Zion revisited

Last April Karen and I made a trip to Zion National Park. Since it was spring there was a lot of runoff from snow melt and the Virgin River was very full and the narrows were closed. The narrows are a well known attraction there and we really missed seeing them so we decided to come back in the fall, so that's what we did.

There was still a fair amount of water coming down the river and in one place we had to wade a spot that was about waist deep which got us pretty wet as you might imagine. Some people a little smarter or better prepared than us were wearing waders and that would have been a good thing but we didn't have any and had planned on the weather being warmer than it turned out to be.

Needless to say, it wasn't very warm and being wet really didn't make it any more comfortable being up there but the scenery was breathtaking and it was worth the discomfort.

We made it about a mile up from the end of the paved river walk and it was for the most part a wading hike. After the first part where the water was waist deep, the rest of what we went through was knee deep at best and not too difficult. Both of us decided that next time we do this hike we will get some waders or do it when the weather is hot.


The Ranger at the visitors center said the narrowest part is about 2½ miles up so we didn't get to see that but as you can see it still was quite spectacular. Along the way there were some plants trying to change colors with the fall season and one of my favorites was the one in the last picture, poison ivy. There wasn't too much of it and it was easy to spot so we didn't get into it.

The second day we were there we had a 16 mile bike ride and Karen made it the whole way, I was so proud of her!

I have the rest of our Zion pictures posted on my web album. Here's the link: Zion

Experimental dinner

So Karen and I go to a sale the other day at Shopko and they have this waffle iron on sale so she gets one. It's a cool little item and works great. Of course we had to have some waffles the day after to try it out and that we did. But Karen is thinking that there might be other uses for it too so she starts looking on the web for recipes where we can use the waffle iron and she finds Potato Waffle Bread.


Well, we were planning on having tacos for dinner so we decide to try and utilize the recipe she found and think, why not make some waffle bread and do a tostada type of thing instead. So that's what we do. I have to say that it was a huge success and even though it was not really a simple procedure to make the waffle bread, it was worth the effort and tasted very good. Ya gotta love the good old waffle iron.

Here's the recipe:
Rosemary-Garlic Potato Waffles

2 Potatoes
2 large eggs
1 cup flour
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 small onion, chopped
⅔ cup milk
4 garlic cloves minced
1½ tsp minced fresh rosemary
salt to taste
ground black pepper to taste
2 tsp baking powder

Peel, wash, and cut the potatoes into small pieces and boil with a pinch of salt. Cook until soft enough to mash. Reserve about ½ cup of the water.

While potatoes cook, heat olive oil and add minced rosemary, onion, and garlic and cook over low heat just until the onions turn clear and soften. Transfer the potatoes to a large mixing bowl and pour the oil, onion and garlic mixture over the drained potatoes.

Add milk to the still warm skillet- just to take the chill off (we used buttermilk)- then pour milk over potatoes. Mash potatoes with a masher or mixer. Add ¼ cup of warm potato water and mix until smooth. Taste and season with salt and pepper. Preheat waffle iron and finish batter by beating eggs into potatoes. Whisk together flour and baking powder and add to potato mixture.

lightly coat waffle iron with butter or Pam (you can skip this step if you have non stick grids on your waffle iron. We used Pam and that worked very well even though we had non stick grids.) Add batter to waffle iron and spread evenly almost to the edge of the grids. Bake until brown and crisp, on ours it was about 5 minutes. You might need to adjust according to how your waffle iron works.

Kind of an interesting experiment and we had fun doing it. Next time we are going to add some corn meal to the flour and try that.

Back in Idaho

Well, we got back yesterday after what seemed like a long trip. The drive up here from Logan was not all that long, it only takes a couple of hours but we stopped in Pocatello to do some shopping at Costco along the way, so maybe that was it. One thing that seems apparent to me now that I have done some major traveling is that no matter where you go, it seems to make you appreciate where you came from a little better. When I came back from Ireland I was thinking how I appreciated being back in the US, and now after being in DC for over a month, it actually makes me appreciate Idaho a little more... weird, huh?

Now that we are back here it's cold and the leaves are turning quickly. Looking out the kitchen window at Karen's house this morning it reminded me of getting up and going hunting or fishing back in Susanville like I used to do all the time. Seems odd to have little things like seeing some leaves on the lawn remind you of other things, or smelling a certain smell reminding you of past experiences. Life, the final frontier, I guess I'll never figure it out.

Take me out to the ballgame...

So I guess Steve has season passes for the local ball games and we decided to go to one on Saturday even though rain was predicted. Now anyone who knows me is aware that I am not a fan of any organized sports so going to a ball game that doesn't have one of my grand kids or daughter playing in it is usually totally out of the question. However, we did in fact go and I had a pretty good time even though it started raining about an hour after we got there.

As luck would have it, a pop fly foul ball came almost right to me and I ended up giving it to the lady in front of me since it actually came to rest in her seat. Having no idea what the protocol for that sort of thing is, I figured it rightfully belonged to her since she had gotten up to catch it and it ended up falling in her seat after bouncing out of someone's hands. I should have given it to Steve since he is a fan, but he kept telling me he didn't mind that I gave it to that lady... oh well, live and learn, huh?

On our way out there was a picture opportunity with some old dead presidents and Karen made me get in it with her so here it is. After the rain started we ended up leaving before the game was over and went to one of the museums to see some art and stay out of the rain. All in all it was a very nice day and a first for me... going to a ball game... go figure!

