Just Desserts or All's Well That Ends With Dessert

Craisin & Apple Crumble in a Paella pan?

When you have plenty of wood and a WFO, there are times when you want to avoid doing house or yard chores, and go straight to cooking (actually, straight to eating...but raw has its drawbacks). Towards the end of the day, I decided that if I fired up the oven, I could idle away at least a couple of hours and end up with some good eats (by the way, my favorite cooking show).

Nice thing about doing this the day after a bread bake, the oven was pretty hot already, so it didn’t take much wood or time to get up to 475°F (I probably didn’t need to build another fire, but again...when you have plenty of wood...)

Below is Susan's Rhubarb Crunch recipe that she made for an FFA cooking contest at Shell Lake High School in the mid to late 1960's. I like more of the crunchy topping than she did, so I bumped up the quantities a bit when I make it. The call for sugar certainly can vary with season’s rhubarb, as with most fruits, so you'll have to be the judge on the amount of sugar(s) you want to add. As always, add less sugar than called for and mix it into the prepared fruit to taste…don't add more sugar to the dry topping mix. What I like about this recipe is that even though it originally called for rhubarb, almost any fruit or combination works well.

Pre-heat oven to 375°F (It's a strong possibility that the dessert will boil over a bit during the bake, so place a foil-lined cookie sheet on the shelf below the main baking rack.)

Susan’s Rhubarb Crunch

   2.0   C Prepared rhubarb, (rough chopped)

   1.0   C Flour -dry

   1.0   C Old fashioned oats -dry

   3/4   C Sugar -dry

   1/4   C  Brown Sugar -dry

   3/4  tsp Cinnamon -dry

   3/4  tsp Nutmeg -dry

   1/2  tsp Kosher salt -dry

   1/2   C Butter, softened (+ extra for the baking dish)

Butter an 8 x 10 baking dish well on the inside (especially the corners).

Mix the dry ingredients together. Pour the prepared rhubarb (fruit) into the baking dish and level it out. Spread the mixed dry ingredients over the top of the fruit and dot it with softened butter.

Bake for 45 minutes, lowering the oven temp to 350°F after adding the prepared dessert. You should see liquid bubbling up the sides as it nears being done.

***  After a bread bake this winter, I got hungry for dessert. I always loved Susan’s rhubarb crisp, so I thought I’d throw something together based on her original recipe. I reasoned that how else do you know if  you’re on a diet if you don’t experience indulgence? So, armed with that logic and no rhubarb, I started rummaging around the pantry. I came up with some Fuji & HoneyCrisp apples as well as a package of frozen cranberries. Sounded like I could use them in place of the rhubarb and since the oven was already hot.

I rough chopped the apples, gave ‘em a good squeeze of lemon juice and tossed them in the Paella pan. (“Why a Paella pan?” you ask, well simply because it was hanging in the pantry in plain view...and I’d probably have to dig for the “proper baking dish” called for in the recipe.) 

I’d read apples take a bit longer to cook, so I also added the butter, brown sugar, cranberries, nutmeg, & cinnamon. I mixed it briefly and then put it in the oven to give it a little pre-cook. I put the oats & flour...oops...I didn’t have nearly enough rolled oats (I mean really, how could anybody not have a large carton of rolled oats somewhere in a cupboard?) 

Since I’d already deviated quite a bit from the original recipe (and it’s not like any of the ingredients weren’t good by themselves), so with that thought process in my beady little brain, I decided to use my Quaker Simply Granola (AKA: Oats, Honey, Raisins, & Almonds) to make up for the lacking rolled oats (and slyly slipped the original recipe under the cutting board where I wouldn’t be reminded how far I’d strayed). 

After the apples started to soften, I went back in the house and gathered up my rogue, unconventional topping from the kitchen counter and grabbed the butter dish...back out to the WFO. 

While sprinkling the topping over the cooking apples, I was surrounded by a pretty sensuous cloud of dessert calorie vapors...heavenly (and to be sure, decadent). I slopped slabs of butter on top of the dry topping mix and put the whole shooting match back in the oven.

Without any concept of how long this bigger pan of dessert was going to take to cook, I bit the bullet and surrendered myself to the fact that I needed to stand there and salivate until the damn thing was done. (Oh, the sacrifices I make for my stomach!)

