New Cooking

After looking through the cupboards I came across our old bread maker. I think we have had it for quite some time. So I read the directions and checked to see if we had all the ingredients to make simple white bread. We did, so I made my first loaf of bread. Not too bad. I now have all the stuff to make whole wheat bread my next try. It's not too hard just put in all the stuff and turn it on. And about 3 hours later nice hot bread. I am also going to make my first soup this week.

First I am off to get all my shots for my trip to India. By 1:00 pm I will know how Biscuit feels after her shots. I think I am getting four shots plus two prescriptions. And a list of helpful hints from the Kaiser travel nurse. I bought my ticket so it looks like I am for sure off on the next adventure. I found this little hotel in National Geographic Adventure magazine in a town in India where you can see Everest. I emailed the hotel and the owner e-mailed me back wanting to know how I found him and how to make a reservation. I e-mailed back that his hotel was in Adventure magazine. He e-mailed back that he would like the article so I am off to copy and mail it to him. Later.

New Toy

After much thinking, like six months. I finally broke down and purchased a new photo printer. The free shipping and $40.00 instant rebate got me. I must say I am very pleased. Printed two 5*7 prints of Yosemite today and they came out quite nice. Started working with that Histogram stuff in Photo Shop Elements. I must say I find it rather fun. Nice to learn new photo stuff. My little Sony camera has more features than I had thought.

The other big event of the day is I finally decided to go and visit the youngest in India. Should be an adventure. My good friend from MDT who grew up in India had several good suggestions of where to go plus his brother lives in Bombay and he may help us get around. So it should be a good adventure.

Off to make nice vacuum lines for WB and Mac and Cheese. Not out of a box.

My Disneyland

The week after New Years is the time to go to Yosemite. It had the fewest people I have ever seen. At 9:00 am on Tuesday I only saw one person on the trail to Lower Yosemite falls which is right by Yosemite Lodge. Quite nice. But also quite chilly. We even got our act together and made reservations a whole year in advance for next year. As you can see by the picture of WB the Cross Country Skiing was good.
Not a lot of snow for this time of year but a good ski for the first time this year. On this trip I tried to work on using my digital camera. Fairly early Tuesday morning I went out with my film camera and my digital to take some pictures as the sun was coming on over the mountains. It not real clear but upper Yosemite falls has a faint rainbow in it. My film camera's exposure is better but not by much. I still need to learn more about how to get the correct exposure using the histogram thingy. I checked out some photos being sold in the Ansel Adams Gallery $38.00 for a matted 8*10 and $28.00 for a 5*7. So I came home and ordered a new photo printer from Epson.com. It was on sale with free shipping. I had been looking at it for about a year. It also will work for WB since you can put your memory card right in the front.

Still working on am I going to visit the youngest in Asia somewhere. Yosemite has a sister park in China. The name of the park is Huanqshan National Park. And my new National Geographic Adventure magazine came it had an interesting trip in India to the foothills of the Himalaya's. I think I made the youngest mad when she called because I could not be more definite about any plans. Hopefully I will get my act together and figure it out soon.

It's finally starting to warm up so time for a bike ride. WB is in San Francisco today with her friends.

Christmas in a Box and Great Presents

On Christmas day this year it was just WB and myself. So when we were at the local Safeway a couple of days before Christmas WB noticed that they had a complete Turkey dinner with all the trimming's for a good price. Just pop it in the oven and in less than two hours it would be done. So, we departed Safeway that day with Christmas dinner in a box. Needless to say on Christmas day we followed the directions put the Turkey in the oven and an hour later the mash potatoes and dressing. When it was all done I must say it was very good. The Turkey was nice and moist and done to perfection. The mash potatoes were great but the dressing left a little to be desired. Dessert was pumpkin pie and quite tasty.

So fast forward to New Years Eve day. Mr and Mrs H plus Biscuit came over to celebrate Christmas at our house. As I had said earlier it was the year of socks. Everyone got socks. I did need them however. I was given four pair of biking socks. Very nice ones to boot. Two pair of low cut hiking socks, and six pair of Costco white athletic socks. Plus some handlebar tape, new bike inner tube, Nalgene Water bottle, plus splash guard. And two books one on bike touring, and one from National Geographic on Digital Photography.

But the best present was this ingenues device pictured above. Just the day before on my last bike ride of 2006 I was wishing that someone would get me this little tripod that you can hook on things using these Velcro straps. But Mrs H out did that with this little wonder. It is a bolt, some electrical tape, and three strands of copper wiring. As you can see it makes a great little tripod for a digital camera. And very versatile notice how you can wrap the wire around an object such as this chair to steady the camera. Needless to say I was very pleased. WB also got a great gym bag made by Mrs H. Also very nice. I checked it our thinking I could make one. Bags of that size come in very handy when going camping. Maybe I can get some clues on where to find a pattern.

It was a great Christmas lots of great useful gifts and lots of quality time with Mr, Mrs H and Biscuit plus lots of photos of the events.

We had ham for dinner, but not out of a box.