Road Trip - day 5 (and a crocheted basket)

Last leg of our trip - St Louis to East Lansing. Thankfully we had great weather other than the extreme heat for the first part, but the a/c held on so all good. In fact I think this is the first trip that everything went smoothly with the rv! Yes.

Not a whole lot happening or to look at today, so thought I'd share a few miscellaneous pics with you about living in the rv:

I have tried everything I can think of to get a wire basket to stick on the wall to hold our fruit and veggies but the whole thing keeps crashing down. So this morning I got the idea to make a lightweight hanging basket out of the leftover polypropylene twine I found in the hardware section of the dollar store (I made a dish scrubby out of the rest of it) and hang it from a suction cup on a less slippery wall - so far it's working. I couldn't find a pattern for what I was seeing in my mind so I based it on this pattern but mine doesn't have rings in it for support (I can only use things that are already in the rv!) and I only made one handle. It turned out cute!

For some reason it is Sarges routine to sit on the picnic table at our campsite - I don't know how or when it started but that's his place now...

We use the campground facilities instead of our teeny shower in the rv, it's taken me a few trips but I'm figuring out the easiest way to get all my stuff to the shower. The bathroom and showers aren't always the cleanest so I don't want to set anything down if I can help it - some places have a small ledge by the sink but many don't, there are always hooks tho so I take advantage of them. I carry everything in a cute lightweight nylon tote bag - hanging toiletry bag, a waterproof bag holds everything that can get wet in the shower (after showering I can put everything wet back in the bag and not get everything else wet), change of clothes, and the extra set of rv keys. I sewed little loops on all of our towels so they can hang up without touching anything else. This system is working pretty good.

I made a pretty dreamcatcher and have put up a couple pictures to personalize the space.

"on an adventure we will go"

not a great pic and the wind is blowing it, but it turned out so pretty!

Turned around to check on Sarge and Lucy and this is what I see - he is as close to her as possible and they are both staring at me. They're good travelers but I'm getting the impression that they'd like to be home already!

Thanks for reading my travel log - will get back to my usual posts now :)

Road Trip - day 4

Inside the Archway

I'm in the back of the rv right now in my "office" - aka the bed - writing down what our day is like today...the drive from Oklahoma City to St. Louis is beautiful but not many landmarks or interesting things to see from the highway. It's the prettiest day of driving ( it's green, hilly, dotted with cute farms and cattle) but also the most uneventful.

view from our booth

While on the Will Rogers Turnpike we stopped for lunch at a McDonald's located in what has to be one of the coolest places ever - it's a building that spans over the highway, and is basically all glass so while you are sitting at a booth you can see the tops of the vehicles on the highway going underneath you. It doesn't have a glass floor but sitting at the windows gives you the feeling that you are on a bridge watching the cars pass underneath. The building was renovated recently - it was known as the "glass house" before but now it's changed to the "Will Rogers Archway". It was hard to get a picture that gives the right perspective but I did take a couple to share with you.

Dave and the Turtle in front of the Archway

Then we passed thru Joplin, Missouri - they had that massive tornado in 2011; up until recently you could still see damage (trees and buildings down that weren't cleaned up yet) but it looks better now. I didn't notice last year when we came thru that the big hospital that was destroyed is now rebuilt and open, it seems like they did that pretty quickly.

Just paused writing to sing "Honey (I miss you)" from the 60's - yes super sappy but how can you not sing along to it? Oh now it's "Delilah" - have to sing that one too...D is in control of the radio so it's 50's and 60's when he isn't listening to talk radio and the news! "Why why why, Delilah..." is gonna be stuck in my head now.

I have always loved stopping at the huge wooden bowl factory store in Lebanon, MO - until they closed it after a fire. They are now located in the Shepherd Hills Factory Outlet (the largest dealer of case knives according to the sign) - In the old days the store was full of tons of wood things (not just bowls) but now they only have one row of just bowls, bummer. Check out these two photos - the sign says bowls are "Ozark made" and yet one of the bowls Dave picked up says "made in Holland, Michigan" haha! Still made in th USA which is nice - but Holland , Mi isn't exactly the Ozarks!