Well, it didn’t take that long...and it’s not like I needed food immediately or that my belt would need tightening in the near future. Upon reflection, those were 20 minutes very well spent. Certainly sped up the cooking time having an oven temp closer to 500°F than the original 350°F and pre-cooked apples. The only thing that would have made this better would have been ice cream.

Today is my day to celebrate Susan’s May 7th birthday. She would’ve been 70 this year and I’m positive, still able to kick my ass (in a loving way of course). I was advised by my friends to do many different things on this day of celebration, but my favorite suggestion was to make a dessert we both loved...surprise, here comes another variation of her rhubarb crunch. I did have rhubarb in the garden, so I used 3 cups of chopped rhubarb and 1 Fuji apple chopped. I had just picked up some blueberries, so I added about a half cup of them as well. As I mentioned, I like the crunch on top, so I chose to mix all the dry ingredients together with the butter, to then apply the whole kit & caboodle on top of the layer of chopped fruit (I’m sure she’d have kicked my ass over that move as well.)

I am firing the WFO tonight for a bread bake tomorrow, so I did this dessert in the electric oven. The butter dish was getting low, so I greased the pan (yes, I actually had dug out the correct glass baking dish for this) with vegetable Shortening. I simply spread out the chopped fruit & berries and then put the crumbly topping mix over it and put it in the preheated oven...well, I guess I did at least one thing according to the recipe.

I baked it for almost an hour at a lower temp (325°F)...so, as you’ll note from the previous paragraph, I was referring only to preheating the oven in regards to following the recipe.

Into the preheated oven (with drip pan beneath).

It took an extra 15 minutes because I'd loaded it up...

...but it really turned out nicely...a fitting tribute to Susan (and just desserts!)

At any rate, it tasted damn good with Umpqua Vanilla Bean ice cream and brought back many fine memories of our almost 50 years together...and almost 48 years as married folks! It truly was a great way to celebrate the love of my life’s birthday (and satisfy my sweet tooth).

Nuts! Do you eat this masterpiece with a spoon or a fork?

What would Emily Post say?

(Who really cares?)

Guess I’ll use both, since my dishwasher works pretty well and I’ve got plenty of dish washing soap (not to mention a dozen spoons and a dozen forks in the drawer).





Well, I guess it doesn't really matter after all...both utensils worked extremely effectively (as expected...I mean, that is sorta their purpose...) transferring goodness to my eager mouth. A note here for those who prefer food in their mouths, not on their shirt/blouse: I'd suggest eating ice cream first and quickly on a warm fruit crunch if you chose to use the fork...fork tines can be leaky, just sayin'.





By the way, in addition to my culinary celebration of Susan's birthday, I noticed that tonight is the Strawberry Moon (May 7, 2020) deemed by NASA as the last Supermoon of 2020. Apparently there is some debate on whether it qualifies as a true Supermoon, but I'll side with NASA since there is a big, beautiful, full moon shining down on my memories with Susan (and an empty dessert plate).

Roasted Shrimp & Potatoes (with green stuff)

After my normal Friday bread bake for the neighborhood, the oven was still plenty hot for me to cook some dinner. Easy to say, but you do need to have some idea of what you’d like to cook and actually have the ingredients to follow the idea through...who said cooking was easy? In addition, I wanted something simple after baking 24 loaves of bread...some might say I was being lazy, but I was just hungry & pooped (well, and a bit lazy 🤔).

I started looking around for something to cook and miraculously I came across some frozen pork belly all sliced up and vacuum packed--Jackpot. OK, now with bacon (basically) at the ready, I’m pretty convinced that you could make something tasty out of darn near anything that would be safe to consume and couldn't walk away fast enough. Next to the pork belly was a bag of frozen, peeled, tail-on shrimp...Jackpot! (As Susan once said loudly in Costco when she found 1.75 L bottles of Hendricks Gin..."Look, what the good Lord has provided!") Now to flesh the dinner menu out (boy, that sounds a bit morbid in this context), I needed some carbos for bulk (fiber for those self-appointed culinary elitists). Looking into some of the baskets in the pantry, lo & behold...I spied a bag of small red & Yukon gold potatoes peeking back at me with all those cute little potato eyes--Jackpot #3 (maybe I should be headed for Las Vegas instead of fixing dinner).

