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Laura

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July 2, 2015

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Travel

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Saint Martin day 3: Philipsburg and little bay beach

On Monday we started with a walking tour of the cruise ship port, Philipsburg, which is on the Dutch side of the island. It has an old courthouse on Wathey Square. It is the shopping capital of Saint Martin and a bit overwhelming.

We started on the boardwalk and enjoyed a view of the lovely blue water.

We stopped at Wathey Square and the pier for some photos.

Saw some great examples of caribbeann architecture including this church:

The shopping was nonstop on front and back streets:

We stopped in the Guavaberry Rum store for some samples and purchases.

We had lunch on the boardwalk at Taloula Mangos and started with Guavaberry coladas. Look how pink!

After lunch it was time for beach lounging at little bay beach, accessed from the Divi beach hotel.

The beach was lovely. The snorkeling was OK.

After our afternoon of lounging and snorkeling we headed back to the French side of the island to go back to our apartment and stopped at the monument commemorating the friendship of the two sides of the island.

For dinner we headed to Grand Case, the culinary capital of the Caribbean. After perusing the menus along the main avenue, we settled on Le Cottage.

We first had a delicious amuse bouche of sweet potato, carrots, and ginger chilled soup. omg, so good! Carl ordered the creole seafood tasting and I had soup and an eggplant dish.

The first plate that came out as part of Carl’s tasting menu was cod fritters with sweet and spicy sauce. I neglected to get a photo of that plate. The second plate was fried white and black sausage with a side of fruit slaw.

My first plate was French onion soup, because, you know, I love that stuff. Just look at that presentation!

Then, the magic happened. Carl got a crazy tasting plate with a number of seafood items that he actually enjoyed! It was awesome.

Here he is eating some raw fish on a toast!

I got my eggplant dish at the same time, beautifully plated.

We closed with bananas flambé, which I was so excited about that I didn’t take a photo. It was delicious. And we got the traditional shot of house infused rum at the end of the meal. Carl said his food was great, and so was mine. Nothing to jump up and down about, but still very good.

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Posted on

July 1, 2015

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Travel

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Saint Martin vacation days 1 & 2

Arrival Day

Lots of flying but we made it. Crazy airport, of course, and slightly scary driving.

After finding our cute little apartment on Orient Bay, we hit the market for some essentials (like wine) and then had dinner at Le Piment, a short walk from our apartment. The salads and pizza were amazing. Check out the plating on Carl’s Salad!

Day 2: Sunday driving tour

On Sunday we woke up early and took a stroll down Orient Beach, which is about 100 yards from our apartment. Unfortunately, this is the time of year where high winds blow in off the Atlantic so the surf on our beach is quite rough. The walk was nice, we saw the other place we considered staying and are glad we picked this apartment. We also found the nude beach. Yep. People were walking on it. Nude (older) people.

View of Orient beach from the north end, after hiking up the hill a bit:

After deciding that it was too windy to stay at our beach, we took a driving tour of the island. The first stop was at the north end of the island, Anse Marcel. We quickly learned that driving on Saint Martin is scary, with very narrow and extremely hilly roads. It didn’t help that our rental car has no power and is laughable trying to make it up the really steep sections.

Anse Marcel is a little sheltered beach, with only a few hotels. The water was calm and gorgeous:

Our next stop was Grand Case, the culinary capital of Saint Martin. We walked the length of the town and then had lunch at Talk of the Town, a “lolo” which is a street side stand supposedly, but seemed like a restaurant to us. I had some rum punch ( of course) and a whole smoked red snapper. Head and all. It was amazing!

Carl and our drinks:

My whole red snapper:

The beach at Grand Case:

We then headed to Marigot, but just drove through because the tourist office was closed.

Our next stop was Baie Rouge, an amazing beach that we will definitely return to lounge and snorkel.

We next looped around by Mullet Beach and Simpson Beach, but parking near both was overflowing so we didn’t stop. However, we were able to stop at Little Bay Beach, where I took my first iguana photo. The beach itself was very nice so we decided to come back.

We entered the beach through a hotel. The flags show you the wind:

And in Philipsburg we ran into the PwC building!

Our last stop was at Dawn beach, but we basically walked out, turned around and walked back to the car. We then returned back to our apartment and rested up for dinner.

There are a number of interesting restaurants right down near the beach where we’re staying so we opted to go there for dinner. We ended up at Cote Plages, a French restaurant. Everything is so wonderfully plated here, but I neglected to get a photo of the starter, which was a mushroom and spinach pie with a salad and cold soup.

