Honeymoon Day #3: July 3

     On Wednesday we made our own breakfast - Froot Loops, toast and tea.

     We headed north around 11:15. I think it took us about an hour and a half to get to the sign for the Columbus Monument. Then we turned down the incredibly bumpy road I mentioned earlier. I was really worried we were gonna break something but we made it.

     We stopped about two-thirds of the way in and walked the rest of the way. Of course the last third was the smoothest :) We saw a Jeep parked at the bottom of the walkway up to the monument and saw the people were snorkeling.

This is where we saw the snorkelers

     We walked up the hill to the monument and took pictures.

view from the top

     When we came back the snorkelers were gone. We saw the same jeep later at Cape Santa Maria Resort. We had parked near what looked like a good beach so when we got back to the car we grabbed our bag and walked through the brush to this inlet-sort of beach. It was gorgeous and warm and completely deserted. The shallow water went on forever, it probably took a good five minutes to walk out to where we couldn't touch. It was quite windy but it was my first real swimming experience. We stayed in the water for a while and then came out and let the wind dry us off a bit. Mark was getting worried that clouds were coming and we'd get stuck in mud if it started raining, so after learning how to use the timer on my camera and taking a couple pictures, we left.

     Macho Camacho got us out to the main road and next we went to the Cape Santa Maria Resort. Mark wanted to rinse off his feet so on our way to the water we head, "are you the guys from Gems?" and I turned around and there was Henrietta calling to us from their cottage. She invited us in for a drink so we drank Hennessy with them for a good half hour/40 minutes.

     After two strong drinks with Henrietta and Emerson, we went next door to the resort restaurant and proceeded to drink more. Mark ordered a Sands beer (local) and I can't remember what I ordered. I think it was a Kalik Gold. (another local beer. Turns out I like Bahamian beer!) 

     I got a conch salad and he got a meat lovers' pizza. I put something called Gwen's hot sauce on a small corner of my salad because it smelled like Italian dressing but oh was that a mistake. I ended up having to ask the bartenders for milk because my mouth was on fire. They didn't know milk was good for that so I taught them something.

     I had been feeling a little guilty for not inviting Henrietta and Emerson to eat with us so I was glad to run into Emerson again when I went to the bathroom because he mentioned that he had left his medication at our hotel so I offered to drive it halfway up the island for him because it was about an hour and a half drive from Cape Santa Maria to Gems. We traded phone numbers and agreed to do it the next day. The receptionist told us about an app called Whatsapp that can be used to text for free. I might try it. She was very nice.

     After a mango daiquiri because it was happy hour by then, we went down to the beach. We made friends with a kitty (all black) who followed us to our beach chairs, then laid under Mark's chair and scratched his foot. Mark hollered, then a few minutes later Rascal Flatts (as Mark theretofore named him) jumped up on Mark's chair for cuddles and Mark proceeded to pet him while I teased him for becoming such a cat person.

     I went swimming for a while and it was beautiful and warm and calm. I wrote our initials in a heart in the sand and took a picture. 

Mark joined me in the water and we floated around some more and took a picture. Mark joined me in the water and we floated around some more and then watched the sunset and headed back to our temporary home.  

     The drive back was scary because it was dark and our high beams are not great and we were pretty much blinded by every car that passed us. We ended up pulling over so I could pour water on the windshield because it was too dirty to see well and Mark couldn't find the washer fluid button. We made it back okay though. :)

Honeymoon Day #2: July 2

     On Tuesday morning we got up for breakfast at 9. We saw the one other couple that's staying here - Henrietta and Emerson, an older black couple from Brooklyn. They were very friendly. I had fried eggs with bacon and grits, which was very good. Mark even liked the grits. :) The cook's name is Sandy and she's very nice.

     After breakfast we went back down to the beach for a bit. Neither of us can remember exactly why we decided to leave - I assume the weather was getting a bit windy and/or rainy.

That's me on my way to the beach

      We decided to go grocery shopping. We got distracted by lunch at the Rowdy Boys Bar N  Grill on the Flying Fish Marina. I had a conch burger and he had a regular burger.

Awkward

      Mine was okay - turns out it's a little difficult to eat conch on a burger because it comes in wonky-shaped strips, not patties. I'm not sure I love conch. We walked around the property a bit afterwards (it's a hotel too)

the restaurant

 and pet a dog (lots of dogs and cats here) and then headed out for grocery shopping. We ended up at the Sunflower Market - not sure what settlement it's in. They had everything though. Shopping on vacation is fun when you're not worried about money or diet. I'm now regretting telling Mark our basket was full and we couldn't buy eggs or cheese though. I wanted both this morning. I did a fresh-baked chocolate chip cookie, which was amazing. We also bought 3 bootlegged DVDs (one of which we have since discovered was filmed at the theater so it's not even watchable), a bottle of wine and a bottle of coconut rum. We gotta start drinking those.