At this point I knew that the “proper & balanced diet” police were going to step in and take away my dinner plans if I didn’t add some green stuff of some kind pretty soon 👮. Now, I really like most salads (without tomatoes or cucumbers thank you!), but I was holding in my lazy/pooped pattern for dinner and Lordy! Lordy!, I’d already been working really hard foraging for this dinner and just wanted something easy & simple to make it at least look healthy. Voila! I discovered a small bag of "organic" baby spinach leaves in the crisper (triple washed already–yahoo!)

Cut potatoes, face down & ready

The evening meal was now coming into focus. One pan, one meal...no Julia Child’s kitchen mess here tonight. I sliced about six of the little potatoes and put them in an oiled steel pan, cut side down. I let the frozen shrimp thaw in a small bowl with some lime salt (and wandered a bit in the garden looking for some evidence of spring...no luck). It didn’t take long for the shrimp to get mostly thawed, so I took the pan of spuds out to the den and placed them in the oven (at about 475°F now). I didn’think it would take more than 15-20 minutes for the spuds to cook and get some of that brown & tasty crust on the cut side.





As soon as the potatoes were cooked and browned, I moved them onto a plate.











Adding a little more oil in the pan, I tossed the shrimp in and stuck ‘em into the oven. Didn’t take more than a minute or two to cook them on each side. I was able to watch them and flip ‘em over pretty quickly so they didn’t toughen up.

When I thought they were almost done, I pulled the pan out and tossed the baby spinach on top and...you guessed it...back in the oven. I just wanted the leaves to steam a bit and absorb some of the shrimp flavors.






It only took a couple of minutes more to wilt the spinach...I will say that if anybody had stopped in at that moment they would have thought I’d absolutely lost my mind frying up a batch of wilted, green leaves (certainly didn't look like spinach anymore).

I brought the pan & cooked potatoes back into the house for plating. I thought about being proper and transferring to my dinner plate with a spatula...but remember I was not channeling Julia Child for this meal to fill the dishwasher. The quickest and easiest transfer method was to just up-end the pan on my plate, so the shrimp were on top of the wilted spinach. The hot shrimp juices and remaining flavored oil gave the spinach even more flavor as they flowed down and over the greenery. A sprinkle of potatoes on top rounded out the volume factor with a toasted baguette slice added for atmosphere & crunch. To give the dish even a little more pizzaz, I added some Petits Poivrons (Sweety Drop Peppers) for color. Not quite as flavorful as Peppadews, but still give a nice pop & flavor to a dinner.




This simple dinner was exactly what I was hoping for...tasty, easy, & filling...now, what’s for dessert...(burp)?

Oh crap! I forgot all about the pork belly slices...I wish I had a great excuse here, but the fact is I just totally spaced it. This is probably where some smart-a** foodie would remind me that "mis en place would have prevented this grievous error"...but I didn’t even make it to the mis en place step. However, the oven was still hot and I had quite a few little potatoes left in the bag...hmmm...

OK, follow up plan is to wash up the little spuds, dry them and plunk them in a Dutch oven. Add EVOO, salt, pepper, and cut up pieces of the pork belly slices (AKA lardons at this point) and I’m Bon Appetit bound again. I tossed ‘em all together and planted the covered Dutch oven in the WFO. After about 25 minutes at 475°F, I pulled the pot out and stirred everything. I was hoping most of the pieces of meat would drop to the bottom of the pot and they did. Back into the oven for another 25 minutes and the lardons got some color to them and infused a whole lot of goodness into the little potatoes. I took the Dutch oven out of the WFO and brought it inside to cool. I planned that these tasty little treats would adorn my dinner entrees for several upcoming meals.  😎

I am now a firm believer in having roasted red & gold small potatoes available at all (or most) times. I use them to make my favorite pesto potato salad, hearty breakfasts with eggs, as a whole wheat bread “additive” to help keep in moisture, and--of course--for just plain snackin’ -- Yumm!

Now where was I? Hmmm...oh yeah,  ...burp, dessert!

