The Long Road Home- Day 1

After spending an enormous amount of time trying to get ready to leave, we still left 2 hours later than expected.  But we had managed to get the car serviced, all (or most) of the garden plants and furniture tended to and family and friends kissed goodbye for now....:-(.

We pulled off the after a little bit of travel to take this picture since I forgot to take pics of us loading everything.  After all, it was still dark when we started loading.  Ms Vickey and Maj were a bit of a challenge to load this time for some reason.  But we got it done with the help of two others.

It wasn't long at all before we were in Texas AGAIN since we had to go that way to get back.

You may have remembered this little town from an earlier post this year.  Or was that last year??

The town is small but the city hall was huge.  Or maybe it was the courthouse.  Not sure........But I liked the sign they put in the front.

Here is a close up.  Don't mess with Texas!!  haha

We used to have a store by this name many years ago in Lawton.  I wondered if it was owned by the same people who had the other store.  But we didn't go in.

It was time to leave Memphis and continue our trip.  We stopped for gas a few times and I decided to try this spicy mango stuff that I saw in the store.

hahahah......He's not too fond of it.....

Well, it was a bit spicy along with some sweetness and a touch of salt.  AND IT WAS SOUR!   That was the part that got me....haha.  It has chili powder and chili flakes on it as well.......smokin!

We had to make quite a few "potty stops" for reason.  But since we have just under a month to get back, we were not really in a hurry.  I took a picture of this field of cotton as we traveled along. 

Then we noticed that "Maj" was leaning toward Ms Vickey and looking like she was going to fall over, so we had to stop again to fix that.

Not long after we came to Dumas, Texas and made a quick trip inside the Welcome Center.

It was tiny, but at least it was there for those traveling through to stop and stretch their legs and ask questions if need be.

They had this placard outside giving a bit of history of the area........

Here's my man looking like......my man.........:-).....hey, hey, hey......

We thought we would say howdy to ya'll before we got back in the car........:-)  "HOWDY!" 

And Finally after 8 1/2 hours of traveling, we reached our destination for the evening.....  

They were capturing the wind to use for electricity....  or something like that.  I often what it would be like to ride one of those things.......hahahahaha.  With a helmet of course......:-).
 

After looking at the choices we had for hotels, we settled on the Days Inn and settled in for the night.  

Goodnight and stay tuned!

The World Of Swirls......:-)

It is hard to believe that we have been in the states close to a year with just a few weeks out of the country.  But that is definitely the case.  When you're gone that long, there is a lot of preparation before returning to where you came from.  We had an annual gathering with our ministry leaders that we needed to attend in Dallas before we headed back to Canada.  So, we made a side trip to Dallas first and spent 4 days there.  Chris always says while driving on the highways in the US "Have I told you today how much I love the US and her highways?"  haha.....So, I decided that I would post a couple of pictures first of the things he finds interesting.  I mean you can't blame the guy when you come from a country that only has ONE. And it called HIGHWAY ONE! haha

Here are some pics that I took along the way.....

 

I guess you have to admit that there is something "artistic" about the way things are laid out.

We're talking tons and tons of concrete and a lot of engineering brain work to get this stuff done.

And to think that we travel on and under these things and are still here to talk about it!  Well, don't think on that one too long.....ha.  You might fly next time!

He REALLY got excited about all these swoops and swerves........:-).

It reminds me of an amusement ride at Six Flags in Texas.

This one would make a nice post card.......:-)

It's amazing that we live in such a modern society while others around the world are still walking and driving on dirt roads because they have nothing else.

The columns look like they should be in an Egyptian temple.....

Swirls and more swirls.......very cool.....:-)

 
We made our trip there and back in once piece and finished our preparation to depart for Canada.

See you in my next blog call "The Long Road Home!"

Last Outdoor Meal Of The Year

It has been a long six months with many challenges although we did have somewhat of a break during our European adventure.  But the weather was beginning to change and I knew that this was going to be our last meal outside with our new furniture that we had purchased earlier in the year.  There was such a cloud cover and the chance of rain that we didn't even need our beautiful umbrellas.

I decided to try out our smoker that we had purchased earlier and use it to smoke some ribs, salmon, chicken and grill some corn on the cob.

there is always a problem when you have two people in the same "kitchen" with different ideas of how the SAME meal should be prepared.  Needless to say, things went south pretty quickly in regard to the new smoker and how to actually smoke something in it.   I'm looking at the temp saying...ok...cool.  Let's do this....:-).

Usually, I would slow cook something in the oven and then "finish" it on the grill.  This was different in that the whole thing was supposed to be "smoked" until it was cooked at a low temp in the smoker being basted every thirty minutes.  I used grapeseed oil to season the inside of the smoker because it can handle high heat temps.  I decided to use unfiltered apple juice to baste the meat with.  

