45 Days – Triko, Family, Lawn

Today’s post got scheduled, and rewritten before I ever published it.

We had been thinking we’d take a short “drive” to Charleston SC; but we slept through our alarm and decided that if we were that tired we’d stay home a few days.

We were home yesterday before noon. We met up with our Estate Sale team:  Triko and her husband Tom, for a catch-up and lunch together.  Triko regaled us with stories from the sale — a couple of which I’ll tell you as time goes by (as I’m pressed for time tonight) and we got settled up on the results of the sale.

We took lunch at Honeypie and it was wonderful as expected.  Their duck sausage is outstanding!  With a piece of take-home pie to boot a great time was had by all.  Triko and Tom are great fun and they are moving too — a couple months after us — to Hemet CA.  Funny how names keep popping up.  My grandparents had friends who shipped them dried fruit from Hemet in the 1950’s when Hemet wasn’t much more than some fruit orchards!

After lunch we caught up with Kathryn, Michael and Melanie — they grabbed a few more things to take and we had fun.

Peg got the grass cut, we reloaded our suitcases,  and thought we were off again in the morning for a couple days. Which didn’t happen.  We are fatigued, no doubt about it; but there were some concerns about leaving the building right after the sale.  We’ve never had problems in this neighborhood, but there were a lot of neighbors through the building over the weekend and I am just a little uncomfortable leaving it right now.

So, I guess we get to re-write our plans once again.

We have all the things we have downsized into — but we ave no idea where anything is at the moment.  And, there will be people here this week (I hope) to clear out the rest of the stuff that just didn’t sell.   I keep telling myself it’s all part of the “process.”  I’m learning to hate that word. 🙂

Gazpacho Redux

We have made traditional red gazpacho for years, but I like this, and no cooking!

(Yeah, yeah, yeah…. I know it LOOKS terrible!)

 

Raw Green Gazpacho
1 handful cilantro leaves
2 handfuls spinach leaves
2 cucumbers, peeled
2 stalks celery
2 big tomatoes
1/2 lemon, juiced
Sea salt, to taste (optional)

I Cannot Do Otherwise

The case with most men is that they go out into life with one or another accidental characteristic of personality of which they say: Well, this is the way I am. I cannot do otherwise. Then the world gets to work on them and thus the majority of men are ground into conformity. In each generation a small part cling to their “I cannot do otherwise” and lose their minds. Finally there are a very few in each generation who in spite of all life’s terrors cling with more and more inwardness to this “I cannot do otherwise”. They are the geniuses. Their “I cannot do otherwise” is an infinite thought, for if one were to cling firmly to a finite thought, he would lose his mind.

Kierkegaard

46 and Counting

The estate sale is over. At this point I don’t exactly know how well we did — I’ll find out a little while after this posts.  We’ll be back in town in a little while, and figure out the how’s and where’s after we see how much of a mess remains to be cleaned up.

Saturday was rest-up day.  We did a little walking, a little snoozing, the weather wasn’t all that great (overcast and blustery with threats of snow flurries) so we took it easy.

We DID discover a new food option.  There’s a pizza chain called The Pizza Ranch.  They have 160 locations in the Midwest and the food was decent for a chain.  Most notable is the broasted chicken, a long time favorite of mine.  (If you haven’t ever had broasted chicken think pressure-cooked fried chicken.)  I suspect we’ll visit their stores again seeing as they are big in IA, MN, ND, and SD.  The pizza is so-so, but the chicken is great.

We are considering a short trip — but until we see the inside of the school we are holding our options open.  More on that in time.

A Taste of Manitowoc

The sign says it’s a population of 32,000 — so it’s about 1/20th the size of  Milwaukee.

I know that Manitowoc is a lot like many other Northern cities, but it troubles me to see so many empty buildings in the business district.  I sometimes think that we americans have gotten so “smart” about making money that we have killed our society in the search for cheaper products.  But that’s a subject for another day.

The Most Beautiful Thing

47 days – Estate Sale Continues

The estate sale is continuing in our absence…. I hope.  I didn’t ask for an update so I won’t know what happened until we get home on Sunday, but I’m sure if anything was amiss I would have heard.

In the meantime we are having a nice, laid back time.  The hot tub last night relaxed us both — too bad we didn’t sleep very long.  But perhaps today will be better.

We had a nice hot breakfast included in the tariff, so we ate a leisurely meal and then took a short walk along the lakefront walking/biking/jogging path. In part that was because I wanted to see this cruiser up close.

She’s a 1937 built, wooden hull lake cruiser that has been retrofitted significantly.  I’m sure that 1937 boats did not have side-thrusters, or rear facing quartz halogen submerged swimming lights, but she’s a beaut!

 

We also took a ride up as far North as Algoma, just snooping and shooting a few shots along the way.  I’ll work on those over the next little while and post when they’re ready.

Disappointed in Kurtz’s

We usually have pretty good luck with food on the road but today was an exception.  We decided to try a place called Kurtz’s that says it’s been around since 1904.  I thought, surely this place is doing something right.  Well, not so much….

They have a nice selection of German beers; maybe that’s the biggest reason why they’re doing well up here!