A New Decade Starts in California (Part 2 of 2)

As I mentioned in the previous post, my last full day in Carlsbad involved quite a journey up the coast. I wanted to get to that Oceanside pier and it didn’t look all that far. I mention this, because on the way walking back “home”, I got a text from Layne wondering what my schedule/arrival time would be for the Newport Coast Villas where they had just checked in. I sent back that I wasn’t really sure yet, and I was just now starting to walk back to my timeshare unit in Carlsbad.

Throughout the walk back down the coast, I would get updates from her, saying: “We’re waiting for the room to open up...”; “Headed down to the pool area for a wine & cheese social...”, “Good selection of beers at the social as well...”, etc. I thought at the time that she was keeping me updated on things that really didn’t matter to me since I was still walking south towards my condo unit and didn’t bother responding. When I finally got home after dark, I texted her back saying I figured I’d leave about 10 on Sunday morning and would arrive early afternoon (planning to get my steps pretty much under control before martini time). I know you may not believe that there can be stunned silence while texting, but I swear for this one it existed. Layne responded with relief, because they had expected me to arrive Saturday afternoon, not Sunday, and were getting very worried about me getting stranded on the beach or being rolled by a criminal ocean element. We laughed pretty good about it later...after Sunday martinis of course.

The weather started out cool & damp at the Marriott’s resort complex (red x marks the spot), but being reunited with my friends and being a short distance from the beaches...it was awesome. We were pretty lazy for the week and as the weather started improving we got out a little more each day. The resort provides a shuttle up to Fashion Island (a large open air mall complex in the Newport Center) and a little south to the very relaxing Crystal Cove area.

We took the shuttle up to Fashion Island one day to get some “supplies” at Whole Foods and coffee at the Nespresso shop. Just walking around the shops was fun as there are lots of water sculptures and other places to sit and just enjoy the views. Fortunately we had to wait a bit for the shuttle back after shopping and (also very fortunately) The Back Bay Tavern inside the Whole Foods store was willing to serve us adult beverages...just in time I might add! Another day we drove (up a bit farther than the shuttles would take us) to the Balboa Peninsula and wandered the beaches of the area. After walking out the Newport Pier, we watched a pod of dolphins (porpoises?) play very close to the pier. They were having a great time jumping and making a real show of being there for us. As we headed back to the car, we decided a bit of nourishment would be in order...so, at Baja Sharkeez we took the opportunity to have some nibbles & drinks before heading home.

As the weather continued to improve, on our last day we took the shuttle down to Crystal Cove and walked the beach before settling in at a table with a view at the Beachcomber Café. Jim had their special seafood laced Bloody Mary to go with his lunch, while Layne and I just watched in awe (as we dug into our lunch plates stacked with generous portions).

The Marriott’s Newport Coast Villas is certainly one of my favorite places to stay. But on Saturday we packed our bags down to the cars and headed for Marriott’s Desert Springs Villas (in Palm Desert). Layne’s brother John and his wife Jan had introduced Jim & Layne to some extremely large and tasty strawberries out in the valley. The strawberries were sold in limited quantities to customers and with three of us in the car, we came home with plenty of “red gold”. Jim fixed Layne and I fruit and a lite breakfast every morning and frankly I got pretty spoiled! We tried to avoid making huge dinners and for the most part we succeeded...but with Layne being a fabulous cook, I must admit to overeating several nights...burp, yumm, burp!

 

I even got in the act and baked some bread and then used their new Insta-Pot to make a couple cans of Boston Baked Bread...Jim had never had that in his childhood, so now that pleasure void has been filled! They brought out a game called Oh Snap! at one point and it was really fun. Apparently it is an old game that has been rebranded and slightly redesigned. (I promptly ordered one when I got home.)



Of course, Layne’s favorite dish for company (nicoise salad) came out when John & Jan joined us for dinner one night. Not only tasty, but really a beautiful presentation when she does it for us.

I loved walking around the resort both inside and outside the “compound”...got in all my steps without problem every day! Lagoons were well maintained and there was a bunch of white pelicans that roamed the various waters. (“A group of pelicans has many collective nouns, including a “brief”, “pod”, “pouch”, “scoop”, and “squadron” of pelicans.” Note: I shamelessly copied that sentence from the Internet...first site I found...and whatever happened to flock?)

