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  • skywatcher 8:30 pm on September 23, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

    Memorize Poetry #10/52; Vegan Cake #11/52; Scones…and the Beach #12/52 & #13/52 

    The following “adventures” pale in comparison to those of others, but they made me feel that I had tried something new, and for me, that is a large part of my adventure quest.  (I am wondering, though, why so many of my exploits seem to involve food?!?)

    Memorize Poetry #10/52

    While playing in the stream on my camping trip,  lines from this poem kept running through my mind; I decided that Wordsworth’s “The Word Is Too Much With Us” would be an apt poem to memorize.  And I did!

    Vegan Cake  #11/52

    My daughter wasn’t very helpful about what kind of cake she wanted for her 17th birthday.  She’s a runner, and all she would say is, “something healthy.”  Well, you can only go so far with healthy when it comes to cakes, but I did find a fantastic vegan chocolate cake recipe.  Dress it up with chocolate glaze and organic raspberries…yum!

    Blueberry Scones  #12

    I love baking (and eating) scones and have tried all kinds:  oatmeal (with and without raisins), cranberry-orange, cinnamon, and blueberry…aah, the blueberry.  Let’s face it: when I’ve made blueberry scones, the dough has turned blue as soon as I folded in the blueberries.  So I determined to try a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated…a pain-in-the-arse recipe, as it turned out.

    The technique worked fairly well:  I did not have blue dough.  The key was to press the blueberries into the dough,  fold the whole conglomeration into a rectangle, and finally, cut triangular scones.  The pain-in-the-arse part had to do with grating frozen butter and then keeping everything cold until just before the dough was kneaded and formed into scones.  The end result was a little too sweet for my taste, but I think that’s more a matter of personal preference; i.e., whether you like a “biscuit” vs a “cake” scone.

    At any rate, they looked pretty, and they disappeared quickly enough…

    The Beach  #13

    Why is it that men seem so much less self-conscious about their bodies than women?  I spent a few days at the beach recently, and there were plenty of men matter-of-factly applying sunscreen to their beer guts (while drinking yet more beer).  At the same time, the women were a little more reluctant to expose themselves – and I felt uber-critical about my own appearance!

    Here’s where the adventure comes in – simply a matter of screwing up my courage.  I wore a (string!) bikini in public for the first time in many, many years and found that it wasn’t as difficult as I anticipated.  In fact, I felt okay – no Demi Moore, but no one recoiled in horror or shielded his eyes.   No photos available – I’m brave, not crazy! 🙂

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  • AG 1:43 am on September 23, 2010 Permalink | Reply  

    Adventure #24: First time on a motorcycle! 

    While in Siem Reap, Cambodia, our Tuk Tuk driver planned everything for us, which was great! We didn’t have to think for ourselves, which is always nice when you’re traveling. (haha) So one of his suggestions was to go see a floating village, where all of the houses are built in the water. We concurred. So as we get closer to the destination, our driver informs us that we will need to ride motorcycles to get close to the water where our boat was awaiting us. I had never ridden on a motorcycle before and was a little anxious at the thought of it. But I figure, when in Cambodia…The idea of my first experience on a motorcycle ever while being in Cambodia made me laugh a little to myself. So without much hesitation and overthinking, I found myself mounting the back of a motorcycle with a small Cambodian man as my driver. He was a good driver, but there were many potholes on the dirt road so we were swirving a lot. But there were a few moments where I was able to let go and let myself enjoy the scenery of the green fields of grass and clear blue sky. Unfortunately I do not have a photo of this experience, but I will surely never forget it!

     

    • adventurechaser 5:39 pm on September 27, 2010 Permalink

      YAY for you! I’ll never forget my first ride. It inspired me to get my motorcycle license. I’ve only ridden a handful of times since – that was…. ’em, uh, well, more than 10 years ago (really, I’m not THAT old – am I?). The freedom of the open road – nothing like it.

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