We found some more rum later...

     After we got back and put everything away, we went to the beach again but after a while (maybe 45 minutes?) it started sprinkling and then officially poured rain on us, so we ran back to the room.

     Mark did get a good swim in.

     We decided to make some drinks in the lobby (the bar is self-serve, as well as the kitchen when Sandy's not in it) and find something good on TV. 

We ended up drinking Yellowbirds (light rum, amaretto and pineapple juice) and watching the middle of Father's Day and most of The Birdcage. Mark dies over Agador Spartacus. Around 7:45 we decided we needed dinner, so we headed back over to the marina to the Outer Edge Bar N Grill. Turns out they close at 8, but they were super nice and stayed open late for us. There was another group of 3 there for a while but then they left and it was just us. We got pork chops and I got baked macaroni and salad. It was really good. Then we went back and read until we fell asleep.

Honeymoon Day #1: July 1

I thought I'd copy the journal I kept during our honeymoon onto here so I can add pictures. That's what I was really wishing I could do while I was writing it, so. Plus then people who aren't on Facebook can see pictures and read about our trip, if they want to.
So, here goes!

Day 1
     Happy 4th of July! (I wrote this entry on the 4th of July) The 40th anniversary of Bahamian independence is on July 10th. I hope there's something fun happening. Shavonne, our hotel manager, is going to let us know.
     I'm going to try to do a quick recap of our trip before I forget things. We left San Francisco at 10:15 on Sunday night. We landed in Charlotte around 6 am and took off again around 9:30 or 9:45 I think. We ate bagels at the Great American Bagel Bakery. My jalapeno breakfast sandwich was not spicy.

     We landed in Nassau around noon. I slept more on the second flight and I think Mark slept less. I discovered that the way to keep me calm during the turbulence is to be half asleep. Or all asleep, of course, but that wasn't the case.
     We hung out in the domestic terminal of the Bahamian airport (Nassau airport I guess) which was funky. Pretty much exactly what I would have expected if I'd thought about it real hard ahead of time.
     We thought we were gonna go on like a medium sized plane, which I was surprised at because at one point Mark told me it was gonna seat 8 people. I was happy though, until they took us to a smaller plane than the one we were looking at. It fit 20 people and we had to walk down the aisle half bent over.

      We could see the pilots until they pulled their curtain. I was scared until we took off and it was actually quite smooth. We could see the sea and other islands the whole time, which was nice. I took pictures.

     Turns out we were making two stops and the first stop was actually closer to our hotel so we debated trying to get off but we had a rental car waiting for us at Stella Maris, so we stayed on. Landing was rough and I was wishing we didn't have to do it again but I survived. They took one of our bags off the plane at Deadman's Cay but luckily Mark saw it and got up and told them it was ours.

     Turbulence, even though there was a bit more of it when we got underneath the clouds, was almost easier to handle in the smaller plane because it was more understandable. In the end we were glad to have landed about an hour north of our hotel because it was nice to see a lot of the island right away. And we weren't too tired to drive. Well, Mark drove. Probably too much excitement. We rented from Omar, who does lots of things, I have since found out. He gave us a Mustang! We have named him Macho Camacho.

     We were on a very bumpy dirt road yesterday and I thought he deserved a name for his efforts.

     We got to Gems at Paradise probably around 5 and checked in. Shavonne talked to us a lot and by that time I was losing it. We got into our room and finally collapsed on the bed around 5:45. We slept until 6:30, when we had to get up and get ready for dinner, which was at 7. We were the only guests at dinner. I had jerk-style grouper and he had jerk-style chicken, both with Bahamian peas and rice and salad. It was good, and a lot. We still have leftovers in the fridge, plus two other boxes since then. Everyone seems to serve a lot of food here.

     After dinner we went for a quick dip in the sea but it was getting dark so we headed back to the room.

End of day 1 :)

I had a lovely weekend a couple weeks ago and I wanted to share it. This semester I've been observing at Alternatives in Action High School. They have a couple of co-directors and one of them is an awesome guy who owns property in Ukiah. He takes up to twenty students at a time for weekend trips, and as many adults as want to come. When I went, we had a really good adult-to-student ratio - I think it was 12 adults and 17 students. The director's parents-in-law live on the property and some of their family friends stopped by on Saturday night as well, which was also cool. They're the kind of family I love - musical, natural, calm, happy...well, they seemed happy, anyway. :) Here are some pictures from my weekend:

In the front yard

A little country decoration

The outdoor kitchen

Some of the family instruments

One of the students playing a drum in the main room of the barn

A couple of the students hanging out at the fire pit

The art teacher and her husband and dog

The cottage on the property, with its' outdoor bathtub :)

The hiking group

Hike destination: waterfall

A beautiful view we ran into by getting temporarily lost :)

This is when I discovered I love manzanita trees :)

Heating up the pizza oven

Tired puppy

The director's brother-in-law (I think)

The director's mother-in-law, who lives on the property, teaching a couple of the girls how to make pizza dough

One of the students helping a family friend shell bay nuts

One of the students on the pond

The students' pottery getting ready to be fired

Some students hanging out by the fire pit with a couple of musicians in the background

A teacher with three students getting pizza ingredients ready

Family & friend providing the soundtrack

My fellow observer with a family cousin rolling out dough

The school director pulling the fire out of the oven

Pizza, ready to be cooked!

