Ohio State game, bye to our summer home, and on the road again

Spent Saturday at the rig watching Ohio State play with the Davis family.  It's almost become our end of the season tradition.

Smoked some bacon wrapped stuffed chicken thighs.  Men liked them, women not so much.  They were thick.  Was really excited about making them, was equally disappointed in them.

Friday was Connie's last chemo treatment in Ohio.  Had originally planned on leaving Timber Ridge Monday, but pushed it backed to Tuesday to give her an extra day recovery.

Did most of the seasonal things all last week, then packed Sunday.  Today (Monday) she was in great spirits and said "let's go today", so I finished everything up this morning and got ready to leave by early afternoon.  Will give her a good night sleep, then all day tomorrow to spend time with her Dad.

Always tough saying goodbye to folks, especially "The Sisters".  They've been such wonderful friends and we'll miss them.

Got into Caesar Creek around 7p.  Didn't have a reservation, so we took a "walk up" site.  No biggie AND we saved the reservation fee Reserve America charges.

The new steps and back up camera all worked great.  Also had a bonus a few weeks ago.  Camper at Timber Ridge put out a bunch of "free to good home" stuff.  Had been needing to replace my leveling blocks and he had a whole set of them.  Grabbed those babies up and tried them out today.  Perfect!

Full rig today

Smoked some wings and Mac N Cheese, the Prince and Princess went to the pool. Good Sunday.

Back to TX -- the Ohio Leg

We left Timber Ridge Campground Monday to begin our journey back to Texas.  Really enjoyed our summer there.  Had lots of "Davis time" this summer and are so appreciative our their generosity over the summer.  Will miss those smiling faces.

Drove down to Columbus and stayed a night at the Cross Creek Camping Resort.  Since we were there last, they instituted a "no pet fence" policy which sucked, especially for Tangy.  We were going to go the ignorance route and put it up any way, but with just a one night, we figured we'd fight that battle on another stay.

We went to the Winking Lizard Westerville to meet with our friends Craig and Sandy, Dave and Jean and were surprised by Connie's cousin Lisa and her friend Wendy.  Had a great time, even though the Indians (a theme) lost AND I forgot to take a picture of our table.  Great catching up, they've been such good friends.

Tuesday, we headed to the hub of the universe, Wilmington, OH.  Stayed in our normal spot at Caesar Creek (saw a lot of deer!), went in to visit Connie's Dad Oz and his wife Betty.  Surprised them with a visit from Bethany and Kingsley.  Went out for pizza at Generations Pizza before retiring back to the rig and K's first overnight "camping" experience.  All went great except it rained hard around 3a and the vent window didn't automatically close when we went to bed.

Wednesday, we got moving slowly, but ended up at Frisch's for brunch with Oz and Betty, then back to the rig before Bethany and Kingsley had to take off for home.  A great time.

We headed out late Wednesday afternoon to check out an RV park for our Ohio Heartland Rally next August.  Looked like it's going to be a winner, and I hope to finish up details with the managers today.

Finally, it was off to the Little River Cafe in Oregonia.  It's owned by a Barb and Todd Holmes.  Barb and I were in homerooms together since Junior High, and Todd and I lived in each other's back yards.  Was a nice place with a live band, fireplace (which we needed!), and good food/drinks.  Met with Rich and Kim, Randy and Shelley, and even Barb made time to come out and see us.  Again, great catching up and experiencing their place.  Got home to watch the Indians lose.  😩

Today, we leave Ohio for the last time in 2017 and will make our way to Elizabethtown for an overnight, a couple of nights in Nashville before three nights along the mighty Mississippi.

Our kind of Mexican food

Connie had a treatment this past Friday.  We put a window air conditioner in their "in laws" loft which worked spectacularly!  Was nice to sleep in temperatures under, um, 80 something?

We had a great weekend in with Bethany and Kingsley while James was out of town, but we were wiped out afterwards.

Today, had to take the truck into Spitzer's for a recall and to have a TPMS changed.  Took awhile and they gave us a brand new 2018 Chevy Silverado as a loaner.  Well played, Spitzer's.  Well played.

Tonight, we made another in the long line of Mexican dishes that are only based in Mexican food.  Spend any time around Connie and I, and you'll know:  nothing spicy, nothing "hot".  Don't ask.  But, there are a great amount of Mexican dishes that we can leave out the "hot and spicy" items and make them Southwest (Ohio) dishes.  Tonight, I made Chicken Kinda Enchilladas.  Here's the recipe that it's based on.

