High Flying Fun

First off, I want to get some "housecleaning" out of the way and let anyone who has previously attempted to comment that you should now be able to!! I didn't even realize the settings on my blog was blocking people from posting comments.  So, comment away! :)

Now, onwards!  Continuing our busy weekend from last week... 

Sunday we planned to fly to Omaha to visit the zoo.  Actually, we'd planned to go Saturday, but rain kept us from making it, which is how we'd ended up in Lindsborg.  Did I mention my husband is a pilot?  It's actually really cool, because we can rent an airplane from his flying club and go on weekend getaways or day-trips much further away than we'd otherwise be able to reach.  So Sunday morning we woke bright and early and... 

Source: http://www.kansastravel.org/sternbergmuseum.htm

Didn't go to Omaha. Nope.  It was raining again.  Well fooey.  So we thought of all the other day-trip destinations we'd ever thought of going to and... most of them were covered in rain too!  But we found one bright spot, and so we headed west, to Hays.  Why Hays?  Because there was rumored to be a lovely dinosaur museum there! The Sternberg Museum, through Fort Hays State University (http://sternberg.fhsu.edu/).

So we hopped in the plane, flew about an hour flight (to a location that would normally be about a 3 hour drive) and landed at the little airport there in Hays.  The FBO (fixed base operator- kind of a airport terminal for private planes, they provide fuel, a place to park the plane, and often have other amenities to offer pilots) provided us with the use of the courtesy car so we could get around town.  We lunched at Napoli's Italian Restaurant, which was very good (so if you're ever in Hays, you must try it!) then continued on to the museum!

Inside the museum were two main levels: one that included all of the fossil exhibits, and another upstairs that held a life-size dinosaur diorama. Some of the dinosaurs even moved, which I didn't find out until the T-rex almost took a bite out of me!! (ok, not quite).

The Tyrannosaurus moved it's head back and forth and roared... the baby hadrosaur chewed on it's grass.  None of the other dinosaurs did much, but the diorama was still cool, with some large pteranodons flying overhead. The painting in the background was that of a prehistoric beach, as most of Kansas was under water during the late Cretaceous period.  

The diorama continued into a tunnel that was also a ramp to the level below. It was made to seem like you were entering the deep sea, and there were models of some of the ocean-dwelling monsters of the time, things like plesiosaur and mosasaur.  Fish and reptiles that make Jaws look like a pet goldfish!

Once we exited the tunnel, we were back among the main museum exhibits.  We got to see lots of fossils (mostly of the sea-faring type) but there was also information about Africa, natural history, weather, and geology.  Of course, my interest was mostly in the fossils, so that's where we spent the most time! My favorites included:

The famous "Fish-Within-A-Fish" fossil.  Mmm, lunch! 

A nice mosasaur specimen. I like mosasaurs, because they're one of the biggest, most "dinosaur-like" fossil that you'll find in Kansas.  I am even the proud owner of a real-live (dead?) mosasaur tooth! 

These crinoids were very cool, all fossilized together at the bottom of the sea.  It looks like something from an alien planet!! (It would also make a cool desktop wallpaper, no?) 

Then we moved on through the geology exhibit,  admired the mammoth skeleton, then viewed the "Peanuts" exhibit on weather... old cartoons with Snoopy, Charlie Brown and the gang and their take on weather and other natural forces. 

We left the museum to return to the airport and were just in time!!  South of Hays, near Dodge City, was a nice little thunderstorm popping up.  It was out of our flight path, and about 20 miles away, but it was interesting to watch from the window.

Then as we flew along, the airplane's radar displayed little rain showers popping up all over the place!  We were afraid we'd have to put down somewhere short of Wichita, but we made it in and the rain never even reached the airport!  Whew!

Up, Up, and AWAY!

This past weekend was a busy one for us!  Our trip to Lindsborg was great, then after we finished at Heritage park we headed back to Wichita to the annual Flight Festival!  

Static displays, aerial acrobatics, loud music and greasy fair foods were the highlights of the airshow!  We arrived around noon, just as the aerial acts were getting started.  Most of the pilots flew in biplanes, but there were also displays done in jets, a glider, and military planes.  Loop-de-loops, steep climbs and dives, flying upside down or performing 4, 6, or 8 point turns: all death defying demonstrations of the aircrafts' abilities.  

Now I have to admit, watching the daring feats performed by brave (or crazy?) pilots was exciting, but I'm not an extreme airplane buff.  My dear hubby, on the other hand... is.  He was a handy narrator throughout the day, giving history of this plane, technical aspects of that.  Sometimes the information was really more than I needed, but one must humor one's spouse, yes?  

Some of the highlights of the day included:

Cool static displays of new and antique aircraft, like this colorful biplane. 