   

On a side note - when traveling in the rv it's usually unnecessary to wear much makeup or even clothes that match cuz no one sees me other than people at the gas station or McDonalds haha, but I have to look at myself so I still wear clothes that are clean and mascara :). I am learning to pare wayyyy down tho and wear everything more than once. I'm obsessed with all the tiny house shows right now and every time I open a cupboard and things come flying out and I grumble, D says "and you want to live in a tiny house". This morning I did a braid across the front of my hairline and sent a picture to my sissy because I'm really bad at braiding but today it worked. She wrote back it looked 

good and "too bad you wasted the best braid you've ever done and no one will ever see it". Oh well. 

Road trip - day 3

the row of cars seen from the road - what a random spot
for buried cadillacs haha!

Day 3 had us still just driving I-40, a little monotonous for sure - the land between New Mexico and Oklahoma is completely flat and quite uninteresting, good for raising cattle I guess but boring for driving thru! I've spent years watching for an actual cowboy riding a horse on these vast ranches next to the highway but no luck yet - I've seen Cowboys but they are driving pickup trucks and that's just not the same!

Just west of Amarillo is Cadillac Ranch - do you guys know what that is? I have no idea why (or how? Or who?) but out in the middle of a field there is a line of cars buried nose-down in the ground with the rear of the car sticking up. There is parking in front of the field and then you can walk back to the cars,  up close you can see how they've been graffitied over the years and it's pretty cool.



I just googled to find out more of the story - in a nutshell an eccentric millionaire got some artists together in the 70's to come up with this monument to the "Golden Age" of American cars. At first the cars were in their original colors but people stole anything they could off the cars and started spray painting them, the owner thought they looked even better all painted up so he encouraged people to stop by with their spray paints and continue the tradition.

On the east side of Amarillo is the "Big Texan " restaurant known for its gimmick of giving away a free 72 ounce steak dinner if you can eat the entire meal in one hour or less - that includes a roll, baked potato, salad, and shrimp cocktail! Seriously, who can do this?!! I can eat a lot but...

I took this picture from the car, no way I'm letting Dave stop there - he always asks ;)

Also on the east side of Amarillo is a huge stock yard packed full of cattle. I was in the back of the rv crafting and all the sudden got a very strong stinky smell and jumped up thinking Sarge was sick and had an accident in his car seat! Once I saw he was okay I naturally figured it was Dave but nope, we were just passing the stockyard. He goes "oh nice, you thought I smelled like that?" I laughed hard.

We passed a couple more landmarks in Groom, Texas: first is the "Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" a giant Cross erected in 1995 that is 19 stories tall (190') and can be seen from 20 miles away. Around the base are bronze sculptures depicting Jesus' journey to the cross. Their website says one thousand people stop every day. The other landmark in Groom is the leaning water tower - it used to be functional but now it's just decorative.

That's about it for sights to see today - the rest of the drive is just lots and lots of open land, some tumble weed, and a whole lotta cows. Oh and there's a big sign painted on a water tower in Yukon, Oklahoma that Garth Brooks lives there - he's even autographed the tower - if you're interested...

We ate dinner in Choctaw, Oklahoma at the Old Germany Restaurant - it's become a tradition to eat there if we are camping in Oklahoma City. D likes schnitzel (flattened and breaded pieces of meat) but that's not my favorite thing, I had the daily special Sauerbraten (pot roast) - delish - I took half of it back to the rv and will eat it for breakfast! Yum.

