far out and I was able to call in for backup:
Once we got there we pointed out how difficult it was to follow the map:
But I made some corrections to it:
We had a great time, enjoyed good company, I drank two big solo cups of wine before dinner and then had a most awesome dinner followed by delicious dessert. Pictures continue here
Monday was a sick day at home. Also cold and rainy.
Tuesday we planned to go the Large Animal Research Station (LARS) but we got a late start and by the time we got to lunch we would not have been able to make the 2pm tour, so we changed our plans.
We had lunch at Basecamp Eatery. I really like their bread bowl with clam chowder.
We went to Country Kitchen (local specialty cooking store) and got some new stuff from there including the much coveted home-made whip cream thing!
Pictures of it in use come later, but for now here is something similar to the cheese grater that I was telling Caroline about on Sunday when she was making the alfredo sauce for us (and this theme comes back):
Obligatory stop at Value Village.
Finally got to the Morris Thompson Cultural Center.
Major failed dinner at Gallo: we got our drinks FAST, but we were made to wait for more than 15 minutes to order at 5pm so we just got an appetizer and left.
Stopped into Safeway for Staycation Supplies:
Went home. More pictures here
Wednesday we cleaned the gutters. Boy do we know how to play hard or what? But we did remove the impromptu garden that was trying to grown in the gutters:
Thursday I had to work for a few hours, but once I got home in the afternoon we headed out to Murphy Dome for the first time since moving here. From what I had heard from other locals I thought it would be a drive up and we would be shown meadows full of blueberries, almost envisioning something like you would see in “The Sound of Music.” I came prepared with lots of containers to harvest berries, even though I have not been ever been blueberry picking and the last time I picked any berries I was 12 picking strawberries on a farm, not in the wilderness. But we bought ourselves a berry identification book, as well as a mushroom guide at Morris Thompson just the day before so I was ready for a grand field of berries.
This was not the case. I drove 13 miles up Murphy Dome Road not seeing anything looking like what I imagined and ending up on a gravel road. The view was stunning though:
Got onto Old Murphy Dome Road:
Finally found a pull out that lead to an utility path. We found mostly mushrooms, but were not positive about their id so we just took photos:
Then I found a berry!
And a blueberry!
The berries seemed too scarce to bother with picking, so we walked around, checked out the field and took pictures of all the things growing there. There were also a few bigger birds that might have been woodpeckers, but I’m really not sure. Should have taken the birding book with us I guess!
More photos here
Went home and made an AWESOME dinner. I made homemade Alfredo sauce for the first time ever and it was fabulous:
WHY HAVE I BEEN EATEN CRAP OUT OF A JAR? <- plus the jar Alfredo sauce that I like has egg in it! Apparently I am allergic to eggs.
And Michael cooked some chicken on the grill that we got from Homegrown (they sell locally raised, organic, free-range happy-until-butchering-time meats):
Couple hours later we had ice cream with home-made whip cream and organic mint chocolate sauce. Delicious!