Prehistoric blooms

We've been having an early heat wave.  Normally, May is overcast and cool with little sun until early afternoon (if at all).  Not this year.  It's been in the mid-80's here on the coast for the past week.  I was home today and noticed both the Giant Bird of Paradise and ginger plant are blooming.  What a treat!  Not as showy as your roses though, Barb.

The Bird of Paradise is a volunteer which grew up under another plant which I had the gardener remove.  Now that it gets more light, it has thrived and is blooming for the first time.  The buds are black and vicious-looking--a bit prehistoric in appearance. 

The Giant Bird of Paradise

Black thing that looks like a crab's claw is the bud with white flower

Close up

Interesting blue part--??

Ginger

Ginger flower--these little grape-like things will open and a yellow flower with a red throat will emerge.

Stag horn fern.  I fed it a banana peel this AM.

Toby

The is the root ball from a kelp plant on the beach when I got done surfing on Monday.  It's about 24 inches across!

This is the whole plant...

Happy May Day, everyone.

Cabo Wabo in March

Well, Jamie, Bill, and I decided a while back to go to Los Cabos, Baja, Mexico the end of March so Jamie could view an Ironman Triathlon.  Jamie said "Cabo" so I booked us a hotel in "Cabo" - the penthouse suite!  End of Spring Break!!!  This is a view our balcony at the Wyndham.  The hotel was old, bought by Wyndham about 4 years ago, and I will give them credit, they are remodeling and making it nicer - but not fast enough.  Typical Mexican architecture - we went up an elevator to the 5th floor, walked down a hallway to the third set of stairs - walked up 2 flights of stairs to get to a doorway. Jamie is standing in the doorway to our room:

Up another set of stairs (notice of the lack of handrails) to our "suite", which was actually fine.  There are two things about Cabo we learned - the Triathlon was actually in San Jose - and think about renting a car (if you can stomach driving in Mexico).  Taxi ride prices are controlled by the government and cost more than a mortgage payment.  Between the two of us, I'll bet we spent $500 in taxi rides.  Each direction was $30-$40/person!!!

 

 

I think this was our last day.  We walked around, observed the dolphins swimming with kids and adults, and posed with the macaws.

We found this great day of the dead restaurant.  We loved the waiter, and on the last day I took him 2 bottles of tequila.  He was very happy.

We did shop a little bit, too.  You can't go to Mexico without shopping - its the law!!!  We found a family owned and run jewelry shop that was so great that I would take a taxi there again.  It was actually right next to our hotel - but next time we go - we will stay in San Jose. 

But the highlight of the trip (for me) was the whale watching.  I had been told to make sure that we get a zodiac (a rubber raft) because they get closer to the whales.  So as Jamie and I approached the zodiac, I noticed that instead of 2 sets of bench seats - there were 2 rows of seats that you mount like a horse with a metal ring handlebar in front of each seat to hold on to.  Jamie brought her good camera and one of the guys on the boat emptied out the seat in front of her so she could take good pictures.  I held the Go-Pro video camera and off we went.  We had stored everything below our seats, and we mostly stood up as we flew across 4' swells to save our backs.  We went out across the swells, crashing up and down, but we beat all the other boats out to the whales, and we had a great view.  There was a male (smaller) and female whale (this is the female).  They slap the water in some sort of a mating ritual, and it is quite the show. We had both bought straw hats to try not to get sunburned.  Ha!  Jamie used hers to protect her camera.  I held mine so I wouldn't lose it.  Jamie got beautiful pictures (and the Go-Pro video is great too), but her sunglasses flew off, the lens came out and ended up in the back of the boat, and my earrings flew apart too.  Someone found all of our parts and we stumbled back into town and found a sunglasses store to put the pieces back together.  I would highly recommend the whale watching tour in March.

The real reason we were there (at least Jamie) was to observe the Ironman.  I don't have many pictures, but this is before the swim, probably about 6:45 a.m.  The orange caps are the amateur men, the green are the amateur women.  There are also whites - the pros - they get to start first.  They start out swimming right into the rising sun and I don't know they could see that first buoy 90 degree turn, except that there are many swimmers on both their right and their left that I guess it is hard to get lost.  After the start, I moved to the beach to where the swimmers got out, with the Go-Pro.  Jamie moved to the corrals to get better pictures.  First pro out around 40-ish minutes for 2.4 miles of swimming.  And then they run (yes run) through a corral as they are stripping out of their wetsuits, they run through a shower, pick up their bag of biking clothes, sun block, etc., run up the hill (because of course you are at sea level), and about half way up, they mount their bikes and are off for a 104 mile, 3 lap bike ride from San Jose to Cabo, and a 26.2 mile run.  Phew - I get tired typing this!  We had a nice breakfast with Jamie's coach, James, and friend Karen, then I headed off to find my very expensive cab back to Cabo.
It was a great trip - and I got really good on the Go Pro, although we did figure out that it works better on the head with a helmet:

Notice the Ironman behind me.  He thought I was CRAZY!

