My Kind of Town...

I spent the 4th of July Holiday in Chicago with my parents and youngest brother.  We ate, we argued about McDonalds, we saw two baseball games, went on an architecural boat tour.  All in all, I think everyone enjoyed themselves and my brother and dad were ready to go back to Chicago (they had never been).

From Left: The building with what looks like a #4 on it was the "sexy" building  according to the tour guide.  Steven excited about having been to Wrigley Field.  A Family bean selfie.  Love the bean (okay, Cloud Gate). 

Not Rocky Mountain Oysters

Back when I was 12 I had steamed oysters for the first time.  My dad bought a dozen or so at Pikes Peak and my Aunt Mary Helen (and my mom or dad) steamed them.  They were horrible.  Texture, taste...no redeeming value.  Then there was oyster stew...milk (sometimes potatoes) and oysters.....worst soup ever. I also had raw oysters twice...both times were traumatic.

Well, when I was in Seattle in April, I discovered that oysters don't completely suck.  Not completely.
So when we were traveling this weekend I ordered fried oysters. Twice.  And I liked them (mostly.)

Joy (me) with Buffalo Style Fried Oysters. The Pumpkin is for decoration.

I also found that when oysters are fried, sprinkled with buffalo sauce and served with blue cheese...I don't hate them.  I also have swayed Kelli over to the "Oysters do not completely suck" Team. We wear our nebulousness regarding oysters with pride. 

Delmarva Trip Map

Here's a map of the trip we just took.  

  I'll finish up day 3 tomorrow (or sometime this week).

Delmarva Trip Day 2

We (Joy-me and Kelli-Joy's Best Friend) woke up early-ish on Sunday to the sound of the ocean outside the hotel room.  That's right, the bonus of staying in Virginia Beach is there's a Federal Employee/Military (even for off-duty travel) discount and it's off-season. Totally affordable to stay on the boardwalk!

We headed for the Del Marva peninsula and drove over the 23.7 mile Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel.  While not as striking as the more well-known Bay Bridge, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel was cool to cross (and I bet they see whales off of it in the winter).  You see, we were headed to Chincoteague, Virginia and spend a hour or two doing their local museum scavenger hunt throughout the exhibits. Yes, there's a bucket with a B in that museum and a porpoise spine cane.  After scavenger hunt fun, we went out to the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and drove out to the beach.  After building a sandcastle while flying a kite (kelli) and reading a book while convincing my lungs they like traveling (me), we had lunch.

This was a traffic circle two weeks ago. Kelli shouldn't be taller than that sign.

Kelli wanted a photo with her kite. At Chincoteague.

2 weeks ago this was a parking lot.  Sandy left a whole lot of sand in her wake. 

Cormorant at Chincoteague.

Then we spent the rest of the daylight identifying birds (Ruddy duck!) and I played peek-a-boo with a great blue heron. That evening we had seafood (again) and I decided since I was in the oyster capital of the world, I would try them again.  They didn't completely suck although the rest of the meal was sub-par.  Back at the hotel, we started watching The Notebook (neither of us had seen it before) but soon switched to a Lifetime Christmas movie.  Making fun of movies?  a past-time we both enjoy.

Del Marva Trip Day 1

Saturday morning, Kelli and I headed to Virginia Beach.  We had the idea of doing the DelMarva Loop...heading to Virginia Beach and (finally!!) taking the southern bridge to the Del Marva peninsula.  What we didn't know is that we would end up at three national wildlife refuges (Go FWS).  So after stopping for diet coke next to the scariest truckstop ever and finding the one toll road in Richmond (here's hoping we don't get a ticket for accidentally not paying.), we made our way to the Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge.

The Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge is completely undeveloped beach that starts south of Virginia Beach to the North Carolina Border.  I really want to walk to North Carolina someday, but i'm not sure if I ever will.  However, what we did see was at least 3 or 4 dolphin pods and maybe 30 or so dolphins. We saw dolphins jumping, twirling, and I even saw a tail (Kelli missed it) not far from shore.  However Dolphins are pretty much impossible to photograph with even my "nice" camera, but I did get a fin of one dolphin in a shot (I tried twice because dolphins are super tricky to photograph).  After dinner I tried Sheepshead for the first time.  Although a sheepshead has a face even his/her mother doesn't love, it's a succulent, tender fish that tastes a little like scallops.  