 
The resort has quite a few flamingos (a flamboyance, if you care...again, I think flock or bunch would work just fine.) out near the main entrance to the JW Marriot Desert Springs Resort & Spa building...but they’re old news...

After a fabulous goodbye dinner at Sherman’s Deli & Bakery with the Malicks, I packed up my large piece of carrot cake from the deli and half a corned beef sandwich (thanks Layne!) and headed back to Roseburg.

I basically took the same route home, the first day following Highway 10, then the 395 North to Kramer Junction, West on 58 to Bakersfield. Overnight there, then I-5 North and West 580 to Petaluma. Next morning I was off to Eureka on Highway 101. Had a wonderful walk along Humbolt bay...there’s an awesome trail that’s just uplifting to walk. (I had put in some pictures along that trail in part 1 of this long winded post set.) The next day I continued up the 101 and had terrific beef sliders & garlic/Parmesan fries for lunch (and a great porter) at SeaQuake Brewing.

Really enjoyed the walk around the coastal pathways in Crescent City (to wear off my beer and settle my fries) before making the jaunt back to I-5 via the curvy, narrow, and visually exciting Highway 199. I love the road, but primarily because it was basically deserted when I was driving it and road conditions were dry with sunny skies overhead...probably a nightmare at times with truck traffic and poor weather.

Exhausted and happy, I arrived home, turned on the water, water heater, brought the heat pump online to warm up the house, turned on the propane stove, unloaded the car, stacked the pile of mail on the kitchen table, and grabbed...you guessed it...a beer!

...and look, spring flowers awaited me the next morning in my yard (well, the bearded iris-top right- were in Bakersfield, but I was still amazed to see them blooming in February!)

A New Decade Starts in California (Part 1 of 2)

I planned to stay with the Malicks during three of their time share weeks in California in January & February of 2020. I also had a stay through my time share group that I needed to use before the end of January. So I got a reservation at The Carlsbad Seapoint Resort for the week before joining up with Jim & Layne. I took a leisurely drive down Highway 101 with Carla and enjoyed the coastline and grape country of Northern California. My first night was in Eureka and I thoroughly enjoyed walking their fabulous Humbolt Bay trail to finish off my steps for the day. The next morning I strolled the city and was amazed at all the bright murals painted on various walls and also along part of the trail. I thought it should be named Eureka: City of Murals.

Headed south to Petaluma and failed to believe what I’d written down as the final turns to the Comfort Suites. Turns out that if you drive through Petaluma at 5 pm on a Friday night, the traffic is quite formidable...I never (obviously) would have guessed that. Being retired, the extra time in traffic wasn’t really a problem for me. However watching the people around me jockeying for position, texting, and ignoring traffic lights & signs indicated to me that; 1) these drivers were all highly stressed, 2) these drivers didn’t seem to care about damage to their cars, 3) these drivers seemed to think a car from Oregon gave them a clear right of way in any situation, and 4) these drivers brought my pulse rate up a little too high for my personal comfort. I finally found my motel & finished my steps for the day...but walking in the Petaluma area is not for the faint of heart. However, it does explain the abundance of brew pubs in the area. I took refuge in the HenHouse Brewery in the early evening and sipped their wonderful Oatmeal Porter. I also tasted their Legendary Milk Stout (on nitro)...too bad I still needed to find my way back to the motel through the traffic mine field and patchwork sidewalks or I’d have considered sampling more of the HenHouse inventory. I’d buy either the porter or stout in a heartbeat if I found them at a store on this trip or at home.

Next stop, Bakersfield. Hearing the name Bakersfield, brings a deep and knowing yawn from most people who pass through the city. The main attraction for me is that the place I stay is across the road from a Costco that has the best deal on Diamond Kosher Salt...which is what I prefer for my bread making and food prep. They also often carry the 1.75 L bottles of Hendricks gin, which is my preference for a martini (mandatory for retired people at 4 pm in California).

As I skirted L.A., I was reminded of how lucky I am to live where the air is exceptionally clean and the urgency of the traffic doesn’t make me just want to pull over, grab a bottle of Hendricks and pretend it’s 4 pm...without a glass, olives, or vermouth!