 A fantastic rocket-powered truck that traveled down the runway at over 300 mph! 

A bright orange and yellow jet fighter that did high-speed loops and dives.

 A beautiful, but crazy, wing-walker who did her own acrobatics on top of the airplane... in mid-flight!!! (She braced in between the wings for take-off then climbed up on top to fasten herself into the harness.  As I said... crazy!!)

And, a set of biplanes that flew all their loops and tricks in tandem! 

Overall a thrilling show.  We capped our day with corn dogs and then I braved the deep-fried 3-Musketeer bar... it was interesting but definitely not something I'd eat every day!  Or even every month.  Once a year may possibly be too often!  Melted chocolate seems to be much richer than solid chocolate, and if you encase it in hot, fried batter it's just a little too overwhelming for my tastes.

In closing, I've included a video of the biplanes' acrobatics.  If you've never been to an airshow, I highly recommend it as something you need to experience at least once in your life!!

Lindsborg Del Två

So continuing the account of our trip to Lindsborg!

Saturday morning, after the lovely breakfast at the Inn, we proceeded to the Smoky Valley Roller Mill.  This mill was built in 1881 and then updated in 1898 to the newest technology of the time, steel rollers (rather than stone disks).  It was one of the reasons Kansas became a top producer of wheat and flour! (Well, not this mill by itself, but it and other mills like it.  According to the local newspaper of the time, "everything from basement to garret has been overhauled, making it one of the best equipped roller mills in Central Kansas.  No one can scarce believe that such wonderful improvements have been made, they must see for themselves in order to realize the wonderful change."
(Source: http://www.oldmillmuseum.org/millhistory.html)

 The mill museum included a brief video of the history of the mill, along with a general museum of the area including wildlife, art by a local carver, and information on the journey of Swedish immigrants to the midwest. There were even some dioramas of common rooms in a traditional Swedish home. I just love history!  Especially when it's laid out to see as it might have been hundreds of years ago. And old buildings...?  Oh, I tell ya what, walking into the mill itself... well remind me to do a monologue some time on how the odor in these dusty old relics can take me back a few hundred years... I love it!!

Anyway, we toured the museum and the mill itself.  There were three stories, plus the basement, full of machinery.  In some areas you could barely squeeze through, I can't believe that grown men were able to work in that environment!  And the heat... it was 9 in the morning, probably about low 80's outside, but already climbing to the upper 90's indoors.  But it was still educational and fun, a great combination!

Across the street from the mill is Heritage Park, a collection of historical buildings and antiques.   Many of the buildings were in need of repair, but they were still interesting.  There was a room full of antique tractors and farming supplies, an 1800's bank, store, and barn.  There was also the "Swedish Pavilion", built for the 1904 World's Fair in St. Lewis.  It was built in Sweden, dismantled, reconstructed in St. Lewis, then moved again to Lindsborg.  Inside were displays of traditional Swedish clothing, the Swedish royalty, and other Swedish-themed displays.

All in all, Lindsborg was a quaint, friendly little town, with good food, interesting historical locations, and a touch of Sweden in the heartland! I highly recommend it!

Välkommen to Lindsborg!

"King Oscar" the Wild Dala Horse

Welcome to the first of my entries about travel, and to "Little Sweden, USA"!  Known for its Swedish heritage, its painted "wild dala horses", and its warm, small-town friendly culture, it was the perfect destination for a short, romantic get-away.

 

My husband and I traveled to Lindsborg last night to stay over in one of the local bed and breakfasts in the town and enjoy the local flavor. On the way we detoured to Coronado Heights, a small outcropping of bluffs overlooking the Smoky Hill River Valley.  The view was, for Kansas, pretty cool... and the castle (built in 1932) was fairly good reproduction of a Spanish Conquistador's fort.  

Apparently in 1541 Coronado himself led an expedition into the great plains of America searching for a mythical wealthy civilization called the Quivira. His guide was likely trying to lead him astray, however, and took him on a wild goose chase!  He ended up in Kansas, finding a people he believed were the Quivira, (likely a native tribe such as the Wichita or Pawnee), but did not find the mythical cities of gold he'd been looking for.  Evidence suggests that the people he wrote about lived near the Lindsborg area, in the Smoky River Valley.  So it was quite  likely that, this being the highest point in the area, the soldier would have stopped here at some point to survey the surrounding area. 

 After our stop at the Heights, we continued to Lindsborg itself.  The town was very picturesque, with your traditional main street lined with shops and painted dala horse statues.  Our reservation was at the Swedish Country Inn.  It was a nice little hotel, modeled after the inns you might find in Sweden itself, in a kind of European style.  We checked in, but headed out right away to eat dinner.