Road Trip - day 2

Today we drove from Kingman to Albuquerque, about 500 miles, it's an easy drive straight on I-40. This time though we left 40 for a bit and drove Route 66 so we could 'Take It Easy' in Winslow, AZ. Does that ring any bells?  We have made the cross country trip twice a year for awhile now, but have never stood on the corner in Winslow. I tried to sing the Eagles song but that's one of them that comes out in pieces -  standing on the corner in Winslow Arizona, 7 women on my mind, or is it such a fine sight to see...

We had lunch at Bojo's Diner across the street - my expectations were pretty low and our waitress looked like she'd be grumpy, but my quesadilla was delicious and she was super nice . She wished us a blessed day when we left, and she didn't seem to mean it the way they say "bless your heart" in the South  (which I've heard usually means the opposite of bless your heart haha!). I'm going to recreate the quesadilla I had when we get home - tons of cheese and loads of mild green chilies in a crunchy tortilla - yum.

A couple hours from Albuquerque we started seeing signs for the upcoming best Indian trading post - Dave is usually reluctant to make shopping stops haha but I convinced him to stop this time. We pulled in to "Fort Courage" which was a big compound of forts, gift shop, cabins .... Figures I finally get D to stop and it's empty, abandoned, and falling down! There were so many highway signs advertising it, how about a sign saying it's been closed for a really long time?! Oh well, I always think I want to buy moccasins and never do...so it's probably for the best it was closed!

I missed it but Dave saw a cool thing while driving today - there was a rattle snake trying to cross the highway. D says it was on the side of the road and reared up at every car that went by with his mouth open like he was going to strike! Yikes - wow, sorry I missed that!

Road Trip - day 1

We have a very small rv (21') that is just big enough for two adults, a smallish dog, and a bird in a cage. Well it's big enough as long as everyone is on good behavior (ahem, Dave). It's name is The Turtle - of course it has a name, I name everything! We are road tripping from California to Michigan this week, and even tho I work on projects on the road (I crocheted a dish scrubby thing today, I'll show ya later), I thought it might be fun to share some road stories and pictures instead of my normal making stuff posts for a few days.

Sarge and Lucy in "the turtle"

Day 1 - short day of driving and not much to see. Stayed at a campground overnight in Kingman, AZ. Most exciting part of the day was making dinner - I love camping food! I learn more tips and tricks every trip - this time I boiled a box of pasta at home and divided it into 2 gallon ziplock bags - that saves lots of time on the road and it's the base for 2 meals. Our first dinner at the picnic table was this simple pasta with red sauce that I put in a saucepan and Dave warmed up on the grill while he was heating the (fully cooked) chicken, mozzarella, spinach sausages - have you tried them? So good, and not super unhealthy. I made a basic garden salad to round it out - cut up some of Lucy's peas, Sarges carrots, and threw in some celery that was left over from making the other pasta dish (tuna noodle salad)...it was basically seeing what's in the fridge!

Here's a couple other short cuts I've learned for camping meals:

- finely chop up hard boiled eggs and put in a disposable plastic bowl with lid (I use an empty cool whip tub), when ready to eat just stir in some mayo and mustard and season with salt and pepper. I like to eat it on saltines, or obviously just make a sandwich.
- pre grill boneless chicken breasts at home - you can then use them in sandwiches or whatever, or heat up for supper.
- break raw eggs into a container with tight fitting top, just shake them up when you want to make scrambled eggs. This saves trying to fit an egg carton in the little fridge, and more convenient to not have to deal with the shells.

Squeaky Hinges

The door to our bathroom squeaked so loud it would wake me up if Dave shut the door after I was sleeping! That's pretty loud...todays quick tip is to use WD-40 on all your noisy hinges. It's super easy to do and the results are nice and peaceful. I hold a paper towel under the hinge to catch any drips, and just do a quick spray on the top of the hinge and let it run down. Do all 3 hinges on the door - then see if you don't get obsessed like me and walk all over your house spraying hinges and eliminating squeaks! Back to sleeping soundly :)

Raspberry and Whipped Cream Filled White Birthday Cake

That's a long title I know, I don't know how better to describe it though - oh, and there's raspberry buttercream frosting! OMG this is one of the best cakes I've made in a long time. It's wicked good - fluffy and melt in your mouth delicious.