Arriving at the Carlsbad Seapointe Resort, I was relieved to find it well away from any city influences...and from my third floor, I could see a Costco and a train station for the Coaster which served as a commuter line between San Diego and Oceanside. The one bedroom unit was very nice with a terrific view of the ocean. Even had several, cute “folded animals” waiting for me. I talked to the concierge and he gave me some maps and directions for the area. When I told him I was interested in walking to Costco and various places in the area, he looked at my flip-flops and told me I shouldn’t even attempt walking for any distance without proper shoes. Wow, I thought Californians would be more aware that many people (like me) can actually walk fairly well (even all day) in flip-flops. I had to "eye-to-eye" assure him that I’d be OK and was actually capable of walking longer distances than most, averaging over 8.5 miles per day over the last 15 years.

Based on the concierge’s information, I knew the Coaster would take me down to San Diego where I hoped to visit Balboa Park and walk the bay’s Embarcadero promenade. Turned out I could walk to Costco in less than an hour and the Coaster train station was only 10 minutes away. The round trip fare to San Diego was only $6.50 (and of course there was an app for that!), so going to “the Big City” was really easy...figuring out how to install the Compass fare phone app was the most difficult.



I did spend a sunny, though cool day in San Diego, walked the promenade and went up to Balboa Park to have a delightful lunch of calamari at the Prado restaurant (and since I wasn’t driving...with a Karl Strauss Red Trolley draft beer). The triangular crisps pictured were very good, baked with garlic, sesame seed, poppy seed, and anise.

Wonderful Calamari dish presented at the Prado Restaurant

Walking the beach across the road from the Seapointe was a three-fold issue. First, crossing the highway was easy with crosswalk lights favoring pedestrians. Second, erosion along the coast has damaged and/or eliminated many of the access stairways down the cliffs to the beach. I had to enter a State run RV park and walk a hundred yards by massive trailers and motor homes to get to the one, still viable, beach access stairway. Finally, (three for you counters)...the beach was very rocky. Additionally, it was the season of king tides. This means that even low tides are relatively high. Sunsets and watching the waves at your back were full time jobs...and I took my job very seriously!

While I was staying at the resort, I was only able to actually walk this section of the beach for a few hours each day and with the low ratio of sand to rocks...it just wasn’t my cup of tea. About a mile up the coast, the beach widened and became much more sandy. I walked up along the cliff trail toward Oceanside and found the beach much more to my liking. Also, about a mile south, the beach widened and sand content increased...another preferred walking area. Sunsets were beautiful, with artfully arranged clouds swirling around. I saw the green flash at sunset twice...and I wasn’t even drinking!

While in Oceanside, I found a gelato store (named gelatolove, but I thought was worth some capital letters!) that served fabulous (you guessed it) gelato! Oceanside had a typical California long pier with a restaurant at the end. Still, it was very nice to spend some time just wandering the old boards enjoying the sunshine. There was even a group on the pier doing a wedding picture shoot. I would have liked to come up here more often, but the round trip was an all day walk and I had other things I wanted to do...like bake bread and visit San Diego.

The Oceanside pier was really pleasant walking, with surfers working the waves on either side. Carla tried her
hand (hoof?) at surfing, but being afraid of water and using an obviously not well thought out substitute for a
surfboard, left her high and dry...victim to ridicule by thoughtless humans on the beach thinking "when pigs fly".

I did bake a loaf of pot bread using both Bill (my sourdough starter) and Ryelee (my rye starter). It was an experiment and I was very pleased with the result. I did have to ask the front desk for hot pads to take the dutch oven out of the oven...I’m not sure if they’d ever had anyone actually using the oven in one of their units.

Definitely a walking vacation so far...exactly what I was hoping for! Carla even got to try sand surfing, although her concept of a surfboard was flawed. Incidentally, every morning I checked in with the concierge to tell him where I walked and different shortcuts I’d found. At the end of the week and almost 100 miles, he had finally stopped telling me where I couldn’t go without changing my flip-flops for a pair of “proper shoes”...but I suspect he’d just gotten tired of trying to convince me. (A note here: although I prefer the old school term “thongs” over flip-flops, I’m tired of the look of disdain and avoidance behavior I receive when I comment on wearing one pair of thongs every day for 8 months.)