We strolled along main street, stopping to eat at the Jalisco Mexican Restaurant- just around the corner from the inn! The food there was excellent, very much authentic style Mexican food rather than the more common "Tex-Mex" we tend to see in America.  I had a combo platter with an enchilada, a burrito, and a tamale, all of which were wonderful, though the tamale was a little spicy to my taste.  For anyone who's never actually eaten "authentic" Mexican food (and I'm sure it varies from region to region in Mexico, just as food preferences in different states here can be wildly different) in my experience it's actually not heavily spiced.  The beef is seasoned maybe with a little onion, some salt, but not with the chili powder and other spices common in Tex-Mex.  And the sauce on top... mmm!  It's a red sauce, but again not spicy.  It is almost sweet, kind of like a marinara sauce but without the Italian seasoning.  

After dinner, we walked up and down Main Street, ate ice cream cones for dessert, and returned to the inn for the evening.  Our room was quite pretty, definitely continuing the Swedish theme and country-style living.  There was a little tv in one corner, nice wooden shutters over the windows, and a good sized private bath.

One drawback became apparent as we turned out the lights and prepared to sleep, however... the air conditioner had something wrong with it's compressor and would kick on loudly for about 10 seconds every 2-3 minutes!  It did this throughout the entire night, making sleep very difficult!  Then, once we rose in the morning, we were ready for a hot shower and when I turned the handle... no water!! We were concerned that we would have no shower this morning, but luckily my handy husband figured out that the shower head had a valve lever on it that was in the "off" position.  Whew!

Showers taken, we ate breakfast at the Swedish breakfast buffet included in our stay.  It was pretty good (the waffles were to DIE for!!) and we left feeling pretty satisfied.  Overall the Swedish Country Inn was nice, but I would recommend checking the room out for loud air compressors or malfunctioning faucets before you get stuck for the night!!

On leaving the inn we proceeded to explore Lindsborg's historical offerings, but that will be for tomorrow's blog!  To be continued...

The Great Cake Quest

So today I had an epiphany.  I don't know that I can focus solely on baking and pets for very long without becoming repetitive and redundant. So while my original intent was stated in all honesty, I will admit here and now that I'll most likely be branching out quite soon... travel seems a likely subject! (That and whatever else stirs my fancy on any given day)

Ta-da!  So elegant, don't you think?

But today I'll stick with the spirit of the site.  I have always had a passion for cake decorating, but restricted my hobby to decorating cakes that came in a nice little box.  (I thought I did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself!)

After finishing my third round of cake-decorating classes, and completing my very first tiered wedding cake, I thought I could perhaps sell some of my cakes!   That's when I ealized it was probably cheating to sell cakes made from a mix.  So began my great cake-recipe quest.

I determined that weighing the ingredients would yield more consistent results and allow me to make larger or smaller batches without the trouble of trying to calculate what 1/3 of 3/4 a cup would be.  I meticulously plotted and planned, and figured out how to scale recipes using a ratio from a baking science website that is no longer in existence.  I planned and I plotted, then I tried my first recipe.

Ker-splat.  Utter failure.  I don't know what they put in cake mixes to make them so easy to turn just the right consistency, but let me tell you, baking from scratch is much harder.  And I consider myself a good cook! I can follow a recipe, I took food science and food-service management courses in college, how hard can it be, really?

Pretty hard, apparently.  Even once I managed to get a cake of decent consistency, I discovered that not all cake recipes translate well into cupcakes.  Enter a side quest to create the perfect cupcake as well.

At present I have "perfected" 5 flavors of cake and cupcake:
Vanilla (Yellow)
Chocolate
Red Velvet (though this one could use some more work, I believe)
Peanut Butter

and my most recent success- "Wedding Cake"!  I have been searching for the right white cake recipe to get that special wedding cake flavor for months, all in vain.  Then I found this recipe,

http://www.weddingcake101.com/wedding-cake-recipes/elegant-white-wedding-cake-recipe

and, with a few modifications of my own, managed to produce a cake that was moist, sweet, held it's shape well, and tasted pretty much like wedding cake!!

My version of the recipe (each ingredient is listed by weight in grams, so you'd need a kitchen scale):

Mmm, my favorite!

Shortening 100g
Sugar 337g
Flour 267g (145 g AP flour, 122 g cake flour)
Baking Powder 15g
Egg whites 128g
Milk 264g
Salt 7g
Almond Extract 3g          
Clear Vanilla Extract 5g 

I baked it following the directions in the recipe above, and it turned out perfectly!

Aw, sweet success!

Stalking Jungle Cat of Death!