Sheepshead closeup found on the Internet. 

A montage of  my photos.  If you look closely in that middle picture, you can see a dolphin dorsal fin.

Back

I've spent the last 5 weeks in Utah with my parents.

While there I:
worked;
held (my niece);
kept a secret from my mom;*
attended two graveside services;
regretted I didn't let my brother show me how to knife (an oyster);
teach the other niece how to eat berries obnoxiously;
caught up with a friend from high school;
rode bikes;
was invited to Nicaragua next year;
rode 2k miles in a car;
presented;
ate at the Ranchhand for the 3rd time in 6th months;
realized that my parents watch at least one sport every night (many nights two);
played Ligretto with old friends;
introduced a dog to a little boy who kept saying, "meow";
teased my other brother;
had one-on one time with my sister-in-law; and

many other now memories.

The secret? After work I wandered outside to help my dad with the garden.  While I prepared soil for his greenhouse he came over to me saying, "I don't have the seeds."  He set them down in a plastic bag and couldn't find them.  We looked for them for several minutes but because it was so windy we thought they could easily be halfway across the valley. I was then sworn to secrecy.  Well, he found them a few days ago in the window well and the seeds are now seedlings in the greenhouse.

Steven Knifing Oysters at Hood Canal

Just Peeking In

Iguana at the Uxmal Ruins in Mexico.

I'm alive.  Between getting sick (again), preparing for a trip to the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula and being not sure what to blog here, I just let the blog lie dormant for a few weeks.  But I'm back from Mexico and (maybe) back blogging.  Hope this finds you well.

I'm back

So we made it back at 9:00 or so last night.  The trip was incredible.  If you ever get a chance to go to the Galapagos Islands, sell your first born, mortage your house and go!  No really, we had a great time both on the Ecuador Mainland and the Galapagos Islands.  Here's the first picture from the trip I put on Facebook.  This is a marine Iguana--these guys are the only oceangoing lizards who eat algae off rocks in the pacific.  They blow the salt water out of nostrils on their head, but I didn't get a picture of that.  This was a big one-he was probably 2.5 feet from head to tail (they have long tails).  I took the picture just outside the Charles Darwin Research Center.

Oh and as an aside, we made many, many booby jokes.  Really, how could we not?

Marine Iguana Galapagos 2011

Wordless Wednesday: I hope to see one of these (a marine iguana) in the next three weeks edition

From NG

Wordless: People in a Peach Orchard Edition

From Left: Steve L., Jeanette L., Courtney G., Jane P., Ben H., Me, Kelli K. Bottom: "Other Steve" and Roger.  Picture courtesy of Roger.

Calvert County Daytrip---

A few weeks ago Kelli and I decided to spend part of the day gnoshing on seafood, gawking at rays and skates and attempting to be fossil hunters.

We started the day at "Stoney's Seafood House" in Solomons Island, MD.  I'm almost ashamed to say I've ate at Stoney's four times but each time is so excellent I don't have a desire to explore another restaurant in the area.  We ordered buffalo style rockfish (better than many buffalo wings I've had), rockfish gyro and cheesy shrimp and grits.  All dishes were crowd pleasers (Kelli and Joy pleasers, I should say).  After eating while gazing out over an inlet at the bay and feeling sorry for a one legged sea gull, we headed over to our next destination,  The Calvert Marine Museum. 

Although both Kelli and I have been to the museum at least three or four times, we both really love this museum.  The Calvert Marine Museum was closed the day we were there , but we were still allowed to walk around the museum (for free).

The Calvert Marine Museum is one of the best small town museums I've ever visited.  Small town museums that focus primarily and in-depth on their local natural and anthropological history are a treasure in my opinion, and this museum delivers.  There's marine exhibits (and aquariums) on bay life, a large display showcasing the oyster business, boats, and even a couple of otters.  There's also a gem of a fossil display talking about the various fossils found in Calvert Cliffs.  Several rooms are devoted to the fossils.  The museum's presentation is perfect-not dumb downed, but still engaging with a couple of quirky details that makes the rooms oddly endearing.   For example, hidden amongst other displays is a quirky exhibit about fossilized alligator poop that was found in a fossilized shark's stomach.  Paleontologists are unable to tell how the feces got in the shark's stomach so there was a couple of possible scenarios presented.  There was even a couple of alligator feces on display.