It’s primarily a sandwich shop and German beer joint.  They do have a few salads and snacks.  Peg & I both decided to try the 1/2 corned beef sandwich and bowl of soup.  She had New England Clam Chowder which was nice, albeit a bit corn-starchy.  I had a vegetable bisque.  And I have to tell you I’ve never found a restaurant that served a vegetable bisque.  Traditionally it would be much thicker than the runny cream soup I was served but I admit it was flavorful, though a little stock reduction would have made it much better.

The sandwiches weren’t as good.  You’ve heard people talk about Mystery Meat….  Well, I felt as if that was what we were served today.  I looked at the sandwich, took a small bite out of it and sent it back because it TASTED and LOOKED like ham.  The waiter admitted that people sometimes “confuse” their corned beef with their ham…. Which is a scary thing to me.  A few minutes later he returned with a fresh plate, a different sandwich and NO FORK.  Along the side of the plate the cook had placed a small piece of their ham for comparison.  The ham looked like the corned beef.  I will be glad to admit that the ham also smelled like ham — while the “corned beef” pretty much lacked aroma of any kind.  I ate it and even after the entire 1/2 sandwich I still have no idea what it was on that bread.

For sure it was not freshly sliced — the product had to have been factory sliced and then cryovac’ed because there was that thin moisture layer that is associated with pre-sliced product.  What I found most interesting about it was the texture.  There was none of the normal beef texture — it had the mouth feel of pork. Oh well….. it was an experiment and we’ll simply not return there.

You tell me, does this look like corned beef?

 

Bearcat’s Fish House

Along the way we stopped in Kewaunee for some smoked Whitefish.  We have to stop here again.  They not only have a wide selection of fresh and smoked lake fish, they also have a wide variety of ocean-caught frozen product from clams and oysters to lobster, as well as portion-controlled restaurant items all the way down to sweet potato fries.  A little pricey — but then it’s fresh!

All in all, Bearcat’s balanced out Kurtz’s so it was a good day.

Tomorrow’s forecast is not so nice so we might just hole up in the room, read, swim, and fool around a little.

🙂

 

Most Responsive To Change

It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.

— Charles Darwin

48 Days – Estate Sale

The estate sale started last night.  We were nowhere to be found!  On purpose.  To be direct, we were told we should probably NOT be there just because people can be quite cruel in their offhand comments and why put yourself through that.  A sentiment I completely agreed with.

All Loaded

We spent the morning loading things:  first the last trip of gear for stowage in Journey.  Secondly, our luggage and cameras for the weekend.

I am happy to report that everything we decided to take in Journey does in fact fit in Journey.  Over time we will have to find more efficient ways of storing some of those things.  I think we have art supplies in several different places.  And tools in several other places.  Where we are going to keep 4 gallon jars of baking goods (5 lbs of whole wheat flour, 5 lbs of A.P. flour, 5 lbs of Bread Flour and 4 lbs of sugar) has yet to be made clear to us. But it’s all inside, and the doors close without anything oozing out.

Next we loaded up the CR-V for the weekend.  That was easy, and relatively painless.  We’ve traveled in the CR-V a few times and everything pretty much has it’s own place to live on a trip. It was a bit strange, looking at all the things we were leaving behind, knowing ( or at least HOPING ) that the next time we walked in the door all or almost all of it would have vanished — but without any qualms or regrets.

Our plan is to spend the weekend in Manitowoc.  We’ve never spent much time here; and this was a nice chance to do so.  We wanted not to make this weekend in the RV because if we did we’d spend the whole weekend putzing around with storage and not relaxing — goodness knows we’ve been working under stress long enough that we need a good rest, and some time to think clear thoughts.

Short of our destination we drove past Manitowoc Crane.  I am always amazed at the size of their equipment.  Worldwide, they are a premier crane manufacturer and these two images give you an idea why.  These things are humongous!

We drove 5 miles past Manitowoc and our hotel for dinner at the Water’s Edge Restaurant inside the  Lighthouse Inn.  We both opted for the Mediterranean Salmon Cakes with Cucumber Dill sauce and enjoyed our meal very much. I’d come back here in a heartbeat.  It appears they have no tap beers but other than that it’s a nice place in the outback of Wisconsin.

The Lakefront Hotel in Manitowoc is part of the Best Western Chain and it will be a nice home base for three days.  I’m not sure if we’ll do much sightseeing (there is a maritime museum right next door, and plenty of interesting things to see elsewhere in town) — truth is we both are exhausted and we may just cool our jets, dip in the pool, lounge in the hot tub, and enjoy a little decadent leisure.  Go Peter and Peggy!

This is our room, and the view from it:

Might not be great for “surfing” — but it’s a heck of a lot closer than the ocean and we can hear the sound of the waves on the beach…. wait…. that’s the sound of the in-room refrigerator surging  (and no, that is not a complaint – it’s a cute little whisper-like white noise….. 🙂

We’ll keep you posted;  the trip up here gave us ideas about what we’re going to do after the weekend so…..

If you are too young to recognize the famous TV Test Pattern, you missed something wonderful.  This was broadcast before and after the TV broadcast day (no, television was not 24 hours a day back in the Good Olde Days.)  I can remember getting up early to be in front of the TV when they signed on in the morning, oh great morning person that I am.