I grilled two chicken breasts, then used my brand new Cave Tools meat shredders.  They were a little overkill, but shredding the chicken was the perfect call.

Connie and Sloopy waited patiently while I cooked. 

In a medium bowl, I mixed a can of Campbell's Cream of Chicken soup with a ½ cup of sour cream.  I pulled out 1 cup of that and put it with the shredded chicken, ½ cup of CoJack cheese and a healthy sprinkling of Fajita seasoning.  I mixed that all together and spooned it equally into 5 tortillas.  Roll the tortillas together, kind of tightly, then I put them in my greased stainless steel 8x8 pan.  (Love that thing).

I added just a splash of milk to the remaining soup/sour cream mixture, just enough to thin it a little.  I poured, spread that over the 5 tortillas.

I put that in my Brinkmann Table Top grill on indirect heat at about 375 degrees, turning it every 8 minutes for 40 minutes.  (Really love this grill, not sure how I'm going to replace it when it eventually leaves us.)

Really happy with the way they turned out.  Served with a little sour cream to dip.  Yummy.

Working at the Stadium and a visit from our daughter and Grand Daughter

Two of the last three Saturdays, I've had the opportunity to work at First Energy Stadium for my daughter, who's the General Manager in charge of merchandising.

On the 2nd of July, I worked the U2 concert.

 

This past Saturday, I worked the CONCACAF 2017 Gold Cup soccer game.

I really enjoyed working both events and, if anything, enjoyed working and watching my daughter Bethany do what she does.

Basically, I did anything the merchandise department needed.  Run merchandise to the booths, pick up money, help sort inventory, count, box up, etc. anything they needed.   Long days, not a whole lot of pay, but I still really enjoyed the experience.

Because of the late night, we stayed in at our daughter's house in Fairview Park.  Left in the morning and took a wonderful drive back along the lake (US 6).  Got into Lorain and suddenly realized we've never found (by land) the marina where we got weathered in back in our boating days.

Once, we were going back to Ashtabula from Cedar Point.  Our boat was such that our passenger seat could face the aft or rear of the boat.  Suddenly, my wife mentioned that I should take a look at the clouds she'd been watching for awhile.

Good Lord.  It was pitch black.  I knew we had to get off the lake.

Nearest point I could find at the time was Lorain, and Spitzer's Marina.  Like a lot of boating stories, what should have been awful turned out to be a great time.  We couldn't return to Ashtabula for 3 days because of the lake.  Where we ended up was just wonderful.  There was a crafty festival just south of the marina.  The Coast Guard dumped a car into the basin and then did a demonstration of how they would blow up inflatables and raise the car up to get out anyone in the submerged car.  Fascinating stuff.

Until today, we'd never "found it."  Crossed the tributary into Lake Erie and went looking.  Found Spitzer's Riverside Marina and something clicked that there were two marinas -- a Riverside and a Lakefront.  Found it.  Had a great time reliving those memories.

As we got home and were unpacking, Connie realized that we had left our toiletry bag at the Davis house in Fairview Park.  We do our laundry at our daughter's, my wife had put the bag in the dirties and I left the dirty bag at the Davis house.  Our daughter decided to bring it to us, and bring out her two dogs and daughter.

Had a great time, very relaxing.  Ate some smoked pork, a box mix of potatoes (Kingsley's new fave), some home made bread.  Baby K was also taught by Gammy that she could dip her bread into the sauce from the Au Gratin potatoes.

This is how Tangy learned to steal seats.  From Tucker.

Great weekend slowly coming to a close.

Spectacular Breakfast Recipe

I feel bad I didn't take enough pictures of this, but it was delish.  It's a combination of about three different recipes, including my own for french toast.

I really didn't want to get up early and do this, so I made a couple of parts of this the night before which took about an hour.  This recipe is going to yield about 4-5 sandwiches.

First, I started with the syrup:

Ingredients: 
3 cups sliced strawberries
1 cup granulated sugar
few squirts of lemon juice

Directions: 
In a medium saucepan, combine all the ingredients.  Put on medium heat and stir.  Slowly bring to a boil. 

While it's heating, start on the filling:

Ingredients: 
1 c. diced strawberries
1 tsp. sugar
1 8 oz. package cream cheese (softened)
1/3 c. powdered sugar

Combine strawberries and sugar in a small bowl, set aside. In a large mixing bowl, whip cream cheese and powdered sugar until thoroughly combined. Fold in strawberry mixture, and continue to smash and make the strawberries smaller pieces.  Once it's the consistency of icing, it's ready.  If making the night before, put it in the fridge.

