Our Weekend Running Around

We are back in one of our favorite stomping grounds, Elkton, MD, for the weekend.  So I thought I would show you around a little.  This weekend we are on practical missions.  Food, laundry and misc supplies.

We got up early and bobtailed to a little shopping plaza right on Main Street in downtown Newark, DE.  It is only about 5 miles from the Petro in Elkton, but a world apart.  Since the plaza's parking lot is so small we either have to go here when we have a rental car or get up early and get in and out before everyone else gets there.

You may be asking at this point what's worth the hassle?  Wang's Oriental Food Store.  This store has a great selection of fresh produce and you can get all your oriental pantry staples here too.  This trip I was hunting for sweet soy sauce (Kecap Manis), tamari, baby green bok choy, white bok choy, bean sprouts (azuki and mung), sweet red mung beans, red bean spread, white and black fungus, straw mushrooms and of course Jasmine and Green Teas.  I just love the smell of Jasmine Tea.  If you have never tried it, please do.  You wont be disappointed.

Oh and I just can't forget their Chinese Bakery.  I got two Sesame Balls and a six pack of Moon Cakes with red bean filling.  YUMMMMM!!

The second draw for us here on Main Street is the Newark Natural Foods Cooperative.  They carry a great line of fresh sprouts (including sweet pea shoots YUM), organic fruits and veggies, goat and soy dairy products, as well as a huge dry bulk section (4 different varieties of lentils and 3 kinds of Jasmine rice!!).  Both of us are lactose intolerant and finding good yogurt and cheese substitutes can be a daunting task with our nomadic lifestyle.  I can get my vitamins here as well.  I take live, whole food vitamins (they don't upset the stomach and can be taken without food), but finding them without garlic is difficult.  I usually buy them at my home coop, but since we have been on the road now for 3 months I ran out.  I think I like this new brand better though, since it has probiotics as well.  I will definitely recommend them to my local cooperative when I get home.

This trip I was stocking up on yogurt, sprouts, golden and sea veggie miso soup mix, inca red quinoa, konjac shirataki noodles, sprouted grain pasta and bread, brown jasmine rice and salad dressings.  Randy loves the orange cranberry vinaigrette and I love the sesame tamari.  We both like the sweet onion salad dressing, which is great either on salads or in wraps.

In the alley between the coop and Wang's is this little art gallery.  I just love to walk past their beautiful mosaic.  So I took some pictures to share.  Until I started taking pictures I had never noticed half of what is actually in this mosaic...

A little fishy

an adorable rose tea cup filled with marbles

words to live by? >:-)

a little love

freakish face and hand

?

Next we were off to yet another Wal-Mart to restock.  Of course by the time we got here, everyone else and their brother was already in the store!  Which I guess doesn't really matter because it isn't like we can park in the front row anyway.

Now Home Depot.  This is a great shopping plaza as it has a nice movie theater, grocery store, Game Stop, Radio Shack and Home Depot along with misc other stores.  But it is also, very busy.  Today was no exception, so we opted to park behind Home Depot and walk rather than risk the parking lot.

As it turned out Randy walked in and I stayed behind to take pictures of the turtles.  Yes, turtles.  There was this little pond we had never really paid any attention to before that was full of turtles, geese, sea gulls and ducks.  

You can't tell from the picture, but this one was at least 14" long.

This one had to be 12" long.  There were 2 of these monsters sunning here when I first walked up, but before I took their picture one slid back into the water.

Another 12" + long turtle enjoying the water.

Then there was this "little" guy, maybe 6" long.  But don't tell him he was the runt, he was very bold!  He didn't budge an inch while I walked around snapping pictures and talking to myself.  Instead he boldly watched me with a look that seemed to say, watch your step or I'll bite you in the ankle!

We ended our day on a high note.  Laundry.  We have been doing laundry at this location for years.  Nice clean machines, with 4 triple and 3 quad load washers!  Makes it really easy to do all the bedding.  

Today was to be the exception to the rule however.  We got there only to discover it was standing room only and customers were overflowing onto the side walk outside. Some times it really pays to have your house with you at all times.  Instead of fighting the crowd, we simply had lunch and watched a little TV while waiting for the rush to end.

It finally did, and in we swooped.  It took us 4 trips to get all the laundry, bedding and towels inside.  We had no sooner got everything into the washers then 3 couples show up who are all smokers.  YUCK.  I can still taste their smoke as I write this.  We don't do our laundry at the truck stops because of this.  They were going outside to smoke, but of course it followed them back inside.  I was afraid our laundry would stink, but we got lucky and they left after they got their washers going.  

YUMMY

Mixed mahogany and brown rice with scallions and pineapple.

Poaching talapia in pineapple juice and tamari.

Rice and talapia topped off with lots of fresh scallions!

POP

Randy was driving across 40 this week, while I was cooking Gumbriot, when we both heard a really loud POP!  He pulled off at the upcoming exit so we could take a look at the tires.  It was so loud that we both thought we had blown a tire off a rim or something.  We crawled over and under the truck and trailer.  We couldn't find anything wrong, so we chalked it up to another passing truck as the source of the pop.

You can sorta see in this photo we weren't stopped in the best spot.  We were twisted on a sharp right lean pointed uphill.

Of course when you are in a hurry to find a place to stop you can't be choosy, but when we stopped looking at the truck and looked at where we were at, oops.  The pot holes in front of us were plentiful, deep and of course going to be hard to miss when we left.  The pot hole Randy is standing in is about 8-10" deep by 6' across and you can kinda see how sharply slopped the area is.