Underground Railroad Museum

Last Friday I chaperoned a field trip to the Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati. We took all the Level 1-3 students from our program to teach them a little American history and get them out of Middletown for a day.

I didn't take my camera, unfortunately, but it was a pretty cool museum, with lots of interactive movies and exhibits. Our tour guide was an 80-year old man who had recently broken his hip, so he led us around from his wheelchair.

The students had a really hard time understanding his explanations, as he spoke rather quickly and used lots of idioms ("In Kentucky, you couldn't swing a cat by the tail without hitting a tobacco barn!"). It's a good thing I went, to help "translate" if nothing else.

At the end of the tour, one of my students took a picture of our class:

Riven, James, me, Maggie, Kerry, and Albert

These are the people I spend about 10 hours of my week with! They're a fun group, and I really love working with them.

Hiking El Morro

A couple friends and I hiked El Morro, a coastal trail between Newport Beach and Laguna Beach today.  It was perfect--breezy with temps in the high 60's.  There were even a few wildflowers thanks to the two brief rains this past week.

Peggy wants to walk a half-marathon with her new bionic knees (two knee replacements).  I convinced her and Fred to hike the 9-mile route with me.  The trail climbs up one ridgeline, travels along the top for a short distance and then winds down another ridgeline.  We had to watch out for a few mountain bikers and met a few other groups on the trail but had it pretty much to ourselves.  Peg has an "app" on her phone that measures distance, calories, time, etc.  It was actually 9.4 miles and took us about 3 1/2 hours including stopping for a photo.

At the top of the ridgeline.  The toll road is visible in the distance.

Can you imagine living here?

At the end.  A family wanted us to take their photo, so I had them take one of us.

 

We were all ready for some Aleve.  Hard to believe that we used to ride double centuries!

Chicken enchiladas (the gringo version)

Thought I'd share another recipe; this is not original.  The idea came from the blog Budget Bites but I improvised as she makes her own enchilada sauce.

Ingredients:

2 Cups chicken, diced (I used rotisserie chicken from Costco)
1 Cup shredded cheese plus 1/2 C for topping (I used Mexican style four cheese blend)
1 4oz can diced green chiles
1 15oz can green enchilada sauce
1 15oz can diced tomatoes, chopped
1/2 onion, chopped
1/4 bunch cilantro, chopped
10-12 6-inch tortillas
 

Procedure:

First you feed the cat enough chicken that he is full and will leave you alone.

As you can see, he is not happy...he wants MORE!

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray 9x13 pan with release agent.  Saute onions until clear, add to medium mixing bowl.  Drain tomatoes, cut into finer pieces (if you are not a tomato fan like me), add to mixture.  Add 1 Cup of cheese, 2 Cups of diced chicken, can of green chilis, and 1/4 bunch of cilantro to the same bowl.

Stir up these ingredients.  Plop about 1/3 C of mixture into a tortilla, roll, and place in 9x13 pan.  I used whole wheat, low carb tortillas (1 point WW) but you can use any kind.  Pour can of green enchilada sauce over the rolled up tortillas and spread it around so that it covers all the tortillas.  Sprinkle with about 1/2 C of cheese (or more).  Bake for 30 minutes.

The package of tortillas contained only 10; I added an 11th larger tortilla from another package as I had left over chicken mixture.

Tonight I forgot the cilantro, so I added it to a salad.

I actually ate two; these are yummy!

These are good left over too...

Visiting Bend

I am in Bend this week visiting Mom & Dad.   On Tuesday morning, Figo actually let me pet him (while he was eating, of course).

Jorge was also glad to see me.

No snow but lots of pine cones to be picked up.

At Barb's suggestion (and directions), I brought up two new comforters for the beds.

Went for a walk; no water in the canal right now.

Geese were out for a walk also.

Dad wanted to go back to the house to get some books but forgot his glasses, so we'll go back another time.  Mom and I went shopping and brought lunch back to the house.

The cats came by but wouldn't come in.  Figo even hissed at Mom.  Ungrateful wretch!

 Back at TM, I made lemon chicken soup with orzo with the leftover chicken.  Mom's new kitchen is very efficient.  Strangely, Jamie texted me--she had made the same thing for their dinner.

Dad is laughing about something.  Mom did the dishes as I cooked.

This morning Jorgie discovered the new comforter and rubbed his scent all over it!  I petted him for a while, of course.

A bit of snow this morning but the sun is now out and it's melting rapidly.  I'm off for a walk and then more errands with Mom.