After the sauce has begun to boil, lower the heat and simmer until the strawberries are soft and the syrup is thickened and reduced by 1/3 to 1/2 in volume, 15 to 18 minutes.  Continue to stir throughout.

Remove from the heat and let cool to room temperature before serving or put in the fridge for the morning.

The rest, I did the morning of the breakfast.

French toast mix:

Ingredients: 
5 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
cinnamon
milk
8-10 slices of bread

Heat your griddle to 375, put your syrup on the stove on low heat if you made it the night before.

Break the eggs, combine the vanilla extract and a glug of milk.  After you've combined them, sprinkle a healthy amount of cinnamon.  Mix well, then pour into a pie plate.

Take a slice of thick bread, and spread the filling.  I did it too thin, so don't be afraid to put it on thick, you'll have enough.

Take a second slice and place on top of it.  Try and "pinch" the edges to seal the sides.  Dip it into the egg mixture on both sides.  Place it on the griddle and flip once the bottom has turned golden brown.

Serve with powdered sugar on top, and liberally spread the strawberry syrup.

Enjoy like Kingsley did!

P.S.  It will keep Tucker's attention when you're making this.  Tangy is just on the carpet because of the slick floor.

Our long weekend in Cleveland

Here at our daughter's house for a long weekend.

We came in Thursday night for dinner, then Connie had her chemo treatment on Friday.

Saturday our daughter's town of Fairview Park (a suburb west of Cleveland) had their SummerFest.  We've always known about it, but we've never been able to get together to get there.  Until this year.

If you're going to SummerFest,
you've got to have Tubby Tails

We got to the park around noon, and walked through all the vendors, then had a snow cone.  Baby K loved hers.

Connie and Kingsley both had their chariots
ready for Fairview Park's SummerFest

Then it was in to uncharted waters.  Amusement Rides.  

Our daughter is an only child.  She LOVES rides, and this was the start to get Kingsley "into" the ride game.  Hopefully, a ride companion for Bethany for life.

We started by scouting.  She's over 30", but under 36" so there were some rides were OK by herself, some were OK with a rider under 56' and some were OK with riders of any size.

We started with the Merry Go Round.  That went OK -- for about one time around.  Then, it was time for Mommy to hold K.

Not off to a good start.

Next was the big slide with the humps and the burlap bag.

That went OK, I mean if you didn't look at K's face filled with terror.  

Then it was time to go solo.  The Wobble Worm.

Things were good.  Mom put her in the chair.  The Carny strapped her in with a bungee cord.  Mom came outside the fence.  Then, the realization hit K that she was in this green thing.  By herself.  And it was about to move.  She suddenly wanted zero part of the Wobble Worm.

We ended the afternoon with another trip down the slide.  No one heeded my call that Kingsley should try and throw some darts at the balloons, and our afternoon was over.

Tangy's new found talent

The other day at our daughter's house, our dogs Tangy & Sloopy were completely enthralled with catching the bubbles that our grand daughter Kingsley was blowing.

Tonight, on our evening walk, Tangy was displaying a new talent:  catching fire flies and eating them whole.

I'm not really sure if they're bad for her (I KNOW there's other things she eats that are bad for her), but she does so many things poorly, I'd hate to take away one of the few things she does well.   😁

July 4th in the Flats

Spent our Independence Day in Cleveland on the East Flats.  When we first came to Cleveland in the mid 90's, the Flats was where it was happening.  New baseball park, boating was great, bars stacked on top of each other.  Boats would raft 6-7 wide into the Cuyahoga.  It was such a fun place to be.

Then, depending on who's story you hear, either the politicians, the mob, the bar owners, or somebody else got greedy and it became a ghost town.

Now, it's starting to come back again.  Today we went down to the soft 2nd day opening of Margaritaville in Cleveland.  They were already out of Landshark and we hadn't even been there.  The rooftop bar was great, and gave you a great view of the railroad bridge that I had forgotten how much I hated.

We actually worked it out where little Miss Firecracker, Baby K and her parents could meet us downtown.

After we split with these guys, we went down to the Collision Bend Brewery to meet our friends Don and April.  Had some good beers, solved a few of the world's problems, and watched the boats and ships (there's a difference) go by.