Carl had a duck shepherds pie for his entree and I had a creole mahi mahi dish. We finished with a dessert called pineapple carpaccio, which we came to realize later is quite common here. All of my dinner photos aren’t high quality because I used my phone. Flash photography with my Canon DSLR in a restaurant is beyond my skills.

Creole mahi mahi (Good flavor, but not enough spice and the fish was a bit overdone):

Carl’s Shepherd Pie with duck – he says it was good:

Pineapple carpaccio:

We also learned that its customary for restaurants to give you a digestif of house infused rum to finish your meal. This place gave us passion fruit and strawberry, and passion fruit was the clear winner.

I made friends with the restaurant cat, giving her little bits of my fish.

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Laura

Posted on

June 21, 2015

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Cycling

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Bike training: June 6th & 7th

My bike training updates will skip weeks here and there due to a bunch of travel I have coming up, but I definitely will fill you in when I get out to ride! On June 6th I rode 66 miles mostly east from home, on a lovely day. It was my first really hot ride of the season, and the last ten miles or so were rough. I was beginning to get heat exhaustion, based on the goose bumps I had while riding and my red face when I got home. Our cooler than normal spring hasn’t helped me acclimate to our typical level of heat. Regardless, the ride was nice and I was able to average 16.4 mph.

On Sunday June 7th, I rode 32.5 miles in an out and back route on loop 360 to get in some hill training. My GoPro has been having battery issues and it immediately turned off on my Sunday ride so I wasn’t able to get any photos 😦

Not too far from home, some sort of horse competition arena. No idea what those things are really called.

It always makes me sad to see dogs in the middle of country roads.

Railroad bridge with debris from flooding underneath.

Railroad tracks along the road

Littig road is one of my favorites to ride out east

Bridge hidden in the trees

Old farmhouse

Intersection of Hog Eye Rd and Ingrid Dr. Hi Ingrid!

Pretty views

So many old cemeteries, this one is Littig Cemetery

I believe this is a dog racing track, with the long skinny pens

Another cemetery, this one in Manda TX.

The old Manda schoolhouse, now a community center.

Best country church ever, the New Sweden Church

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Laura

Posted on

June 5, 2015

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Cycling, Uncategorized

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Bike training May 30 – 31: 2015 Atlas Ride!

For the fifth year in a row, I rode the Atlas ride, the kickoff ride for the Texas 4000. The Texas 4000 is a 70 day bike ride from Austin to Anchorage undertaken by approximately 70 UT students. Texas 4000 cultivates student leaders and engages communities in the fight against cancer. They share hope, knowledge and charity in the fight against cancer through their 4,000+ mile bike ride from Austin to Anchorage. The students can take one of three routes: Ozarks, Sierra, or Rockies.

This year, the ride was part of my training plan for the Rock’N Hot Bike MS Ride I plan to undertake in September. I like this ride because it goes from Austin north (often with a tailwind) to Lampasas and ends at a winery.

At the start of the ride, this year’s Texas 4000 riders line up in front of the group with alumni from previous years behind them.

Starting line

it was a beautiful day for a ride. It started out cloudy with some chance of rain but that quickly transitioned to sunny skies. The temperature was pleasant and while the winds were slightly out of the north, they were light. For the first 18 miles I was in a pace group averaging 19 mpg. Shortly after one of the riders behind me crashed, I decided to hang back and let them lose me so I could ride by myself. Well, that and the crazy pace they were taking up the hills was a bit too much after a while.

White yuccas along the side of the road

Blue skies with some dark clouds along the horizon that sort of resembled a mountain range in the distance.

New bridge on the left, old bridge on the right

Toppa Joppa Too Ranch

Lots of white yuccas along a small road

Big sky country

Coming into Burnet, little church

Old shack on a private ranch road

Private ranch road

Horse and a fuzzy donkey

More ranch road. This was the best part of the ride. No traffic. Hardly even other cyclists. Beautiful views and perfect weather.

The ride end was moved this year from the Texas Legato Winery to a park in Lampasas due to the heavy rains we’ve been receiving. The last mile of this ride is always the hardest, no matter the distance. People can sponsor signs of their friends and family that have or had cancer. I try to read each sign and it always makes me tear up. It really underscores the great fundraising work these UT students are doing on their ride to Alaska.

In Lampasas, one of the in memory / in honor signs

Little cheering squad at the finish

I rode 68 miles in this year’s Atlas ride.

This year’s ending was at a fun little sculpture park

On Sunday, I rode out Parmer Lane for a 34 miles total. Not much new to see, but Brushy Creek Park was definitely flooded!

