Monthly Archives: October 2010
Liberace and A Tea Party. . .
I read yesterday about the closing of the Liberace Museum. At one time it was one of the largest attractions in Las Vegas, with more than 450,000 visitors a year. Now it has dwindled to only about 50,000 a year.
When we were in Vegas this past Spring, we didn’t visit the museum, but we did take some photos of the outside. Kinda neat, actually.
They say they want to close the museum and put some of the displays on traveling exhibition.
Personally, I think they ought to move it to Branson. It would fit right in, and the age demographic is certainly right.
I did find this recipe from a Liberace Cookbook for Sticky Buns. Looks delicious.
Ingredients:
1 cup white raisins (or, of course, flame)
8 oz. pecan halves
1/2 cup light rum
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 pound (two sticks) unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon each of ground nutmeg, allspice, cloves, and ginger
3 packages (18 buns) Pillsbury crescent dough.
Directions:
Soak the raisins in the rum over a low flame. Set aside.Preheat oven to 325 F. In a saucepan, melt butter and stir in the spices and the brown sugar until the mixture becomes a bubbling syrup.
Unroll the crescent dough, keeping each package in one flat place. Drizzle one quarter of the syrup over each individual piece of dough, reserving the last quarter for later.
Sprinkle one third of the raisins and spread one third of the chopped pecans on each of the three sheets of dough. Roll up each section of dough, jelly-roll style and cut into 1-inch pieces.
Grease two eight-muffin pans or three six-muffin pans with butter. Put a scant teaspoon of the reserved syrup and a few whole pecans in the bottom of each muffin mold.
Cover with the individual jelly-roll pieces, cut side up. Bake in preheated oven for the time recommended on the Pillsbury packages.
While pans are still hot, invert them on a sheet of heavy aluminum foil allowing the buns to be released. Replace any of the syrup and pecans that cling to the molds on the individual buns.
You should serve the buns while they are still warm and have that fresh-from-the-oven taste.
And that’s your cooking tip for the day.
As far as today was concerned, our son Chris called about 11:15 and said he was up (he works nights this week), so I drove over to his house to finish setting up his new computer. We’ve been trying to recover his iTunes account from his dead/dying laptop without a lot of success, but I’m still working on it.
After stopping by the bank, I got back home about 2 pm. Then about 3 we headed over to Monterey’s Little Mexico for some Chicken Tortilla Soup.
But before we left the park, I had to get a shot of the beautiful view of the water.
The weather has really been great here lately, with temps in the low 80’s in the daytime and in the 50’s at night. It doesn’t get much better.
Leaving Monterey’s we drove about 10 miles down I-45 to the Gulf Greyhound Park in La Marque to attend a Tea Party Rally put on by the Clear Lake Tea Party. We didn’t know what to expect as far as attendance so we got there early to just people-watch.
We knew it wouldn’t be any where near as large as the last one we attended in Searchlight NV in late March of this year.
That one was enornous, with over 30,000 people there. It look like this.
and this.
The traffic was backed up for miles. Luckily we only had to drive down from Las Vegas and got there early.
Some people just parked their cars and walked to the site, some for almost eight miles.
We got to see Sarah Palin, Joe the Plumber, Jerry Doyle, Sharron Angle, Andrew Breitbart, and many others, and had a great time.
Or course we knew this one wouldn’t be any where near that big, but it did turn out pretty good, as there looked to be about 1000 people there.
We certainly had a great moon overhead,
and some great speakers, too.
Among others, was Congressman Ron Paul,
Congressman Pete Olsen,
and State Senator Dan Patrick,
but the real hit was Apostle Claver
who brought the crowd to their feet several times. That man can really give a speech!
The event wrapped up about 9 pm and we were home in about 20 minutes. We had fun, but it turned out to be a long day, and it was good to get back to the rig.
More Tomorrow…
Thought for the Day:
If timidity made you safe, Bambi would be king of the jungle.
lkjljk
Fry’s and Bar Harbor. . .
After a morning of coffee and conversation, I left the rig about noon first heading to Fry’s Electronics to pick up a new wireless router for a client, along with a new toy for myself. Fry’s is my version of Toy’s ‘R’ Us.
