ROCKIN’ WITH PINA COLADAS

It’s been so long since I’ve written a blog post that I think I have blogger’s block.  Writing blogs can sometimes be very hard work.  I know, I know … I see the head-shaking and the eye-rolling while you’re thinking back to some of my blog posts and wondering how the pointless blathering I’ve written could in any way shape or form be considered hard work but I’m telling you that coming up with a senseless idea and then actually forming meaningless sentences about it – that’s work. 

Anyway, I’ve decided that I’m going unblock my blogger brain and let the words flow, no matter how meaningless and pointless and inane they are.   So….what to write about?  I know.  It’s eight degrees outside and snowing, so I’m going to think warm.   I’ll tell you about Ecuador.  Don’t worry.  I know looking at other people’s vacation photos and hearing their vacation stories is even more tortuous than reading all about my their home remodeling experiences so here is my plan. I am going to break this trip up into four posts.  Each post will have only one story with limited mind-numbing details and I will allow myself only four photos each.   Ready?  Here’s post one.

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The first stop on our trip was a hostel near Puerto Lopez where we sat on a beach with a backdrop of gorgeous flowering trees and bushes.  We drank the creamiest, most delectable piña colada ever blended up and poured into a glass.  Una más Señora snowflake-leg-white-haired gringa?  Si!  Si!  

Technically one photo.  Tricky eh?

The next day after we had recovered from our piña colada indulgence Abby and I trekked across the beach

in search of seashells.  Jorge performed his son-in-law duty with exemplary patience walking with Dean, conversing animatedly about geology, stopping every two feet and waiting while Dean took a photo of a geologic wonder, and searching alongside him for to-die-for rock specimens.  

Fortunately, when we flew home, Dean was in a different pat-down line at the Guayaquil airport when those “that was the best part of my time at the beach” rocks were taken from my backpack and thrown into the bin with all the other terrorist weapons which saved Abby from having to watch the “Crazed Geologist Begs For Rocks” video that would have gone viral.  Poor guy.  He deflated like a balloon when I gave him the bad news.  And there was less of him to deflate since he was still recovering from his “Ecuadorian Diet.” But that's a story for another post.  If you're in shock that I held to my four photos criteria and you're crying out for more  you can go here.  Just don't blame me if your eyes roll back into your head and you fall out of your chair mid-way through the slideshow.  I did give you the option of staying away.

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ROCKIN’ WITH PINA COLADAS

There Was Wine, There Was Wonderful Food and There Were Songs

The afternoon after the wedding we stood in the hotel parking lot and said goodbye.  Abby & Jorge were driving Leslie & Ryan to Guayaquil so they could fly home Monday morning and we were leaving for our adventure in the Amazon. There were some tears and some sobs. Actually, there were so many tears and so much sobbing that Dean felt the need to whisper to Leslie, “before you moved back to Wyoming, Mom cried every time after you and Ryan and the kids left too.”  I suppose Leslie may have been feeling bad that I only gave her a quick hug goodbye while I made an idiot of myself over saying goodbye to her sister, but I'll bet she wasn't sad when she realized she would not be the one sitting in a truck for a three-hour drive covered in mother snot. After the goodbyes were said, as is required in Chapter 15 of the Encyclopedia of Mothering, I stood alone by the front door of the hotel, waving that final wave, as the four of them drove off.

A bit later, once I'd wiped the snot off my own face, the “Amazon Tour Group” headed to the Manta airport and we all flew to Quito.

Since our tour to the Amazon didn’t begin until Tuesday, we had Sunday evening and all day Monday to explore Quito.  As is our custom, there was a lot of this ...  

and this.

But we also did a fair amount of walking because as everybody knows, if you walk, even just a little, when you increase your daily calorie intake by a factor of ten you will feel much less guilt. We decided to walk to La Basílica del Voto Nacional. On our way to the basilica we stumbled upon a local indigenous festival.

 We had to make a decision. We could listen to live music ...

buy handcrafted items ...

watch dancing ...

and eat food ...

... or we could continue walking to go see an old building.  It was a slam/dunk for some of us.  We stayed. But about half the group continued walking.  Pretty soon the walkers returned looking a bit bedraggled.  Quito is 9,000 feet high and once they left the festival the walk to the basilica was all uphill. So as it turned out, nobody saw it.  Of course, now that I’ve actually gone on the web and looked at photos of the basilica I should probably describe it a bit more respectfully than just an old building. It is definitely a magnificent and grand old building.