Brushy creek, east side of Parmer

West side of Parmer

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May 25, 2015

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Cycling

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Bike training season is here!

It’s official, I’ve decided to fundraise for the Bike MS: Rock’n Hot Ride in Arkansas which takes place September 12th and 13th. The ride goes from Little Rock to Hot Springs and back. I’ve always wanted to spend some time in Hot Springs, so hopefully we’ll get to do that in September.

I’ve been riding a good deal, weather permitting (and sometimes not permitting), this spring to start getting ready for training season which I officially kicked off last weekend. I’ve done three event rides: the Easter Hill Country Tour in Kerrville, the Red Poppy Ride, and the Real Ale Ride, all of which I highly recommend.

The Easter Hill Country Tour is a 3 day ride with a variety of lengths that takes place every Easter weekend. This year, we talked some friends into accompanying us out to Kerrville and we had some great riding.

Our first day riding was Friday and it started out quite gloomy.

Sheep

But after awhile, the sun came out and treated us to some gorgeous hill country riding. And that was the last time we saw the sun that weekend, but at least it never rained on us!

Randy

Ranch road

Goofballs

Jo and a Texas ranch

Carl

Jo and Randy coming up a big hill

Randy

Carl

On Saturday, it was even gloomier and kind of cold. I rode by myself since I planned to ride 60+ miles.

Small dam in a river

Oh yeah, it was windy!

We took a short drive over to a replica stone henge, complete with Easter Island head replicas in Ingram TX.

Sunday was quite gloomy as well. Carl and I rode the short loop together and then stopped for lunch in Fredericksburg with Randy and Jo.

Carl

I also rode the Red Poppy Ride again this year. Much nicer weather this time around, if a bit windy of course.

Yellow wildflowers

Fields of Indian Paintbrushes and Bluebonnets

The orange flowers are Indian Paintbrushes

So much yellow

Roadside pink winecups

Small Texas road lined by wildflowers

Big white prickly flowers

Purple and yellow

On a nice weekend in May, we took a ride up to a winery in Comanche. I rode my bike straight north, shadowing 183, to Briggs Texas where my husband picked me up. It was a great day to ride north, with a 20 mph tailwind. Apparently I just missed a good little rainstorm in Austin. I saw the dark clouds as I was headed north west.

Way out on Ronald Reagan Blvd

I love the white flower stalks (a type of yucca) – they have bell shaped flowers on them.

Very large red yucca

Old, falling down stone house near Florence

White and yellow flowers

My GoPro unfortunately ran out of batteries for the Real Ale Ride, but I did get one important shot to prove I was there. Carl and I both got flats on that ride, and then I went ahead and followed that up with another flat the very next day. Hopefully flat season is behind us!

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Laura

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April 26, 2015

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Cycling

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Unboxing my new Public Bikes cruiser and a bike training update

Well, I finally added a new bike to my fleet. The right number of bikes is always N+1, where N is the number you currently own, right? I’ve wanted a more laid back bike for slow, short rides that I can just wear normal clothes to ride. Somehow I came across a Public Bikes sale online and knew that I found my next bike. I plan to outfit it with an electric assist wheel along the lines of the Copenhagen Wheel.

The experience of getting a mostly assembled bike straight to your doorstep is pretty great, so I wanted to share it.

While I’m on the subject of bikes, I decided to postpone this year’s Bike MS ride until September because I’ve had a lot of trouble scheduling my training rides. So that’s why there haven’t been any bike training updates. But don’t worry, I’ll be back at it soon!

The first part I noticed was the awesome box covered in biking quotes.

Then I pulled the mostly assembled bike out of the box. There was a second box that held the fancy bike basket.

The basket is handmade and came with a hand written number on it.

The bike came with a nice pedal wrench and bike sized Allen wrenches to help with the few assembly tasks.

The only assembly required was to put the handlebars in the stem, adjust the angle of the handlebars, and screw on the pedals. Oh, and put the fancy basket on. What a beauty!

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Laura

Posted on

March 4, 2015

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baking, cooking

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Ginger fig cake recipe

I recently made quite the birthday meal for my husband, making two of our favorite recipes, and trying out two new ones. I made Food & Wine’s Roasted beets with pistachios, herbs, and orange, Smitten Kitchen’s Swiss chard and sweet potato gratin and Mushroom Bourguinon and this Ginger fig cake, adapted from Kitchen Konfidence. I made the recipe healthier and also added figs and we loved it, so here it is for others to love!

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Posted by

Laura

Posted on

February 28, 2015

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Cycling

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Bike MS 2015 training is in full swing!

