Luscious Fibers, Food and Family

enjoying our last day

Grant and I had a nice last full day in Lost River. We started our morning with warm lemon maple scones with blueberries and clotted cream. That's right vegan clotted cream. This is one of my favorite recipes from Vegan Yum Yum. We enjoyed our scones on the deck with strong coffee.

Then we went for a walk on the mountain road, which provided some good exercise and great photo opportunities. Even though it was raining we had good time.

The afternoon was spent reading, napping and working on the puzzle that we hoped to finish but we're not sure we're going to. Grant made great progress as he clearly had a hidden talent for puzzles. I'm amazed at how much he completed this afternoon. Then there's me who can't seem to get the edge finished.

Tonight we grilled out for the last time. Nothing special just some veggie burgers, but they were tasty as everything on the grill is always so good.  Now we're listening to big band music on the short wave and enjoying the singing insects and bright stars. Grant wants me to mention that because of the short wave and being on a mountain, we're listening to a station that's about 75 miles away.

Our vacation is coming to an end. We're leaving tomorrow morning and heading back home to spend the rest of the weekend with the kitties. We've had a wonderful vacation and we're already thinking about our next trip this amazing place. I'll leave you with another beautiful sunset from earlier this evening.

a canoe trip to remember

Before I talk about today's canoe trip, here are a couple pictures of our view this morning...

Grant and I went canoeing down the South Branch of the Potomac today.  We started our 6.5 mile (ok, apparently I was wrong earlier when I said 11 miles) journey at 10am and 4 hours later we reached our destination...thank goodness! Grant was originally going to write this post because I didn't know if I could be positive, but now that I've had some time to relax, the challenging, frustrating and smelly memories (yes, Grant had horrible gas the entire way and I was in the back, TMI?) are fading away.  So while the sometimes intimidating white water, incredibly hot noon heat, frustrating low water, torrential downpour with thunder and lightning (good times) pushed me to the edge of tears a number of times, those challenges were a scattering with lovely moments that I will continue to enjoy. Like paddling through beautiful still water and seeing the reflection of everything; watching a deer cross the river; seeing an eagle in flight; heading down river with two osprey guiding our way; making it through some rough water without tipping over and ultimately seeing the hand-painted "Frank's" sign telling us we had reached the end. 

Here are some pictures from our trip as well as a couple sunset pictures from the mountain tonight.

WE MADE IT!

enjoying lost river

So on the second day of our vacation we got up early to see the sun rise (actually we were up already thanks to our sweet kitties, more on that later.) As I was saying, we woke up early to watch the sun rise and we were not disappointed.

For breakfast I made english muffins (crazy, right? But they were very tasty and easy to make) and tofu benny, both from Vegan Brunch. Even though I had to improvise on the hollandaise sauce because I didn't have enough of some of the ingredients, we both liked the dish quite a bit.  I'll definitely make this again and at some point I'll purchase a round biscuit cutter so that my can look at pretty as Isa's. So here is my not so pretty but delicious version.

The rest of the day was spent napping and hanging out with the cats and trying to get them acclimated to the new and very strange surroundings. Our cats are definitely city cats and these strange new sounds and lack of sounds freaked them out a bit too much. Unfortunately, we ended up bringing them back to DC last night and we're both pretty sad about it, but ultimately it was the right thing to do. Moving on..

So now we're on to vacation day three. On the way back to the house we stopped at a farmers market and scored some peaches, heirloom tomatoes (super cheap) and bird egg beans. I'd never heard or seen these beans before but who am I to turn down fresh beans. 

Later in the afternoon we drove to Lost River State Park and went for a hike on what seemed like a tough trail to me. I was cursing at Grant during part of our hike for not warning me about incline and bugs, you'd think we were in the woods or something, but in the end after the hard part was over and I was breathing normally again, I told Grant I was happy we did it. It was a pretty walk and we saw lots of deer.

For dinner tonight I cooked up the bird nest beans, collard greens and brown rice.  I didn't really know how to cook the beans and couldn't find much about them online. However, I found one recipe that I modified a bit and they turned out yummy. Here's a picture of the fresh beans before being cooked.

Aren't they pretty? And they do look like tiny speckled eggs. I love the purple color. It's a bummer the color cooks away. Speaking of cooking beans. here's my recipe. For about 2.5 cups of beans, I put the beans, a chopped medium onion and 3 minced garlic cloves in a pot and covered it all with water. I simmered the beans for about 45 minutes and then added salt, pepper, and liquid smoke at the end.  I also flash cooked some collard greens with onions and served it all over brown rice.

I should also mention that dinner entertainment was a series of thunder/lightening storms that made Grant quite happy. I was even fascinated and a little scared of the intense thunder and lightening.  Ok, off to bed. Tomorrow we go canoeing.

Impromptu camping trip

The weather in DC was beautiful (unheard of in August) so Grant and I packed up and went camping. We had a nice evening by the fire. We had hotdogs and salad for dinner. We both slept great and this morning we're enjoying oatmeal and tea. We're heading out soon because it's hitting 90 today. Welcome back to DC weather.