Thursday, September 9, 2010

Roswell, New Mexico, home of the alien museum which we have toured in the past. somewhat cheesy, but always a treat.
Something street fairish going on here this weekend, hard to find a place to stay---could have camped at Bottomless Lakes, but since we will be camping the next 2 weeks, thought we would get a room. Motel 6, basic but good.
Wanted to go thru Carrizozo as in the past there was this great little place to eat lunch, La Brewja, but no longer open, so we will head north to Vaughn and I-40, then west and north to Blanding and spend another night in civilization before heading to Halls Crossing and launching.
chuck wants to eat at IHOP tomorrow, all over that root tooty fresh and fruity, and it is open 24 hours, so we will get up early and walk that way, get an early start on a 9-10 hour drive.
Stopped at a mickey D's in Fort Stockton and 2 guys hauling a boat asked us where we were headed with our boat--we said, lake Powell, and turned out they were going there too. they had been thinking and planning to go for 15 YEARS!!!. I guess we just sort of jump into things. We drove over the Glen Canyon Dam about 6 years ago, and that was it, we were going as soon as we could. Have been the last 5 years.

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Lake Powell, dude.
Leaving for the Lake tomorrow. There are lakes and then there is Lake Powell. Not your typical lake with trees all around, which is one of the reasons we like it so much. Red rocks, and more red rocks. And red sand, and the occasional mud.
Our plan is to put in at Halls Crossing and cruise up to the San Juan Arm. We'd like to go all the way up to the waterfall below Clay Hills Crossing, which is where we took out the time we floated the San Juan River, but who knows if the lake is high enough for that?
The messabout is next Saturday, and we will be back at Stanton Creek for that. Funny how all these place names bring up certain visions.

Thursday, September 2, 2010

fishing

fishing. i used to go fishing with my dad when i was little. he had some bamboo rods for my brother and i, and we threaded worms onto the hooks and swung the line out and we caught little sunfish and were thrilled. sometimes he let us use his rods and reel, but we inevitably got them messed up and tangled, and he was not at all mechanical, so that was usually the end of that. have done very little fishing since--a few times while we lived in Montana after chuck and I got hitched. We lived up in the Highland Mountains for a couple of years, and we fished for trout in Fish Creek, which sounds like a no brainer, but you really have to know what to use to catch the fish, and we never really did. one time, Chuck went ice fishing with a friend who did know what to use, and he came home with about 50 beautiful little trout. He had no idea how to clean them, but luckily, I did, so I cleaned them and put them in the freezer, and they were delicious.

My plan is to fish on the next TX200--would love to be able to catch something to eat each night, but I am going to have to find out what to use--lures or bait. Our son, Bonham is becoming quite a fisherman--he just sent a photo of himself with a big redfish in one hand and a big flounder in the other. He has promised to help me. He does tell me that this is the best time to buy a fishing license, as one bought now will last until the end of next August. I am also interested in crabs. I used to go crabbing with a neighbor down at Freeport when I was in High School. We would get a bunch of chicken necks and some string and a net, and go down to some canal and catch crabs. Then, because we had no idea how to cook them, we would give them to someone else who was crabbing in the same area. Would not do that again--would cook those babies and eat the meat. Probably could not get Chuck to eat it unless I got all the meat out for him though--he has never been interested in working for his food.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

boat plans, a theory

We have a whole bunch of wonderful boat designers whom we represent, and sometimes we feel bad when plans don't seem to move very well. I have given this a good deal of thought, and I have a new theory. Please be aware that this is strictly my (Sandra Leinweber) opinion, and does not constitute any sort of fact or even mean that Chuck agrees with me at all.

A homemade boat can be a thing of great beauty, and nothing is more satisfying to me than having someone ask where I got one of my boats--they have never seen anything like it. I say, "We made this from plans."

Many people do not even realize you can buy plans to build boats.

So here's the theory: If you are going to build a boat, you don't want it to look like a boat you can buy. Our most popular plans have that special little something--a line, a shape, a component that sets them apart from all the other boats on the lake. It is really that simple.

I know that there will be some builders who WANT their boat to look like all the other boats of the same type, but I think they are a definite minority. I am not saying that boat builders are iconoclasts, but I suspect that many are. I know I am.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

bread machine tips

I made bread today.
My Dad gave me my first bread machine. It was a wonder! I had been making homemade bread for 20 years at that point, and either mixing it completely by hand or using a hand crank doo-funny with a hook all that time. The bread machine did all the work, and it made pretty good bread too. I wore that machine out in about 5 years, and the new one I got did not make good bread. It took me a while to come to the conclusion that I should just use it to mix the dough and then take it out, put it in pans, let it rise, and bake it in my oven. Perfect bread, almost every time.
It never occurred to me that I might have some insight into bread making, especially with a bread machine, until my daughter asked me why her bread was not coming out well. She had recently bought at bread machine, and her bread was not that great.
I said, "I will make some, and show you what is important."
It turned out that her dry/moist ratio was a bit off, and the ball of dough was sitting on the hook in the middle of the pan, just going round and round for the whole kneading cycle. I showed her what should be happening, and told her she would need to either add a little liquid or a little flour--liquid for what she had happening, and flour if the dough was too wet.
The dough should go back and forth and around and around and up and down. In other words, the hook should KNEAD the dough.
The moisture in flour varies, and even if you follow the recipe EXACTLY, the dough may not be right.
I just finished looking up "bread machine tips" on the internet, and could find nothing about this. Everyone seems to just assume that one will know what kneading should look like. This must be why I see so many bread machines in the thrift stores.
Chuck says I should make a u-tube video of the way it should look when the bread machine is doing the right thing. we shall see.
I still just let my machine do the kneading--I am not sure what happens when it bakes--maybe the timing is off.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

blindness and being blindsided

We got something in the mail today that made me mad. Our high school (which all of our children attended) sent the high school newspaper, and they had a little note on the front page reminding everyone to vote, and alongside the reminder was a photo of John McCain. Just John McCain, no one else. I immediately thought of the time that my oldest daughter came home from school saying that she had learned in SCIENCE CLASS that men had one fewer ribs than women. I did a slow burn that time as well. If we have problems in our educational system, this is truly one of the hotspots. The idea that the information given to impressionable young minds is so limited, so biased, so prejudiced is, to my mind, truly unfortunate and even criminal. I am fully aware that we happen to live in an extremely conservative community, and I freely admit that we have little contact with most of our fellow citizens here, but I do not expect to change anyones mind or way of thinking, but if the public schools are going to do anything less than present all the information available, then we as a progressive society are truly in trouble.