While looking at the pot holes I spotted this vertical windmill in the back ground.  I was so excited at seeing it up close, because I have been reading a lot about them recently.

What a WHEEL HOG.  While I was sidetracked by the windmill, he thought he would jump back behind the wheel.  He had already done 700 miles on the nose at this point.  Even though he could technically (as he was arguing) drive for a while longer, I put my foot down.  Supper was ready for him to eat and this was as good a place to switch as any.  He only had 30 minutes left on his log for that day anyway.  Then he tried arguing that it was going to be hard to get out of the spot we were in and the next fuel stop was only a little ways away.  I won.  Of course I made it back on the highway with no problems AND managed to miss ALL of those nasty pot holes to boot!!! :-P

The culprit is found!  We have a small basket next to the driver's seat where we keep the essentials (ie: pliers, screw driver, tape measure, gloves, etc).  We had a small plastic bottle of aluminum polish here that the seat apparently came down on.  HARD.

Hard enough to smash the top down and blow a hole in the side of the bottle! That's where the pop came from.  We found this when we were getting the truck polished the next day and wanted to rub down the CB antennae while standing around waiting.  From now on we will keep the touch up polish with the rest of the detail products in one of the trailer boxes.

Dinner

For sides we had basic steamed peas alongside mixed black and mahogany rice with brown lentils, thyme and red onions.  For the main course we had poached wild pacific salmon with fresh mandarin orange salsa.  

Ok I know that the presentation is a little crummy, but its winter and we have to conserve water when we are up north.  So as a result it's paper plates and plastic utensils till spring.

The Wafflehouse....

Yes I went to a Waffle House!  We met up with some friends and they invited us to lunch.  Of course I only drank while there and the conversation was stimulating, but oh the yummy smells....I haven't been in a Waffle House in years.  Because of my food allergies I can't eat anything on their menu.  I had a great time, but was sooooo hungry when we left!!!!!!!

Kale Puttanesca

This really is sooooooooo yummy....

Here is the link to the recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Kale-Puttanesca/Detail.aspx

Kitchen PLEASE!!!

We spent the weekend in Harrison, Idaho with Cathy and Dad at their place, Razzleberry Ranch.  Here is Cathy cooking in her temporary "canning kitchen" in the basement.  This is in use while Dad finishes her custom kitchen cabinets for the permanent kitchen upstairs.  These temporary quarters haven't deterred her in the least.  We were treated to the usual gourmet treatment.  She is such a wonderful hostess!  I have to say some of the absolute best pancakes (blueberry and walnut) and cupcakes (cranberry and vegan chocolate chip) ever and vegan to boot!  Mind she grew the blueberries herself and ground the flour too!!!

Dad is trying to teach Randy how to make something square!  How to draw and cut a straight line, etc.  Randy isn't shy about his woodworking skills.  As he says,"...it will hold, but it ain't going to be pretty!"  Here they are working on one of the cabinet bases.

Later when I asked Randy what he did all day, he said he mostly absorbed information.  I asked if he thought he could do a base on his own now.  He laughed and said maybe after a few more weeks of watching!  First he says he wants to make a squire feeder out of scrap wood and see how that turns out...baby steps.

This is where the kitchen will be once the cabinets are finished.  Yes, that is a real working wood fired cook stove! She really uses it too.

This is where the dumb-waiter will be, the 2x4 topped square.  It will allow food to be moved easily between the basement (where the canning kitchen, root cellar, walk-in fridge and freezer are) and the kitchen.  Really cool design feature, huh?

Here is Randy starting the fire up first thing in the morning.   His parents always heated primarily with wood and he loved using the bellows again :-)

IDAHO HO

We survived our trip out west and are now sitting in Harrison, Idaho. It feels good to take a breath after our hectic run for the roses to do 2600 miles in just 48 hours.

I have video and photos of running thru ice and snow over the mountains in West Wyoming, Utah, Oregon and Washington! It took me 3 1/2 hours to run just under 100 miles in Western Wyoming and north up 84 past Ogden Thursday night on the ice. FUN FUN

Friday was the first time I have had the chance to drive thru Snowquamee Pass in Washington during the daylight. I took about a gazillion pictures. Not only did I get to run thru heading West, I also got to unload and return Eastbound an hour later. So I got to see the pass from both directions in less than 4 hours.

I was trying to show how bad the ruts were from all the snow chains.

Talk about a rough ride!  East bound was alot worse though...

This is not a tunnel, it is a snow shed.  A snow shed keeps the snow 

from coming down the mountain and landing on the cars on the road!

The amber signs had ice warnings and I thought it was cool

 with the snow blowing off the top of the mountain in the back ground.

A little bit of ice.

This picture doesn't do this snow blower justice.

It was the size of my truck and had to be throwing that snow straight up almost 100 feet!

The first time thru the sun was shinning with bright blue skies. There were ice warnings, but all I saw was wet roads :-) About halfway down on the Westward trip I got to see my first REALLY BIG snow blower in action clearing the snow away from the shoulder of the road. I wish I could get one of those for the house!

On our way back to Idaho we tried to wash the truck 3 times with no luck. It is covered with all of the sand and salt from the trip out here and looks absolutely terrible. But every time we made it back to the next truck wash they were already closed for the night. I never, ever, ever thought that I would see the day when I would wish for a Streaking Beakon. However I would have loved to see one of their glowing 24 hour signs last night. Of course not one of the 3 places we stopped had hours of operation posted either.