I take the title of today's blog from an author of Batman-related fanfiction.  Anyone who reads such fanfiction has probably heard of this author, Chris Dee, whose amazing understanding and treatment of the characters in the bat-clan made her Cat Tales series a huge hit.  I hope she doesn't mind my borrowing her description for my title.  It was made in reference to one of Selina's cats in a chapter of Cat Tales, but it so well describes the behavior of my own furry feline, that I had to  appropriate it for myself.  So, sorry and thanks, Chris!

But back to the original subject...

Ok! I'm ready to go on vacation!

My cat, Cassie (AKA "Kit Cat", "Cassie-cat", or "You Dumb Cat!", as the mood strikes, but never as "Kitty"), started her life with a personality that, in my mind, seemed more that of a dog than a cat.  Having been a dog-person most of my life, this suited me fine, and we settled in to apartment life quite happily.  Cassie loved to play "fetch", wanted to go with me when I traveled, and had absolutely no interest in cat-nip or other cat treats. Though an indoor cat, she preferred coming out on the balcony when I would sit out there to read.  Ah, a girl and her cat.  Could life be any better?

Who ate my tuna??

Fast forward a few years, and now I have a house, a dog, and a husband... and Cassie's utopian life has been turned upside down.  When I got married, my husband declared that kitty hairs on brand new furniture was really not the look we were going for.  The dog chewed up all her stuffed mice and other small toys, and energy efficient shades blocked her scenic view of the outdoor world.  Poooor Cassie.  She still gets to go out on the deck when we are outside, but being declawed she can't wander unsupervised.


So what is it about a cat's mind that changes them from ball-chasing dog wannabe, to dog-hating uber cat?  Cassie's favorite pastimes are now tormenting the dog, meowing in a whiny voice to get attention, and playing "stalking jungle cat of death".  How does she play this game, you might ask?  Let me give you an example...

This is the life!

This afternoon I was watching Royal Pains on tv, lying on the nice soft couch, snuggled in my nice soft blanket.  It was the perfect lazy Sunday.  Cassie, being allowed on the couch if she is on me on the couch, saw her opportunity and hopped up to sit on my stomach and purr.  Ahhhh. Is there anything more relaxing than a cat purring on you?  Thinking to return the favor and relax her, I slowly stroked her back, scratched her chin, and basically gave her a nice kitty massage.

After a while her tail starts twitching.  She shakes it almost like a rattle snake's rattle, vibrating back and forth at super speed. Ok, she's irritated.  I get it.  Her eyes narrow and I get the distinct impression that I am staring into the soul of a panther.  I raise my hand to pet her again and wham! she pounces on my arm and sinks her teeth into my tender flesh.  Ow.  Stalking Jungle Cat of Death strikes again.  Ok, it didn't hurt that bad, and no blood was drawn, luckily.  Needless to say, the hand got pushed sharply into her face to discourage this behavior and her couch privileges were promptly revoked.

So now she lounges under the table, waiting for the next time her prey becomes vulnerable.  Waiting in silence.  Waiting patiently.  Waiting to hunt again.

Introducing... Me!

You all know the old poem:

"What are little boys made of?  Snips and snails and puppy dog tails, that's what little boys are made of!
What are little girls made of?  Sugar and spice and everything nice, that's what little girls are made of!"

Right?  Well, if you don't, you do now!

Ok, so just being up front and honest with everyone, I've never had a Blog.  I have had a fanfiction site, actually a couple of them, but I figure a blog is rather different than fanfiction!  I also have never really done a lot of "putting yourself out there for the whole world to view and admire"- no MySpace, no Facebook.  Concern about privacy and the overwhelming nature of people posting on one's wall, made me run screaming in the other direction.  So why did I, when a friend pointed out that a Blog could put a lot more of myself out there than Facebook, did I decide that, yes, I must have one of my very own?

I have no idea.  :)

But I am a woman, and as science has shown us that we of the female persuasion feel the need to use at least 20,000 words a day, while our male counterparts use a measly 7,000 (on average, of course), I figured this would be as good a way as any to relieve myself of any unused words for the day.  My husband will thank me, I'm sure!!

Well a little about me, and a bit about my plans for this blog...

As I noted in my profile, I have a wide range of interests and hobbies.  These run the gamut from some very girly hobbies, to interests that one would expect more from a teenage boy than a young woman!  So I'm eclectic (I like that word so much better than 'weird') and decided to bring my unique personality to this blog. So, hence the title, seeing as I seem to be made of all of the above!!

It is my intention, at least starting out, to focus this blog mainly on two of said interests- baking and my pets.  My title therefore works in a dual capacity, as I'll be putting in plenty of sugar and spice, and will throw in the puppy dog tails as the mood strikes!

Just be forewarned that random things may also creep in such as the occasional foray into fanfiction, references to giant autonomous robots from the planet Cybertron, or a general exploration of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, in whatever form it takes in my mind on any given day.

Thanks for reading!