The morning I left, this section of the highway was closed to traffic...Why, you ask? The Carlsbad Half Marathon of course. I decided it was a beautiful morning and it would be fun to walk the highway without all the cars & noise (or the stress of having to complete the marathon course). So that was my last walk in Carlsbad, California down the middle of a major coastal traffic route with nary a care in the world...yes, Mr. Concierge...while in my flip-flops!





My best memories of Carlsbad & Oceanside will be the sunsets and GelatoLove...surprised?

2003 Giraffe Adventure at Wildlife Safari

Our friend Steve Barnhart retired as an Oregon State Trooper and then for several years held the position of Director at Wildlife Safari in Winston Oregon. The large, drive through game park in Winston, Oregon was always looking for ways to supplement earnings and improve their facilities while enhancing  visitor experiences and educating the public about the animals at the park. Steve brought with him lots of new ideas that meshed with those goals. One of those ideas  was to offer a Giraffe feeding “adventure” for visitors. Since that’s the kind of idea that has potential but needs a little fine tuning, on May 3rd, 2003 Susan & I and Steve & his wife Marilyn became the first test subjects for the Giraffe Adventure proposed to be offered beginning in the 2003 tourist season. In addition, Steve announced that it was to be the Barnhart’s present to Susan for her 53rd birthday.

Mike, Marilyn, Steve, and Susan preparing to feed the giraffes
at Wildlife Safari in Winston, Oregon. (On retrospect, I think the pickup
cage may have been meant to protect the animals from us.)

Wildlife Safari had a pickup with protective side screens that we’d use to journey out to the area where the Giraffes roamed free. The staff there had been giving the animals some fruit and vegetable treats from the back of the pickup for a couple weeks prior to our visit to get them used to the vehicle (and people in the back with tasty food items). We loaded up the pickup bed with loaves of bread, buckets of banana bits, apple chunks, & carrots and headed out for our adventure. The  Giraffe keeper gave us instructions of what to do and more importantly, what not to do when the animals approached us. It was hard to think of a beautiful animal such as a Giraffe as being dangerous, but when we actually got close and realized how big they are...well we listened very closely to her instructions and behaved ourselves. (I know that may be hard for some of you to believe, but really, we could contain ourselves for short periods of time when we were younger.)

As several Giraffes approached us and started accepting goodies, they became a little more trusting and allowed us to get a little bit more friendly. That long black tongue is amazing and quite adept at plucking those pieces of fruit and vegetables from your fingers. Taking pictures was a little disconcerting because the animal always got the treat before my brain could signal my finger to press the camera’s shutter button. Susan even got to plant a kiss on one Giraffe's nose...the Giraffe seemed unimpressed.


The resident white rhino and other park inhabitants were very curious in what was happening at the pickup. Again, it was quite exhilarating to find ourselves so close to so many stunning and exotic (and really big) animals. I have to say that being close enough to a rhino to hear his stomach rumble is pretty humbling and it’s also comforting to hear that humans are not the only creatures on the planet that pass gas...just saying...

On that day in May, we all had a very special experience and for Susan the kind of birthday present a farm girl from Wisconsin would never have imagined as she was growing up.

It was good to know that Giraffe Adventures at the park became quite popular after our trial run and has given many people the thrill of their lives. Wildlife Safari is still doing very well and constantly improving our understanding of many endangered animal species through the work done by the dedicated staff and research personnel there.

...I was also very happy and grateful that Steve did not ask us to be the among the first people to hand feed the Wildlife Safari lions up close and personal.

Christmas 2019 on the Oregon Coast

Susan dearly loved the Oregon coast and was especially entranced with the Yaquina Head lighthouse at Newport. This Christmas, it seemed appropriate to spend the week on the beaches and at the lighthouse park...sunny with lots of great wave action on the coast. I stayed at Schooner Landing for a week and then moved down to enjoy a couple of days at our favorite motel, The Elizabeth Oceanfront Suites. Schooner Landing was very nice and the weather was predicted to continue with clear and sunny for most of the upcoming week.

I set up the plywood Christmas tree we've traveled with for many years and plugged in the lights...voilá, a festive tree in the living room.