After spending several hours finishing up with my client, I got home about 5 pm, and then Jan and I headed right back out to Chili’s for supper. We’re really glad they brought the Caribbean Salad, back, though Jan had the Margarita Chicken this time.
Tonight’s Monday TV which is great, so that’s about it for today.
Thought ya’ll might like to see our visit to Bar Harbor, Maine last year.
Bar Harbor and Bubbles…
Posted on August 24, 2009
Today we made the 50 mile trip down to the Bar Harbor area to see some of Maine’s Atlantic coast. The drive was pretty uneventful, except for a 25 minute wait right outside of Ellsworth for road work. Luckily, by the time we came home they were finished for the day.
Right after we got into the Bar Harbor area, we stopped for lunch at a small seafood place called Gateway Diner and had lobster rolls and sweet potato fries, and then split a pumpkin crumb pie with ice cream. Great food, but unfortunately for me, the place also had a gift shop with a lot of moose stuff.
Mucho $$$$ later, we stopped at the Bar Harbor Visitor’s Center right down the street to check out a tip that the lady at the diner mentioned about a loop road through Acadia National Park.
Getting directions, we headed out around the loop.
The first place we stopped was a scenic viewpoint overlooking Frenchman Bay, and this was just the start of a lot of beautiful scenery.
The dock area on the right side of the picture is Bar Harbor.
The next stop was Sand Beach.
Although the beach was closed today, apparently people really swim her, even though the water temp usually doesn’t get much out of the 50′s.
And some of the other views in the area are amazing.
Leaving the Sand Beach area, we drove down to a spot that unfortunately has been in the news lately.
The area is called Thunder Hole because of the noise of the waves when the right conditions makes the sounds reverberate and sound like thunder.
The area is also popular because you can go out on a rock that juts out into the Atlantic ocean and stand where the waves come in over your feet when the tide is right.
This point is where about 20 people were smashed by a 25 foot wave caused by a combination of high tide and Hurricane Bill. 11 people were hospitalized with broken bones, and 3 people, a 7 year old girl, her father, and an unrelated 12 year old girl, were swept out to sea in the 55 degree water.
The 12 year old girl and the father were pulled from the water by the Coast Guard, but his 7 year old daughter was later found dead.
When we were there, the area was still closed off, but a ranger said the waves have to get over the top of the handrail before it’s closed off.
Leaving the area, we drove further around the loop to more fantastic scenery.
Toward the end of the 27 miles we passed the Jordan Pond Inn, a restaurant we had been told about and thought we would later have dinner there.
Leaving the loop, we headed over to Bar Harbor to look around. The first thing Jan found, wouldn’t you know it, was a couple of moose stuff gift shops.
She really wanted this one, but we couldn’t figure out how to get it in the rig.
So she settled for trying on the latest in moose wear.
Walking down the hill we were able to look out over Bar Harbor itself.
And of course the many flower beds everywhere.
One of the ships I noticed in the harbor was a beautiful 4-masted schooner called the “Margaret Todd”.
And rather than being an old ship, she’s only about 10 years. She was launched in 1998 and built to give Windjammer cruises to the tourists.
Here’s what she looks like under full sail.
Before heading back over to Jordan Pond Inn for dinner, we drove down to the end of Bridge St. to take a look.
When it’s low tide, a sandbar is revealed that extends over to Bar Island in the distance, allowing people to walk over to the island. Unfortunately, at high tide it just looks like a boat launch ramp. Timing is everything!
Our dinner at Jordan Pond Inn was fantastic and we had a great meal. The restaurant was really something,
and the scenery was something else.
The view from the outside dining are is of an island called “The Bubbles”
Of course, the locals call it by another ‘B’ word, but I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out what the word is.
After a really great day, we finally headed home about 7 pm. Luckily, the morning’s road work was over, so we were home in about an hour.
Today is our last day here in Bangor. Tomorrow we head about 130 miles northeast to Houlton, ME, which is about 2 miles from the Canadian border.
We’ll stay there for three or four days, cleaning up some loose ends before we head over the border.
More later…
That’s about it for today.
More tomorrow…
Thought for the Day:
"Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress." Frederick Douglass, August 4, 1857.
fdas
