July Foodie Penpals Reveal

I was meandering through the interwebs one day and happened upon someone posting about Foodie Penpals. Of course I got wildly excited and then sad because it seemed very US-centric... so I kept clicking links until I discovered that there IS indeed a European version that Carol at This is Rock Salt takes care of. Of course I filled in the form right after the cutoff for June so July was the first month I could participate.

Meryl was my generous foodie penpal and here are the goods!

Unsurprisingly, Mr Jummy was rather happy about the shortbread cookies.

Also included were some lovely spices from both Cornwall and from her travels in Crete! I'm excited to try the blue popcorn and I think the Onion Pinch Salt might be rather tasty on it. Lasty there is a little bag of beautiful sundried tomatoes. I can plump them up in some water but I might just stash them in my bike bag for a yummy snack on my travels.

Thanks so much to Meryl for the fun package! I'm already dreaming of what wild things I can do with Singapore Seafood Seasoning ;)

FAIL

I'm rather bummed out right now. I was on track to meet my goal of 400km biked in the month of June when DISASTER STRUCK.

Yes, that's a nasty crack in my wheel. That's not the only place either, and unless you really have a death wish you don't really want to be biking on an aluminum wheel that's cracking all over the place.

I ordered a new one last Tuesday that should have only taken a couple of days to come in but when we finally went back to the bike shop to ask about it they still didn't have it. Their supplier sent the wrong wheel... TWICE. If I'm lucky I'll have the right one on Tuesday.

Since I couldn't figure out how to ride a one-wheeler unicycle bike, I failed at my attempt to bike 400km in June.

I did pretty well though... all things considered.

337.28km is certainly not shabby, but it's not 400.

If my new wheel ever comes, maybe I'll try again in July.

*****

This rather late F is for Failure post is part of Mrs. Matlock's fantastic AlphabeThursday.

The Enigmatic E

For some reason I have yet to figure out, I decided that I would make it my goal to bike 400km in June. That's a tad under 250 miles for you un-metric people.

In order to keep things a little interesting, I've been taking routes I haven't been on before and seeing some new sights. Last weekend I was huffing and puffing along and I looked over and standing in the middle of the field was this E. No explanations about why it's there but I saw it and thought "I have to stop and take a picture, it's E week for AlphabeThursday." So, that's just what I did.

Now I think I'm going to have to be on the look out for other mysterious letters just randomly placed throughout the world.

Oh, and if you're curious, I'm at 268.82 km counted so far. I've done a little more but since I have a swiss cheese brain I've forgotten to put my bike computer on a couple of times and lost out on counting those kilometers. Bummer.

******

I'm linking this Enigmatic E post up to Mrs. Matlock's AlphabeThursday. Be sure to head on over and check out everyone's E posts!

Deadwood, South Dakota

Another stop on our epic road trip last fall was Deadwood. Now if you watched the HBO series Deadwood and were expecting anything remotely similar to that you would be in for a big surprise! Not a bad surprise, but it's not the wild wild west anymore.

We decided to take a bus tour up to the Mount Moriah Cemetery where Wild Bill and Calamity Jane are buried.

The cemetery was interesting but one of the best things in the tour was the amazing view from the hilltop.

I think Deadwood is a fun place to spend an afternoon as a quick pitstop from I-90 on the way through to the Black Hills but I don't think I'd put it top on my list of things to go out of the way to see.

******

I'm linking this D is for Deadwood post up to Mrs. Matlock's AlphabeThursday. Be sure to head on over and check out other people's D posts.

Château de Franchimont

Another thing on my 101 List is "visit a castle." I'm not sure if I should count this because it's more the REMAINS of a castle!

Sitting on the end of a small hill overlooking a small village in Belgium, Château de Franchimont (Franchimont Castle) is thought to be built in the 11th century. Over the centuries it was expanded several times but it wasn't until the 16th century that they built the outer wall and artillery tower. These days there's not too much left of the tower but the remaining bits are where the ticket office is and a small exhibit on how it grew over the years.

This is part of the rather steep road leading up to the original entry to the castle.

Once you walk through the arch you can see the courtyard and some of the remains of the castle.

Back to the outside again. I loved the plant life on the walls!

Here you can see one of the lovely views of the village below.

If you do get the opportunity to go, visitors information can be found on the Château de Franchimont website (in French, but Google Translate does a passable job of translating the important bits). I highly recommend paying the extra €1.50 for the audiotour. It's interesting to wander around in the ruins but it's even more interesting if you know a little more about it!

******

I'm linking this C is for Castle/Château post up to Mrs. Matlock's AlphabeThursday. Go have a gander over there are find out what other fun C's people wrote about!

Menu Plan Monday- June 4, 2012

Last week was all about not turning on the oven because I didn't want to heat things up. If the forecast holds true for this week, I might be changing my menu this week and using the oven everyday just so I don't cave in and turn the heater on!!

The Speedy Salmon and Leek One Pot was indeed very speedy. I served it with couscous and the fish was steamed just right!

I also thought the Seafood Macaroni salad was a hit. I used half the amount of mayo and subbed Greek yogurt for the rest.

This week:

Sloppy Joes- Martijn requested these and I decided I'd make some coleslaw to go along side them.

Asian Inspired Slaw- Since cabbage is the gift that keeps on giving, and giving, and giving, and giving... I decided I'd make this with the leftover cabbage from the normal coleslaw. I'll grill some chicken to toss in because it's quite tasty that way.

Slavinken and Mashed Cauliflower with Something Green to Accompany It- I am going to check out the market and see what vegetables look appealing and go from there.

Orange Chicken with Fried Cauliflower "Rice"- I was going through my Pinterest boards this morning and discovered I have about 10 different recipes for orange chicken. I need to start trying them so I thought I'd begin with this one and since mashed cauliflower only takes a half a head, I can use the other half to make pretend fried rice.

Badlands National Park

Last fall we took a massive road trip from Utah to Minnesota. Happily, there are a ton of things to do and see along the way. Badlands National Park was on our list of MUST SEES for that trip, and it didn't disappoint.

When we were there the weather wasn't fantastic (read as: REALLY REALLY COLD AND DREARY), so we mainly drove through and stopped at the interest points along the way to take pictures. According to the park website, there are several hiking trails and I think if the weather had been better it would've been lovely to do a couple of those.

The scenery was amazing and I thought it was really interesting to see all of the exposed layers in all of their different colors. A bit like a history map through the ages.

We learned a few interesting tidbits from reading the info-boards along the way. The grasslands used to look black, covered with enormous herds of buffalo. These days, the black patches you see in the grasslands are the results of controlled burns. Early settlers to the area didn't think the native grasses to be very "pretty" and planted a lot of non-native species which threaten to take over the native ones. The park does controlled burns in an effort to get rid of some of the invading species. The native species are more "fireproof," meaning their root systems go a lot deeper and they can survive the grass fires better than the invaders.

The visitors guide (links to the site to download a PDF guide) for the park suggests you only need an hour to drive through but if you only budget an hour you won't have time to stop and get out. It took us closer to 3 hours to drive through and that was with us not staying out of the car for extended periods of time (generally 5-10 minutes at each pull off through the park).

The entry fee was $15 for our car and worth every penny if you ask me. You can check out the park opening hours and other "things to know" here on the Plan Your Visit link to the park.

******

I'm linking this B is for Badlands post up to Mrs. Matlock's AlphabeThursday. Go have a snoop around over there are find out what other fun B's people wrote about!

******

In other exciting news, I get to check another thing off of my 101 list! Visit the Badlands is DONE!