Last Day At The Ocean

 It has been a wonderful week here at the ocean.  It has been mostly restful and so great to spend many days with my sister and her husband.

Today was our last full day where I snapped this photo:

This photo touches my heart! For a few reasons, not the least of which is that he is wearing a shirt he chose when he went to a thrift store with my sister and me, an activity always in the plans when we get together!

View From The Window Today!

We are blessed to be able to "Use up" some weeks when we were not able to take a vacation for about 4 years.  This week we are at a beautiful island paradise about three hours from home!  My sister and her husband are with us which makes it even sweeter.

This is from the "porch" outside our unit.  So beautiful! And comfortable.

Also:  right below us is a row of hammocks with little cupolas overhead.  PLUS--a rowboat swing!  So adorable.  People actually use the hammocks and this swing. When more than one person are in the rowboat it makes you wonder...

Vacation Report: Yellow Lady Slippers in The Wild Gardens of Acadia

The weather was glorious so we went to The Wild Gardens of Acadia.  There is a fabulous set of gardens with all kinds of plants from all the various types of habitats on Mount Desert Island from meadow to mountain to beach land, and more.  We were there at the end of May so there were few plants in bloom, but those plants were really stunning.

The plants with the most impressive blooms were the yellow lady slippers.

They really were great, except for the creepy part that looks like arachnid legs...!

When we were children our father put an iron pipe into a spring beside Jigger Hill which always ran with water.  In that woodsy section of Jigger Hill in the early spring weather we could almost always find Jack-in-a-Pulpits and a bit later some purple, pink, and white delicate tiny lady slippers.  We never picked them, just loved looking at them as we walked by up the hill from school.

That was probably one of the first times I realized I love flowers.  Daffodils and lilacs are my favorite spring and early summer flowers.  I also like carnations.  Well, I like pretty much all flowers, but daffys and lilacs take the cake for me.

Vacation Fun: Stanwood Wildlife Sanctuary

We do not often do the expensive tourist-y things on our vacations.  So far this vacation we have done more low level things...except for going up Cadillac Mountain.

Today we visited the Stanwood Wildlife Sanctuary on a wet cloudy day.  There is a boardwalk for people with walking issues.  There are many trails to hike.  At this time of year there are mosquitoes the size of a large crow.  Because of that, I abbreviated my "walk" and dove back into the car to avoid more  of the flying monsters.  Only about two of them entered the car's cabin with me...

In one of the habitats we passed we found this owl.  I thought he (or she) was very beautiful.

There is an owl called the "brown owl".  I think this might be one of those but I could not stay out and breathe in more mosquitoes long enough to find the documentation about this owl.

Food Friday: Vegetable Salad

The grocery trip while on vacation did not net the complete list of food items.  What we did find was:

Bag of vegetable salad (lettuce, radishes, carrots, garden peas, bell peppers)
Red bell pepper bagged individually
Broccoli crown
Bag of dried pinto beans

How I made this into food for several meals:

Opened the bag of pinto beans.  Sorted them into the insert basket (not the stainless steel liner bowl) for the Instant Pot.  Yes, I did bring the Instant Pot on vacation.  Rinsed the beans very well in the sink then placed the basket into the stainless steel liner bowl and covered the beans with 2-3 inches of water over the top.  Set this back into the Instant Pot and selected High Pressure and Adjusted the time to 45 minutes, put the cover on, and forgot about it.  I REALLY forgot about it.  When I paid attention again the beans have been on the warming cycle for more than two hours.  There is no question but what they were very well cooked, though remarkably, not mushy!  That was thrilling.

Using a leftover foil salad container from a previous salad my sister had brought with some pizza the other night, I placed 1/3 of the vegetable salad--I think it was by Dole--quite a lot of broccoli florets, 1/3 of the red bell pepper, diced, the last tomato chopped up,  half a cup of the cooked pinto beans, a little of the Spicy Peanut Sauce and a few shakes of Tajin Classico.  I did the best I could to toss it, but it was a pretty full container.  Another trip out at a Dollar Tree I found a large salad bowl with cover.  I realized when we got back to the unit that I should have gotten a container for the beans since I may not finish them before we are ready to go home...

Anyway, it was a delicious salad and made a wonderful breakfast.  I can make two more like it.

Munchie Monday: Vacation Food--The Perfect Simple Salad

On vacation it can be difficult to eat the way you normally do.  Especially when there are different views as to what makes good vacation food.  In my case, I eat salad every day.  At every meal, if possible.  It is a little harder on vacation depending on the accommodation's facilities.  It turns out this time that rather than the mini-refrigerator/coffee pot we were told to expect in our unit, we have a mini-refrigerator, coffee pot for herb tea, a microwave, some base cabinets and a sink in a nice counter. Things are looking up!  I had brought our Instant Pot, because I assumed somewhere in the room there would a surface with an electrical outlet so we could at least heat up soup or something.

So, today I am hoping to go to a grocery store to find:
Lacinato (i.e. dinosaur) kale
Broccoli
Sweet onion
Canned red beans
Something for Dear One to eat, either in the Instant Pot or the microwave if he wants hot food.

Another thing I am thinking is to get:
Canned chick peas
Garlic Paste
Ripe avocado
Tahini
Lemon or lime juice
Roasted red peppers
A large bowl at Dollar Tree or some such place

The idea for this last list is to  see if I can make some Avocado Roasted Pepper Hummus.  Maybe.

If anyone has had any luck with different "vacation foods" in a unit without full cooking equipment, I would love to know what you made and how it turned out.  Oh, and if the family liked it, too!

Vacation Applesauce

Another thing you can make on vacation in a well-appointed kitchen:  applesauce.