I had two types of wood that had been soaking all night in water.  One was Mesquite and the other hickory. This little smoker box contains the Mesquite chips.

We had some huge chucks of hickory that I asked hubby to split down a bit smaller for me.  This is a hughe stock pot full of it.  I had no idea how much food I thought I was going to be cooking, but I certainly didn't want to run out since this was to take several hours.

The meat had been prepared the night before with a "rub" that I put together with some lemon juice.  But the meat seemed to me to be cooking awfully fast for it to be a 'smoker"; key word being "smoker" and not grill.
At this point, they should have been pulled off and finished in the oven since adjusting the vents and smoke stack didn't keep the temps from rising as high as 450 degrees!  Good thing I had a pitcher of water near by!

You can see the flames shooting out of the thing.  Well, needless to say... they DIDN'T come off the "grill" and they were not nearly as tender as what I have made in the past.  The smoker was so hot that I even had trouble grilling the chicken, but the salmon which only took about 4 minutes came out just fine.  If you like salmon that is....:-(.  I don't......

Our guest seemed to be ok with all of it.  We had a huge selection of salads that they brought with them as well as a rice and broccoli casserole.  Fresh made ice tea is always a good thing.  We talked and ate; ate some more and talked some more when the rain began to fall.  

We scurried to get everything back into the house and settled in for a warmer, dryer environment...

Thus ended a very interesting day of using a new "smoker/grill/ inferno" thingee.  Everything will go into our storage area for the winter and the garden will be stripped to the bones bare until our return from Canada some time next year.

See you on the road back to the great "North Wet".......

Japanese Cuisine and Fall Clean Up

It has been several days since my last post.  Possibly three weeks.  But there is good reason.  I have been BUSY since we got back from Europe.  We realized that with all of the planters and things that we prepared during the last season, the stuff had to be put away before heading back to Canada.

But first...a lunch date with my daughter and the rest of the crew.....:-)  I had seen this place in passing before.   So, when my daughter offered to take all of us to lunch, we took her up on the offer.  It was a bit weird that no one else was in the parking lot.  I began to wonder if they had eaten the food and were buried out back! ha.

Surprisingly enough, we were the first ones there and the staff knew my daughter.  She was stoked about having chosen this place for us. Here is a picture of Tracey and Helen smiling over what was to come...:-)

And of course, while they were busy playing with Chris's camera...he was anticipating the cuisine that was soon to be prepared right before our eyes........

Our chef arrived with his cart stocked with goodies and all manner of cooking sauces to began the "show"....

I'm not feeling the magic yet.......It's just an egg.......

ok, we've got some color going........

they must know something I don't know yet.....look at them! haha

ahhhhhhh, now it's getting interesting.......filet mignon........

sheesh!!!  A girl better watch her hair around this dude!  Good grief!

I had chosen the lobster dish.  Mine was one of the last ones to come off the grill and I was sure it was going to be over cooked, but it was perfect!

We finished lunch and returned home thinking of all of the work that still needed to be done in the garden before our return to Canada. All of the soil in the pots needed to be put into the wheel barrel, the indoors plants treated and brought back inside the house, most of the furniture put away, etc.
I decided to start with the house plants since it would take two treatments before I could bring them back in.  All was going well until I went to spray some Neem oil on them and saw something move.

YIKES!!!  It was NOT the tree trunk, but a mantis that had successfully disguised itself as part of my plant.    I screamed and I could swear he did too....haha.  I ran and got Chris and he took the picture.  I kept my distance.  All the while thinking to myself, I was about to embark on a dangerous endeavor of treating my outside, indoor plants.

After surviving the bug on steroids, I got the plants treated and dumped most of the dirt from the pots in the garden into the barrel.

I think he's ready to get his hands dirty....ha

We had chosen lots of color and had hopes that these would fare better than the plantings that we had done earlier this year.

We dug several holes that seemed to be large enough to put a tree in. But they were only six inches deep and two shovels wide. These are a combination of Daffodils and Dutch Irises.

After digging several holes from the side of the house clear to the back, we were finally finished planting the over 100 plus bulbs that we had purchased. My angel had suffered a broken wing and had to be resettled elsewhere in the garden....poor dear.....:-(

Unfortunately, we will not be here in the Spring to see how things come up, but Helen has promised to take pictures for me......:-).

By the time we finished, the sun was setting, we were both sore from all of the kneeling, digging and bending.  But the work was done.

Now to get ready for the end of year bar-b-que that will be hosted in what is left of the garden.

see you there!