Last few days in DC

I thoroughly enjoyed a trip out to Arlington National Cemetery the other day, contrary to my first thoughts of visiting another cemetery. I guess if you're going to Washington DC and are going to visit any cemeteries at all, Arlington is the one to see. I did learn some things about the place that I had not known. The land that the cemetery occupies was originally the estate of Robert E. Lee's family. The north seized and occupied that property during the civil war and started using it to bury war dead and that started the ball rolling. Now its quite the place to see, acre after acre of crosses. The hill overlooking the land is where the house that Robert E. Lee used to live in stands and that is now a kind of museum piece that you can walk through. The park service runs it and they were in the middle of some restoration while we were there.

From the hill you can look out toward the Jefferson Monument and the view is nice as you can see in the second picture. You're looking across the Potomac River but the Washington Monument and Capitol are to the left out of the picture.


Yesterday we took the Metro out to Alexandria and saw that town. It's very old and was first surveyed by good old George Washington when he was a teen. I guess that makes it quite old. There are many of the old buildings still standing since brick was the building material of choice and some of them were very interesting to me since they dated back to the 1700's. Some of the old cobblestone streets still exist too, but mostly in the ally's as you can see in this picture.

We started at the warf along the Potomac River and walked back up to the Metro and tried to visit as many of the old sights as we could without making too many detours. The old City Hall was built in the 1700's and is still used today even though there have been some renovations. We went inside and looked around a little but since it is still being used we didn't stay too long.

This picture of the City Hall was taken from across King Street looking over the courtyard. They had a flag on the building for some reason, or maybe it's there all the time, I don't know. Nevertheless we had a wonderful day poking around in some of the old churches and looking at all the old headstones of the people buried there, many dating back to the 1700's.

We head back to Utah on Wednesday so this is the last weekend here in DC. I'm not sure what we are going to do for the few days we have left, we saw almost everything we could think of except maybe Mt Vernon. Both of us have been pretty tired lately since we are going somewhere each day I guess so maybe we will just take it easy, we'll see.

Great Falls

Yesterday Karen's brother Steve suggested that we borrow their bikes and go riding along the tow road that goes along the C & O Canal. The old road is now a nice hiking/biking trail that runs from Georgetown going north. It passes a place called Great Falls which was a place we had been told was a cool place to visit so we walked out the trail that overlooks the falls. They have an interpretive sign there that explains why the falls are there so I took a picture of it.

I saw people fishing along the shore but even though we saw some fish in the water, I have no idea what species are in there. The ones we saw looked like bluegill or maybe perch but I also saw a guy bottom fishing so there might be catfish in there too. It was a wonderful day and there were people playing in the water and kayaking but it wasn't warm enough for me to go swimming.

One thing it was warm enough to do was bike riding and walking and that's what we did. As you can see from the last picture, the trail is flat and as wide as the Bizz Johnson trail in Susanville and that was a good thing because there were a ton of people out there enjoying the day. As we rode along the trail we saw several species of turtle sunning on the logs, some of them were quite large and that was pretty cool to see.

The National Park service runs the park where we drove in and they maintain the trail system. They also have a boat that they run through the locks with passengers on it and the folks running it dress in the garb of the day. I took a couple of pictures of it but I'm not putting any on here right now. The canal was originally created to move goods and they towed the boats along with mules or horses, thus the tow road. A very cool day, thanks Steve!

Back from Ireland

Our last trip around Ireland before returning to Washington DC was to a little town called Kilkenny. We took a train to get there since the thought of renting a car was really stressing me out, with driving on the wrong side of the road being the norm in that country. I think that was the best way to see the countryside anyway since neither one of us had to do anything but sit and look out the window. The purpose of this trip was to visit Kilkenny Castle, which dated back to the 12th century. It was a cool thing to see and we took the tour but it was self guided and we would have preferred to have taken a guided one. They had offered guided tours here recently but discontinued them maybe as a cost cutting thing, I'm not sure. Anyway, the castle had been renovated and the decor was 19th century which was not as old as I would have liked it, but very interesting nevertheless.

We didn't have much time to walk about as they say there, but we had to walk from the train depot to the castle so the next picture is what one of the streets looks like and some signage.

There was this cool oak tree on the castle grounds so I had to take a picture of it. It's obviously very old but maybe in the hundreds of years and not as old as the castle itself. It had a label on it that said it was an "evergreen oak." I never heard of one of those before, maybe idigenous to Ireland.

We also had a family day and went down to the local fish pond and did a little fishing. The goal was to take little Krishna fishing but I ended up doing the fishing since Krishna found other things to do. We had to rent the gear and bait which was maggots. It was about 12 euro for that, and the rules were that you had to release any fish you caught. Unfortunately both times my bobber went down I had the pole laying on the ground... wouldn't you know it. There were many types of fish in that pond, some I recognized, some I didn't. The guy said there were brim and carp, so the brim was what I was after. I did see a few big carp but they weren't biting maggots that day. Still it was a nice family day and the sun was out.

So now we are back in the states after getting back to DC yesterday. It was a grand trip and quite an experience and we had a great time with Edie and her family.

I posted a bunch of our pictures in my web album, if you want to see any of them, go to this link. http://picasaweb.google.com/lvfire68/Ireland#