This is what I did:

Washed and cored the apples we had brought from Vermont to Virginia to eat up before they softened.  Well, some of them HAD softened so to save their lives I made them into applesauce.

Put the cored and quartered apples into a saucepan with a little water...maybe a cup of water, just enough to cover the bottom and get steam going.  Put the cover on and started heating the pan.  In about 10 minutes I looked at the apples and stirred them around.  They had started cooking.  After another 5-6 minutes I checked again, and stirred them thoroughly again.  They were mostly cooked, so I put the cover back on and turned off the heat.  Since this was an electric cook top they could continue to enjoy heat for a little longer.

We left the hot applesauce to cool.  When we returned the apples were cool enough to blend up in the blender.  (Always check to see if you have a blender before starting a project like this...)  All the cooked apples in their skins fit into the blender. I added one-quarter cup sugar and blended these guys to pieces.  This turned out to be baby food applesauce, but it did taste good.  And the apples did not rot.  Well, one got away from us in the car and turned out to be what we were smelling when we got into the car the next day...

Applesauce made while on vacation away from home

Side story:
We went out for a couple of hours to look for a flash drive that the family history conference director told us we needed to have to download our presentations to so we could use them with the projectors.  We found a thumb drive at Best Buy in Mays Landing, New Jersey.  They did not have lanyards but said Staples did so we walked over to Staples.  They DID have lanyards but they were 1.  not attractive, and 2.  the same cost as the thumb drive!  Did not want to do that.  I had already gotten the more expensive thumb drive:  $11.99.

There was a Michael's store in the same plaza so we went over there (driving this time since my legs had had it with the cement underfoot...)  There we found a whole raft of lanyards for $3.99.  Most of them were gaudy horrible things that I would not wear.  There was one with fat fake pearls which was barely acceptable but the price was right and I needed something to keep the tiny electronic device from getting lost.

In the end it turned out to be unnecessary to have a flash drive, but now I have a nice thumb drive.  And on a lanyard!

Munchie Monday: Vacation Apple Pie

On vacation away from home, food is always an issue.
 
You can eat out.  (Expensive...)

You can eat in.   (You need to bring equipment, food, spices.)

You can fast.  (For a weekend, possibly...but probably not if you are going to be gone for a week.)

We always take food and kitchen stuff with us.  Too much stuff.  This vacation we took way more than we ever had before, including at least a peck of fresh utility Macoun apples.  They were good apples but we were not going to eat that many fresh apples.  What to do, what to do?

We chose to make an apple pie.  This is how:

Went to the store for a frozen pie shell.

Preheated the oven to 350 degrees F.

Peeled, cored, sliced 6 apples and put in large bowl with about 1/2 cup granulated sugar (from vacation supply bin) then added 1 1/2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon (purchased at The Dollar Tree store).  Put the prepared apples into the pie shell.

Took 1 1/1 cups of Rip's Big Bowl cereal, sans the spoon sized Shredded Wheat, and crumbled it with 2 tablespoons butter (brought from home) and 3 tablespoons granulated sugar (same vacation supply bin).  Mixed these ingredients until well combined and sprinkled over the apples.

Put pie in oven on top of cookie sheet that was in the unit.  If there had been no cookie sheet in the unit, we would have found a disposable one at The Dollar Tree.  Pies ALWAYS spew over the top.  It is unconscionable to make a terrible mess in the oven that the service staff will have to clean up.  Seriously. 

Bake for 45 minutes or so.  Insert a fork or knife into the apples to see if they are tender.  If not, let it cook another ten minutes or so.  Our oven did the job in just over 45.

It was not a perfect pie , but it was better than nothing, and a sweet treat to have for dinner a couple of nights.

Travel Today: Vacaton Over, time to hit the road to home...

We spent a nice week on Cape Cod.  The weather was not stellar but we still had a lovely time.  Dear One did some hiking most days (mostly flat trails...) and a long bike ride for the first time in years another day.  I walked on the beach in the heavy mist a couple of times, went to the Yarn Hound in Dennis to participate in their charity knitting afternoon, and worked on the Plus Sign quilt most of the time.  Next year I will leave sewing machine and quilts at home!

We packed the trunk early in the day so we could get a quick start off the Cape.

There was not room enough in the trunk so we packed the cabin of the car as well.

Next vacation I think we will do things differently.  In an ideal world, we would take a few changes of clothing and a credit card!

Travel Today: Cape Cod, Massachusetts

We were sucked into buying a timeshare five or six years ago.  We did it because we had only had one vacation in the first 35 years of our married life. We felt if we had the timeshare that we would take a vacation each year.  WELL....it has worked most years...

So we now have vacations.  The timeshare we purchased is in Mexico but we cannot always take care of the timeshare costs PLUS buy airplane tickets so we have been going to vacations where we can drive.  This spring we are using a week "leftover" from last year.

We are in West Yarmouth, Massachusetts, on the Mid-Cape area of Cape Cod.  We have a little cottage which has two small bedrooms, two small bathrooms, a kitchen/dining room/living room, a front door and a back door, plus parking spot, barbecue grill, and lawn chairs.  Nice.

This cottage is listed as sleeping 6.  Dear One had his "stuff" (luggage, etc) on one of the twin beds in the second bedroom.  My stuff is in the tiny closet, on top of the TV cabinet/bureau drawer unit, and all over the kitchen and living room!  (I brought the Plus Sign quilt to put together this year.  Last year the sewing machine needle broke on the first stitch so I packed everything up and put it back in my luggage.  This time there have been other issues, but I am determined to carry on...!)  We think this cottage is just about right for two friendly people!