Also ran into Santa and his contingent riding motorcycles around Nye Beach (sunny on the Oregon coast during Christmas week...why not!)






A couple of months ago, while in the Nye Beach tú•tú•tú kitchenware cottage, I overheard another customer talking about naming her sourdough. I couldn’t resist starting a conversation with her and comparing some of our sourdough notes & history. She and her husband invited me to lunch at their new home while I was in Newport. She set out a marvelous appetizer spread and I enjoyed her excellent bread with several tasty treats. Cynthia and Vince were great to talk with and Vince drove me back to the timeshare since we’d chatted past sunset and I agreed with him, walking along Hwy 101 in the dark the ½ mile to the timeshare would not be wise (especially in flip-flops without reflective tape  ).

Here's four typical whale pictures that actually are just
Norman RockWhale ... a rock outcropping just at the
water surface.

The next several days I spent walking the Yaquina Head park grounds, enjoying Bald Eagles, Peregrine falcons, and lovely weather for the coast in late December. Although sunny, the surf was up and the waves crashing against the rocky shoreline were mesmerizing. While I was there, the yearly whale watch/count was taking place. It was interesting talking to the volunteers, a fellow named Thom showed me a rock out in the surf about a quarter of a mile north of the lighthouse. He said it was the most photographed rock on the Oregon coast...apparently, a very high percentage of people thought it was a whale when the surf rolled over it. He told me they called it Norm, short for Norman RockWhale. He followed that story by noting they tend not to use it much anymore while talking to the younger visitors anymore because of the high percentage that didn’t get the joke because they didn't recognize the name Norman Rockwell...very sad. You can see Norm in each of the collage photos...I circled him in one pic for those of us who are not visually detail oriented.

Some clouds started to gather in the evenings and I got to experience some stunning sunsets.

It amazed me how the colors could radically change in just a few minutes during the five to ten minutes of that magic sundown time on the coast.

It finally started to lightly rain as I made my move to the Elizabeth. As always the staff at check-in were great and one actually remembered the plywood Christmas tree as I carried it up to the room. More walks on the beach and a trip into old town Newport. Crab season was just about to start and the sidewalks were crowded with crab pots ready to go to work. Susan really loved boardwalks and the one along the waterfront here is really wonderful. As always, for meals in the area, I liked to have lunch at The Chowder Bowl or The Taphouse at Nye Creek occasionally. This year I thoroughly enjoyed a meatloaf lunch with a black & tan beer at Nana’s Irish Pub. Of course, there’s always salmon chowder and freshly baked cookies at the Elizabeth for those days when you just want to get into comfy pants and enjoy a light dinner in your room while watching for the green flash at the sunset. It was a great nine days in Newport, lots of high surf & sunshine. All the wave action produced bunches of foam on the beach which sparkled with color...almost surreal at times.

Big surf, lots of sunshine, and piles of colorful beach foam.

On New Year’s Eve, I checked out of the Elizabeth and drove South to Coos Bay/North Bend. Checked into the Quality Inn and headed to Shore Acres for the last night of the Holiday Lights. It rained pretty good for the entire time I spent wandering the beautifully lit gardens. The rain didn’t seem to dampen anyone’s spirits and the last evening of the light show seemed pretty well attended. I placed one of Susan’s glass disks in an Azalea bush near the caretaker’s cottage.



The New Year's eve storm ramped up the surf several notches as you can see in the three sequential wave pics on the left.

This garden and Shore Acres to Cape Arago trails in general combined to be Susan's second favorite section of the coast. Since she always wanted to go to Shore Acres at Christmas for the Holiday Lights, so I thought it another perfect spot to leave a little bit of her essence.

Some night and day after pictures of the Shore Acres' Holiday Lights display 2019.

I came back the next day to take some comparison pictures in the daytime (for the collage above), walk one of our favorite trails to Cape Arago, and continue to enjoy the tremendous display of big waves crashing on the huge shoreline rocks. Actually got pretty wet with salt water spray from some of the awesome wave action. So, 2019 ended with a fabulous trip to the coast and 2020 started with a sunny morning at Shore Acres/Cape Arago and an afternoon Rose Bowl victory for the Ducks.

Thanks to the weather gods for providing exceptionally
good days during this last trip of 2019 !