I doctored a boxed white cake mix: replace the oil with melted butter, add an extra egg, and a dash of vanilla. I just read about a different technique I've never heard before, which is to lightly sprinkle sugar on top of the batter before you put it in the oven, they say it helps the cakes to not dome up too much - ok, I'll try it. Bake according to directions, I tend to pull them out a couple minutes before the suggested time. Run a knife around the edges, flip the cakes onto a cooling rack but leave the pans over top of them until they are totally cool. I feel like this helps keep them moist. Yep, the sugar on top of batter worked - cakes are pretty flat so I won't have to trim them down, yay! I poorly divided up the batter and got one cake bigger than the other (usually I measure better) so I cut the bigger one in half - it's now a 3 layer cake. If you get even layers it'd be fine to just do 2 layers - although more layers means more filling...just sayin'...

I tried a new thing - lightly sprinkle sugar on top of the
batter before baking to help keep them from doming too much. 

run a knife around the edges, flip over onto cooling
 rack - leave the pans on top of cakes until completely cool.

oops, didn't measure batter very good, got uneven
layers so I cut the taller one in half - this is now a 3 layer cake.

Now the really delicious part - filling and frosting!

-Filling is seedless raspberry jam and very lightly sweetened fresh whipped cream. I added a little scoop of the buttercream to the whipped cream but that made it break down a little, next time I will just do stiffly whipped cream.

-Raspberry Buttercream Frosting: Beat in a mixer 1cup unsalted butter (2 sticks), approx. 5 cups powdered sugar, 1 Tablespoon vanilla, 5 Tablespoons heavy cream for a few minutes until light and fluffy. Beat in a couple tablespoons of the seedless raspberry jam, then add more cream or powdered sugar to make it the right spreading consistency.

To assemble:
Put down one layer on a cake plate or whatever you are serving it on, brush with 2 Tablespoons seedless raspberry jam. To help keep the whipped cream from squishing out I piped a circle of buttercream around the top edge of the layer (over the jam) and filled with whipped cream. Top with another cake layer; repeat brushing jam, making a frosting dam, and filling with whipped cream. Put the last layer on top, cut side down. Frost the entire cake with a thin crumb coat (essentially frost the whole cake with thinned down buttercream to make the cake have a smooth base and cover up loose crumbs), put in freezer for a few minutes to set up. To finish, I frosted the sides pretty smooth (I didn't do it super perfect) and made large swirly flowers with a large 1M frosting tip. It's a very easy thing to do - just hold the tip 90' (straight down) to the top of the cake and starting in the center of each flower squeeze out frosting while directing the tip in a spiral. It sort of looks like a wedding cake more than a birthday cake haha, but it's spring and for a womans birthday so I think it's fine. You can frost this using whatever technique you want, just smooth it on or swirl it with a spoon - it tastes so good it doesn't really matter if there are swirly flowers on top!

brush bottom 2 layers with jam, pipe an edge of buttercream  on the top edge to help keep the whipped cream from squishing out. Don't overfill with the whipped cream. 

frost entire cake with a crumb coat, chill for a few minutes to set  up. 

using a 1M tip swirl spirals of frosting on top to look like flowers. 

I tied balloons onto skewers to stick in the top of the birthday cake for decoration (and to help it look
less like a wedding cake!). I made this for a friend who is having a dinner party so didn't want to stick the balloons in yet.  

I made a baby tester cake from the batter before baking - spoon out a little bit into a greased ramekin and bake along side the 9" cake layers. That way I could taste what this cake will be like!

