Travels With Miranda

Not having had dinner, I came in from canasta feeling rather peckish. Toast was definitely in order.

I eat quite a lot of toast. It’s usually in the form of English muffins, which I like because one English muffin equals a slice of bread, but you get two pieces, plus the texture is just divine. I’ve been having an English muffin for breakfast at least 15 days out of 30 for the past 20 years or so.

When I am plugged into power, I use my toaster to cook my English muffins. I might even replace the toaster if it ever goes out. What’s nice about it is I’ve found the perfect setting on it for my English muffins, so I can just put one down and go do something else until it pops.

Not so when I’m boondocking. Like when I’m stuck cooking rice on the stove, making toast while boondocking means I have to stay in the kitchen and watch my cast iron pan very closely. It doesn’t taking long to go from delicious to charred beyond salvation. This muffin is not quite done, but oh, so close.

I prefer the taste of my toast made in the cast iron pan, although the texture isn’t quite as crispy on the outside, fluffy on the inside, as you get with the toaster. So both methods have their pluses and minuses. I don’t care as much for toast made in any other sort of pan.

For those wanting to try toasting their bread in a cast iron pan, heat the pan until very hot and then put the bread on it. My pan is well seasoned, so I do not add any fat to it. If the pan is hot enough, the bread won’t stick. I let it get brown on one side, flip it, let the other side get brown, and then repeat the exercise to get a little charring on both sides, but that’s optional.

End result, with a little peanut butter and some of Laura’s jam:

I’m off to bed. Laura and I are hitting the Willow Bunch community garage sale tomorrow. I’m only going to window shop and to get a change of scenery.

I just got back from happy hours (yes, plural) at my neighbours who sold me my property. I am going to call them Caroline and Charles from now on, all though that is not anywhere near their real names. Points to those who get why I picked those names.

Caroline, Charles, and I are kindred spirits. There is just no other way to describe it. We have similar values and attitudes towards life. They actually came to Saskatchewan in horse drawn covered wagons! I am blessed to have them here. This village will feel like home thanks to them.

I enjoyed way too much homemade white wine, venison salami, and cheese as we gabbed. Another neighbour, let’s call her Laura, came over at one point to join us. I now have access to showers and washing machines. Laura works ‘in town’ and said I am welcome to grab her house key from Caroline and use her facilities during the day!!!

I was sent home with a box of giant parsnips (will share a picture when I’m on a faster connection as they are weapon-sized) and two pallets to use as a front porch. I was also invited to a horse-related event in July (that sounds fun enough to pull me away from Stettler) and warned that my handywoman skills will be put to good use later this summer when Charles and Caroline start working on their addition, so I don’t need to worry about monetarily paying them back for using anything they offer me.

Caroline told me that folks here often find graineries (I think that’s the word), skeleton buildings made of fir that folks clad with plywood and turn into sheds. Charles is going to look for one as he’s always out and about doing pest control and said that I could likely pay a bachelor with a meal and some beer in exchange for having it brought out to me. I visited one of their’s and it would be more than just a shed once finished. It would have the potential to be a sweet little cottage, exactly what I envisioned having one day on this lot.

This village, or, rather, hamlet, feels like such a different place than it was this morning. I have to return a dolly to Caroline tomorrow and was told there’s always coffee on. I am going to learn to play Canasta on Friday night at Laura’s. Suddenly, I belong.

This place truly is my Haven.

Reader P.J. and her hubby just left after spending the afternoon together. They treated me to one last meal at Applebee’s (thank you!!!) and then came down to the campground to get a tour of Miranda. I have given so many tours of Miranda this winter. I haven’t felt that comfortable showing my home before.

It’s been a full year since we last saw each other, so it was good to catch up. A lot has changed!

P.J. showed me her beautiful scrapbooking project. This is a craft that really appeals to me as it is very textured and visually appealing, but I obviously don’t have the space for such a hobby. Looking through the pages filled with little mementos of the day, I realised that my blog is rather like a digital scrapbook.

They brought good weather with them: it is warmish and almost sunny out now!!!

Neelix was also super happy to have company; he appears to be petted out.

I’m really hoping to make it to Hankinson tomorrow, but it will depend on the wind more than anything else. If it’s smooth sailing with no muscling needed, it should be a fairly easy drive easily split into morning and afternoon sessions. Otherwise, I will only get about halfway, to Sioux Fallsish. But the drive from Hankinson to Minot is almost as long, so I’d really rather push hard and stay two nights at the casino and then just drive hard for a few days.

I’ve been monitoring the weather at my property and they hit not just the teens today, but the high teens, and it looks like sun and warm to hot weather for the rest of the week!!!! If this keeps up, I am going to feel comfortable heading straight there instead of dropping Miranda somewhere and scouting ahead with the toad.

It was so good to have company today. I probably won’t have any more real social engagements until I get to Donna and Ken’s in June.

Last night was perfect hibernating, I mean sleeping, conditions. I got nine straight hours. WOW!