Well, it’s official. I’ve signed up for my 8th annual Bike MS ride and started training 3 weeks ago! For the second year in a row, I’m doing the Sam’s Club Round Up Ride in DFW on the first weekend in May. I had originally planned to choose a different ride, but our schedules this year just didn’t allow it. Plus, they’ve changed up the Sam’s Club Round Up Ride so that it ends in downtown Fort Worth’s Sundance Square on Sunday, rather than ending at the Texas Motor Speedway both days. Thanks to you, I achieved top fundraiser status last year, so that should make this a good year. I haven’t yet set up my fundraising page, but I did have an interesting training ride last weekend that I wanted to share. We were in Dallas to tour some breweries and I took my bike and explored the paved hike and bike trails in the area. There are many miles of bike trails in Dallas, but almost no bike lanes. We stayed right downtown at the Magnolia Hotel and I took off from there Saturday morning. You can see my 41 mile route on Garmin Connect.

I rode along bike routes, which were sharrows, not dedicated bike lanes, down past the American Airlines Center to pick up the Katy Bike Trail.

The Katy Trail was a popular place to be on a Saturday morning. Luckily, it had two paved sections for most of its length, half of which was for pedestrians only.

After coming to the end of the Katy Trail, I rode on the streets for a while and passed through Southern Methodist University (SMU).

Next I came to White Rock Lake, a nice lake with hiking and biking all around it just north of downtown, with some very nice houses over looking the lake.

Houses along the lake:

At the north part of the lake, I exited onto the White Rock Creek Trail. It was nice and new in some sections and quite old in other sections. It was fairly flat and not that crowded.

Saw the Dallas train a few times – the DART.

After a while I split off on to the Cottonwood Trail, which was a new trail.

The Cottonwood trail took me under intersection of interstates 635 and 75.

At the top of the Cottonwood trail, I cut over on some streets to Valley View Park to pick up the north end of the White Rock Creek Trail. I saw a Mini Convertible that had a bike rack just like the one I used to have – including bike and beer stickers on the bike rack!

The While Rock Creek Trail returned me to White Rock Lake right where I left. The trails along the lake switched between open and closed road and paved trail.

It’s small in this photo, but I could see downtown Dallas from a number of places along the lake.

I left the lake for the Santa Fe Trail by the White Rock Lake Dam. It was a long sloping dam.

The trails often had these happy little bike signs reminding people of proper etiquette when sharing the trails.

The Santa Fe Trail took me to Deep Ellum, a neighborhood just outside of Dallas that totally reminded me of East Austin. The trail obviously used to be train tracks at one point.

After the trail ended I had just a mile or two left to get back to our hotel. I found a bike lane on one road, but mostly sharrows. Luckily there aren’t many cars out in downtown Dallas on a Saturday late morning.

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Laura

Posted on

January 18, 2015

Posted under

Crafts, Gifts

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2014 Gifting: Leaf imprinted bowls

Every Christmas, I try to make one or two handmade gifts for my favorite people. One of those gifts is typically an ornament, which I will share with you in time to make your own during the next holiday season 🙂

However, I did make a gift that isn’t an ornament, and it is this polymer clay dish by Crafts Unleashed. It’s a small, decorative dish that could be used to hold some earrings or something similarly small. I basically followed the method in the post, but used a few different supplies. I bought white Sculpey clay III, which from the review seems to be a bit easier to work with than Premo by Sculpey. I also picked up a really cheap Sculpey clay tool set at Joann Fabrics for the cutting tools, but found that the little white roller worked better than a cheap rolling pin I bought at HomeGoods. The main thing I used the actual rolling pin for was to press the fresh leaf into the clay after it was flattened. The leaves came from a tree in our yard, and I used the ring from a glass jar as a circular cutout. I had a gloss clear coat from previous projects, and a bowl in our cupboard that I could use for this project and then dedicate for future craft projects. I’ve read that kitchen dishes should not be used for polymer clay projects. I made 10 dishes in total.

My supplies:

Close-ups:

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Laura

Posted on

January 2, 2015

Posted under

Crafts, Gifts, sewing

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A simple baby bib

A friend recently had a baby boy, and to commemorate the occasion I wanted to make her a simple gift so I settled on a baby bib. This free pattern from Delia Creates was the perfect solution. I love the simple way it fastens – with a little knot that is pulled through a button hole. My friend’s baby shower was Nascar themed, and the baby’s namesake has to do with her alma mater, so I decided on a football theme for the bib in her university’s colors. I was lucky to find the helmet pattern and then used a solid red for the back of the bib. The pattern was easy to follow and went together quickly.