The food at the festival looked amazing and I really, really wanted to try some. I was so, so tempted. I’d walk by a booth, sniff, drool, and mentally weigh the odds of that food playing havoc with my sensitive American intestinal system. The only thing that kept me from eating it was the fear that my seat on the plane the next day might be the seat in the bathroom. And airplane bathroom etiquette states in no uncertain terms that you should not be a bathroom hog.

We stayed at the festival until late in the afternoon, listening to the music, watching the dancers, and spending money at the booths. Then we walked back, ate more, and of course,

drank more.

And then,

we happily stumbled to bed, slightly pickled, in excited anticipation of our trip to the Amazon the next day.

While you wait for me to write about our trip to the Amazon, pour yourself a glass of wine ... or two ... nibble on some plantain chips and play some music as you look at more photos of the festival by clicking here.  And if that's not enough for you, you can watch one of the festival dances here. You'll almost think you're there ... I wish I still was.◦

There Was Wine, There Was Wonderful Food and There Were Songs

The things we do for the ones we love

One summer when Dean was in graduate school, we spent close to two weeks tagging along with his thesis advisor and two of his fellow (male) graduate students and drove from Nebraska to Nova Scotia where the other grad. students were going to be doing their fieldwork.  Along the way we stopped and looked at every rock and discussed every geologic formation. Let me clarify that.  Along the way, they looked at every rock and discussed every geologic formation. In order to conserve our very limited resources, Dean and I and the other two grad. students shared a tent or motel room most nights. It was during this trip that I first learned that men will not share a bed with each other. They will sleep snuggled up together in a tent but won’t sleep in the same bed in a hotel room. Even if that bed is so large they would be sleeping in separate zip codes. Even if it means one of them has to sleep on the floor. It seemed a little weird to me then, and all these years later I still don’t see the reasoning behind it. Men will slap each other’s butts without a qualm. A quarterback will lean over and stick his arms very snugly in between the center’s legs. Sweaty, stinky wrestlers will roll around in a circle, wearing barely a loincloth and hug and grab each other in disturbing ways. And yet those same men will not share a bed.

We didn’t eat in restaurants very often because our funds wouldn't allow it. Well....that’s not completely true. It was more a matter of choice. Choice one: buy gas to go see that super cool geology formation/pile of rocks/gravel pit/rock shop/fault which is a bit out of the way or choice two: eat in a restaurant with a real wait staff. My vote never counted. (That's my memory of it anyway).  I happened to be five months pregnant on this trip and when my body said it needed to eat, it needed to eat now. One of those moments occurred while driving along an interstate in the middle of nowhere and the first opportunity to eat happened to be a McDonalds. Dean, ever disdainful of McDonalds restaurants, refused to eat at them.  He would (and will) eat at other fast food joints but not McDonalds.  Go figure.  Fortunately, he realized that telling a starving, pregnant woman to wait for something more suitable would not bode well for him so he pulled in, we entered and I ordered.  I don’t remember what I ate, but I do remember that instead of feeling a pleasurable sated feeling, I felt sick afterwards and consequently I also joined the "no McDonalds for me---ever" ranks. That was the last time I ever darkened the door of the golden arches. Until yesterday.

Yesterday I entered the favorite restaurant of kids the world over with Emerson, Myra and Pierce in tow. We were a procession of clutched hands, just like kindergarteners on a field trip.  We had just spent an hour at the park conquering the rock wall ...

and the scary see-through ladders.  We needed sustenance.   As we drove toward those revered cheeseburgers, chicken nuggets, chocolate milk and Happy Meals, the kids filled me in on the rules. We have to eat our lunch before we can play. Right, Nada? Right. But not ALL of it, Nada. We don’t have to eat ALL of it, just most of it. Right? Right, Nada? We can eat just half the hamburger. Just half of the hamburger is okay, before we go play, because that’s a lot. Half is a lot. Right, Nada? Right. Half is okay. We don’t have to eat all of it. Okay? Okay, Nada? Right.

31 years and eight months after my last McDonalds meal, I ate a burger from McDonalds with no post-consumption regrets (if you don't count my regretted fat intake) and way too many fries.  It’s hard to sit and stare at uneaten french fries nestled next to half-eaten child-size cheeseburgers without nibbling.   I had alot of time to nibble as kids came and went and new friendships were made and ended in the time it took parents to eat their own Big Macs.  Three happy meals (with toys) and 1½ hours later we exited the golden arches and headed home. There were chocolate chip cookies we'd made in the morning waiting for us. 

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The things we do for the ones we love

Firsts and Lasts

This morning was the first Trial Run of the “our 28-year old baby moves to Ecuador” experience we are pretending not to think about. Abby’s third and last field season in her PhD program will officially end on Thursday and on Friday morning she will be heading back to Lincoln for her last semester. She is excited for all the firsts she will experience in her life after nine years of college but my mental countdown of lasts is beginning...and “life with a daughter living thousands of miles away in a new country with language, customs and experiences completely foreign to us” will be beginning before we are ready.