I had a bit of a hard time finding the movie theatre in Columbus yesterday. I saw the sign by the road telling me I was in the general vicinity of it but could not find the building. I circled around the plaza for a bit until I saw some teenage boys holding soft drinks and popcorn bags come out of unmarked doors to what looked like a strip mall. I parked and walked through those doors to find a tiny mall with a few stores. I had to run a craft fair/Tupperware party gauntlet before I finally found the cinema.

It was your typical small town cinema, a couple of theatres and reasonable enough prices to make popcorn a treat, not a ridiculous indulgence. I ended up going for the 3D showing, but I won’t be doing that again. I had seen ‘Brave’ in 3D and was totally immersed, but with Iron Man 3, all I really got from the 3D glasses was blurriness at the periphery of my vision. Otherwise, I had a fun time as the movie is hilarious and makes up for the second one. I’m glad I saw ‘The Avengers’ in Hampton Roads, otherwise Iron Man 3 would have made almost no sense.

I got in and made my first real meal at home in AGES (pork chops, broccoli, rice) and then I settled down to watch another movie.

It’s another slow morning, but I’ll be doing a good cleaning blitz before I head out to meet P.J. I haven’t been spending much time at home and it shows.

When I’m just passing through an area like this for a night or two and don’t need my full office set up, I usually hang out in the living room and leave the office packed. I really don’t spend enough time in here when I’m parked long-term and I don’t know why. The arm chair is so much more comfortable for watching a movie than is the bed in the back of the study.

L gave me a 19″ TV to use for watching movies or as a bigger screen for my laptop because the tuner went out on it and it’s no good to use as a TV (a case of one person’s trash taking up storage room in the garage being someone else’s useful treasure). I was going to mount it in the study, but now I think I would be better off doing so in the living room to motivate me to use this space more. That will cut down on the ‘where’s your TV?!” comments that I get from most folks visiting the rig. I do need to get an adapter for it as Macbook Pros don’t have an HDMI port, and the older ones don’t carry audio from their mini display port, so I need some sort of audio cable, too.

One way that I have made the living room more comfortable is that I got rid of one of the two night tables I had bought as storage for the living room and have FINALLY found the perfect place for the remaining one.

This way, I get a cat perch and I still have a surface on which to put a cup (that black surface pushes back into the night table). I used to have it laid out so the short side was against the wall, which meant the ottoman was blocked and I couldn’t stretch my legs. Neelix’s cushion (and it’s always been his and purchased expressly for him, Tabitha never had any use for such luxuries) moves around depending on where I am in the rig. So that night table is usually clear to receive bags of groceries or whatever else is coming into the RV.

Some time ago, while looking for something completely unrelated, I found my night stand on Amazon! I paid $10 for two. Amazon is selling them for $125 EACH!!! And, yes, it’s EXACTLY the same thing! If you look at the reviews, there is another RVing using this same unit since it matches standard RV ‘golden’ or ‘medium’ oak cabinetry perfectly.

Time to turn the furnace back on and get started with my day!

I’ve edited my post about the drive to Kansas because my bad luck has had absolutely nothing to do with the fine folks at Cramer Tire in Midwest City, OK.

L suggested that I go get the flat tire looked at today so that it could sit overnight and we could monitor the pressure, plus it would cut down on the Wednesday stress. Great idea!

He fortified me with a blueberry pancake and bacon breakfast and then we slooooowly motored over to Wiechman-Bush Tire.

A tech came right out to look at my tire and would you believe my dumb luck: there was a HUGE hole in the sidewall! He says that the only explanation for that is that I hit something on the way here. He believes that the tire was good and that Cramer did right by me. It was just one of those bad days on the road. He promised to replace the tire with another used one, move the outside tire (the worst of my six) to the inside, and mount the ‘new’ tire on the outside, and that my rig would be ready in a couple of hours.

L and I went off so he could show me a good place to get gas. We then stopped at the U-Haul place where he gets his propane tanks filled to find out if they fill motorhomes (yes).

Next, he suggested we stop in his favourite thrift store, which was great since I was able to score some badly needed sporty summer skirts for just a couple of bucks a piece.

There, I made the most hilarious thrift store find of my life:

I am in Kansas and that is a pair of ruby slippers!

Back at L’s house, he took out his computer to show me a free state campground on the way north. I have five days to kill before I meet PJ and her hubby near Omaha, so the idea is to stop at that campground for a few days before pushing on to Stromsburg and its city park.

We’d just finished do that when my phone rang with news that the rig was ready. L dropped me off there and had a look at the tire. He is very happy with the one that was put on. He headed out to an appointment and I went in to pay the massive $39 bill. No, that is not a typo. That sound you hear is relief.

I then got gas and headed back to U-Haul on Seneca. I hadn’t noticed that the entrance was quite steep and I scraped the bottom of my tow bar getting in. The exit was even worse, so I ended up backing across the lot to go back out the way I came in, but at as much of an angle as possible. I still heard some scraping, but not as bad as when I came in.

Now, I’m back in front of the house. My birthday boy got roadsick, so I’m glad that I procrastinated on cleaning the bedding since I would have had to redo the job. Once the laundry is done, I’ll be ready to hit the road again. I’ll leave fairly early tomorrow, get supplies in Salina (Sal-EYE-na), and then check out the lake.