Houseguest Treat Bucket

Janis gave me another great idea (she's been busy and is sharing lots of good ideas with me!) -  we had houseguests last week and she told me that when she has people staying over she puts together a big basket of goodies so everyone can help themselves if they want snacks and munchies without having to ask. Love this idea! Never fear midnight snackers, now you can sneak down and grab food without rummaging around in the pantry haha!

I don't have a basket the right size, so I used this plastic bucket and it was fine. Use whatever you have on hand, people care more about what's inside! I made a little card to set over the edge of the bucket that says "help yourself" so no one had to wonder why I had snacks in a bucket on the counter. I filled it with individual snack bags of chips, pretzels, and popcorn; granola bars; small bags of almonds; and miniature candy bars.

Thanks Janis - keep the ideas coming please :)

Dipped Candles

Saw this idea for these pretty dipped candles online and went right out to the dollar store to get some supplies to make them. 

I bought 4 small white pillar candles (2.5"x 2.8") and a box of cheap crayons (I have a thing about my giant crayon box, ask Brooke - no way I'm breaking up my pristine crayons to make this, HA!); the other supplies needed are a paper plate, plastic fork, and a clean empty aluminum can that is bigger around than the candle. I used a regular size can out of the recycle bin and it's 3" across. Note: I melted and colored one of the candles to dip the other 3 into (and had some melted wax leftover, see below). 

Put an inch or two of water in a saucepan, set the can in the pan of water, then put one of the candles (take off any packaging first) in the can. Turn the stove on low heat and wait for the candle to melt, stirring occasionally with the fork, it took about 15 minutes. Fish out the wick - I reused it in an empty candle jar that I've been saving and will fill with any left over melted wax after I'm done dipping. Then add a piece of broken crayon in whatever color you want, I used about an inch of aqua and an inch of green to get this color. Maybe it's because I was using cheap crayons but the color was not very saturated - and I had already put the crayons away in my craft room all the way downstairs and was too lazy to go get more to add to the melted wax to see about getting a deeper color!

Once the wax and crayons are melted, slowly dip one of the candles (remove the packaging and sticker from the bottom first) into the can as far down as you want the color. The first coat was very light, so I continued dipping a few times until I reached the color I wanted. Set them on a paper plate to dry. Best thing is the clean up, there really wasn't any! Toss the can, fork, and paper plate - yay, I love crafts that aren't hard to clean up hahah!

-here is the melted wax and crayon in the empty can in a pan of water:

-holding onto the wick, slowly dip a candle into the can making sure to stop before the color reaches the top of the candle (or can):

-this is two coats, continue dipping until you get the color you want:

-pour any leftover candle wax into an empty candleholder, I reused the wick from the melted candle:

click here to see where I found this idea and more instructions if you need them.

Breakfast Frittata

We had company for a few days and Janis brought over this breakfast frittata for us, it's really good and it was so nice to have one meal already prepared since we were on a tight jam-packed schedule.

She baked it ahead of time - it was perfect for us to be able to cut a piece and microwave it whenever anyone was ready for breakfast. How nice - thanks again Janis! And thanks for sharing the recipe :)

She got the recipe years ago from the chef at the Inn on Summerhill in Santa Barbara - I will definitely be making this in the near future, you have to try it!

Serves 10-12

2 large potatoes (baked or microwaved until firm and not overcooked)

1 large tomato

1 large red bell pepper

1 large bunch cilantro

1 bunch basil

2 bunches green onion

3 different cheeses (Havarti will dill, a smoked cheese, cheddar or any other cheese)

White pepper to taste

24-30 eggs

2 cups milk

Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Butter a large lasagna pan or similar dish.  Dice cooked potatoes and leave some skin if desired.  Dice tomato, bell pepper, cilantro basil and green onions.  Shred cheeses.  Layer all ingredients in pan.  Beat eggs and milk and pour over ingredients.  Sprinkle top with Parmesan cheese.  Bake at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.  If not done, cover with foil and cook until egg is firm.

Most ingredients can be substituted.