Before Leslie and Ryan moved back here, whenever they left to go back to Colorado, our floor would be littered with toys and reminders of their visit. Dean and I coped with the emptiness by distracting ourselves with shopping. Then we’d come home with purchases we didn’t really need, I’d cry as I picked up all the toys, and we’d mope around for the rest of the day. It was very sad.
Abby's visits have involved alot of cooking and baking so we could send her back on Sunday afternoons with a cooler of food. This also involved alot of us eating the cooking and baking we were doing in order to fill her cooler. Instead of shopping to distract ourselves when she's gone, I see a continuation of cooking and baking. That would be okay except for the resulting eating. My time at the gym has been replaced by working on the BFD and I have begun to fear a larger me in my future. It would be very, very sad…and ugly. It's just a darned good thing Leslie and Ryan live in the same town or we'd be fat and poor.

This final summer weekend we were all so busy with an Emerson and Myra sleepover,



a backyard swimming party, playing with kids,


and the all important activity of shopping at the mall, we didn't have time to do much cooking, which meant Abby left from her last summer weekend home with no cooler of food. We tried to make up for it by going out to breakfast this morning before she hit the highway. I knew I was going to have to change my ways soon or I would be attending my first weight watchers meeting so I resolved this morning that this past weekend was the last of eating way too much and I would only eat an apple for lunch. Some lasts are good. However, our restaurant of choice for breakfast is known for its home baked breads. Not only did I request a "cinnamon roll to take with me, please" but when I was asked if I “would like the butter sauce with it” I said, “sure, why not?” Guess which one I ate for lunch?




Even though I know most of these firsts and lasts would happen whether Abby was moving to Ecuador or Kansas, it doesn’t make me any less sad or make me miss her any less. But I also know many of these firsts and lasts will be exciting and offer all kinds of adventures…being an entomologist living in a country filled with tropical insects—how cool is that?...or Dean and I taking our first trip to Ecuador. Can you see us...skinny woman with reddish hair and skin so white it reflects light and a bearded bald guy wearing sandals with socks. Do you think we'll stick out?

If the cinnamon roll looked tasty (and I can guarantee you it was!) and made you hungry, here are a couple of recipes for a couple of the things I’ve made for Abby over the summer.



Flour Tortillas


7 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
2/3 cup shortening
2 1/2 cups water

I made these for our recent camping trip. It takes about 1 1/2 hours to make one batch of approximately 24 medium-size tortillas. I never seem to be able to get a nice perfect circle but they’re tasty and oh, so much easier to make now that I have a functioning gas stove. Pre-kitchen remodeling I used to try and make them on our ancient 2-burner electric stovetop. Now and then the tortillas would seem to stop cooking so I’d turn up the heat of the burner. When it still didn’t seem to be heating I’d turn it up higher. Even then the skillet still wouldn't be hot so I would lift up the skillet and bang it down on the burner, which would would kick the burner back on. However, by then I would have forgotten I’d cranked the temperature way up and the tortilla would burn. I would say some words I shouldn’t know, throw out the tortilla, turn the heat down, start again, cook a few, the burner would quit working , and again I would turn up the heat, bang the burner, burn the tortilla …

• Blend dry ingredients and shortening together until shortening is incorporated into the flour.
  


• Slowly add water to the dry mixture to form the dough.
  


• Knead dough for several minutes until well mixed.
  
  
  
  
  
• Shape dough into small balls and roll out flat.
  
  
  
  
  
• Cook tortillas on a seasoned and heated cast iron skillet on the top of the stove until there are small bubbles on the top. Then flip the tortilla and cook on the other side.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Pita Pocket Bread
  
  
  6 cups flour
  2 tsp. salt
  2 tablespoons sugar
  1 tablespoon yeast
  2 cups warm water
  
  
  
• Preheat oven and a heavy cast iron pan on the bottom rack to 500 degrees.
  
  
• Mix ingredients together to form a soft dough.
  
  
• Let dough rest 10 minutes on a floured surface.
  
  
• Shape dough into small balls and roll out to about 1/4 inch thick.
  
  
• Let rise another 10-15 minutes.
  
  
• Place pitas on the heavy pan and cook until the pita bubbles up. Bubbles will inflate so the whole top is raised. Turn pita over and cook until bottom side is done.
  
  
• Cool pitas before use or freeze while they are still warm to keep them soft.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  I think/hope they were good. I don’t know. Abby took a bunch and Leslie took the rest.

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Firsts and Lasts