After we went through the museum, we headed straight to the Calvert Cliffs State Park.  I had heard that there's quite a few fossils-plus the public is able to take whatever fossils they find.  The "best" part of the State Park are the "fossil beaches" on the Chesapeake Bay.  Most of the beach is covered during high tide though so watching the tide charts at Chesapeake Beach is suggested for a better trip.

Anyway, we walked along the beach for a while and started seeing shards of fossilized shells.  Then we noticed that there was a hillside full of decomposed fossilized clam shells.  After that, we started coming upon a few pretty cool finds.  We spoke to a father and son who informed us the best fossils were right around the mouth of a creek close to us.  Kelli decided to wade in the creek since the temperature was in the "balmy" high 40's and found several really cool fossils.  After that we headed back to avoid hiking in the dark, but not before Kelli exclaimed, "today was pretty much a perfect day!"  Indeed.

Clockwise from top left-Kell with a complete shell, Kelli in the creek, Kelli as we were leaving, the cliffs, Joy, fossil, the beach.

BollySwiss!

Once in Switzerland, you'll notice quite a few Indian tourists. One reason? Switzerland is a choice location to film Bollywood movies and dance scenes. The lake above? Oeschinensee lake is well-known to anyone who has watched much Bollywood films. In fact, I even recognized it from watching Bollywood films just a little bit at Delhi Dhaba in Arlington.

Robbie Williams Duet

While in Europe, Steven and I got acquainted with German MTV while we got ready for the day. One of our highlights of the day was this video, a duet between Robbie Williams and Gary Barlow with some obvious brokeback references. Because I'm from the US, I'm not a Robbie Williams fan, but this video cracked me up. Enjoy.

Wordless

Thanks Laura!!

Yesterday afternoon, a friend told me she'd design a new blog header for me based partly on the television room at Graceland pictured below. Pretty spiffy eh? Thanks a ton Laura, it looks great!!

Memphis

Thursday afternoon, a micro-burst (I can't believe it wasn't a tornado) went through Alexandria and an estimated 7k trees went down. Our power was out, (didn't come back until Saturday morning) major roads and the metro lines were shut down so it took me 2+hours to get home. Needless to say, we were lucky. In our neighborhood, there were trees down in every yard and at least one house on every block of every street had a tree through their roof or down on their car. Well, we were slated to go to Memphis. After packing with the lights out for the trip and getting 2 hours of sleep because my lungs wouldn't settle down and let me sleep---we were off for a 6:40 am flight, I was starting to think Memphis was a great idea. Our power went back on Saturday morning. I already took our trash out, turned off the AC and opened all the windows. When we got back on Monday, our apartment was surprisingly smell-free but I lost several plants and almost everything in our fridge and freezer except for a few condiments and some produce.
All in all, we had a great time in Memphis, but I'm exhausted. I'll blog later about the trip (which was awesome) but I'm trying to live by Elvis's motto:


......That's "Taking Care of Business....In a Flash.." For those unintiated to Graceland, Elvis came up with this in the late sixties/early seventies and it's on his plane, decorated in his television room in Graceland etc.

To Paraphrase Eric Cartman.......

Via Grain Edit

Okay, maybe I can't do everything I want to like well.... ride my bike, talk to people long...or walk much further than about a half mile slowly, but I'm doing better. The biggest problem is a "gurgly" right lung...but it's less audible than yesterday, and I'm feeling stronger than the past couple of days. Last night, a couple of friends brought me dinner which was awesome of them.

This weekend? Go out, but prepare for the Memphis trip the weekend of the 7th and 8th of August. Guitar shaped pool at our hotel? Yes, please.

Wordless

Mother?

For whatever reason, friends and co-workers keep bringing up "Mother's" Restaurant in New Orleans. After the 4th time in a week that the conversation drifted to Mother's, and I was told yet again I needed to eat there (I have actually), I wondered if there was a sign on my forehead that said "Mothers." I didn't see the sign in the mirror, but you never know.

On the First Day of Christmas, X-Mas Joy Gave to you a Virtual Trip to the Yucatan.