 That's all I've got :) We ended up doing some drama therapy exercises after eating pizza and it's too bad I didn't get any pictures of it, but I was busy participating. It was a lovely weekend even though I got tired of being surrounded by people I barely knew. I definitely want to go back up to the area with Mark.

Afterlife

I had a nice conversation with my friend Rob yesterday about spirituality, and I want to share it here so I don't lose it (just a warning, not all of it is genius):



Rob: I just heard a great quote:
“If God is the frontier of what we have yet to understand in the universe to you, then God is an ever-receding pocket of scientific ignorance.” - Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson

Erin: I think it’s too early for me to fully comprehend that. (this was at like 8:15 in the morning)

Rob: You should read it later then. Have you heard of that scientist? He’s one of my heroes.

Erin: No, I have no idea who that is. Why is he one of your heroes?
I think it’s just taking me a while, it gets better every time I re-read it. I’m not sure I completely get the comparison though.

Rob: He’s a brilliant scientist and a big advocate of science education. Which is important I think, as I think our society is getting more and more ignorant and stupid. In fact, he said that the quickest growing segment of the home-schooled population is from parents who don’t want their children being taught evolution. That’s frightening to me.

Erin: Oh yeah, that doesn’t surprise me. So I forget, are you not religious/spiritual at all?

Rob: Not really. I subscribe to what I call the “Church of I Don’t Know”….there may or may not be a God, but if there is one I doubt that humans can understand it at all. More than likely, what I think would happen when you die is that you just go to sleep. That sounds fine to me. :)

Erin: Ooh. That does not sound fine to me. I hope there’s an afterlife.

Rob: Do you think you need to “worship” to get to that afterlife?

Erin: Not really.

Rob: I think it’s more important to just be good. :)

Erin: I think so too. I guess I haven’t decided how I think we get to that afterlife. I just assume we all go there. I don’t think I distinguish between good and bad people. Check this out!
http://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/10/07/proof-of-heaven-a-doctor-s-experience-with-the-afterlife.html

Rob: That’s interesting. :)

Erin: Gives me hope :)

Rob: That’s good. :)
So you think you’d go to the same afterlife as say, Hitler?

Erin: Well, he’d be nice there. That’s what the afterlife does.

Rob: Hmm. Interesting. :)

Erin: And he would feel very bad about what he’d done, and he would do something extra good there, like…take care of all the kids who died before their parents or something.

Rob: That’s a good plan. I’d approve of that. :)


I think I might have ended up figuring out what sort of afterlife I believe in. I didn't realize it until this conversation. :) It's kind of a nice feeling.

This is why I want to have a daughter :)

Red-and-Yellow White Bread

This is my latest loaf of bread. I posted a picture on Facebook and one of my friends asked for the recipe, so I thought I'd put it on here so I can link it to Pinterest as well! I'll actually contribute something semi-original to Pinterest! Well, the recipe isn't mine, but the blog post will be, so I figure that's semi-original.

Sidenote: also, seriously, watched the first episode of Homeland last night and I'm obsessed. I can't stop thinking about it. Mark said the second episode would be my reward when I get my homework done. :)

On to bread-making! So the recipe came from page 614 of The New Basics Cookbook by Julee Rosso & Sheila Lukins. Here's a picture of how it came out:

It looks so pretty! And it tastes good too, luckily. Be warned, it takes about...two hours and 45 minutes to make. I didn't realize that when I started it at 8 pm on Thursday night, so I ended up getting it into the pan and then putting it in the fridge to finish the process later. I didn't end up remembering it until late Saturday night, so I took it out of the fridge and then it was too cold to rise, so I left it out overnight and finally baked it Sunday morning. It seems to have turned out fine, I don't think all that waiting hurt it any. I felt it was okay to do that because of this little blurb from page 615 of the cookbook called "Bread Shouldn't Knead You." (yes, this cookbook is very clever):

"We used to think of bread baking as an all-day chore. Not that it took all our time, but we thought we had to be there with it. Then we discovered bread needed time, but it didn't really need us. Bread making will fall into your schedule. You can mix the dough in the morning, go play tennis or run errands," (sidenote: I want these authors' lives) "come home to punch it down, shape it, and leave it to rise again. If the rise is going too fast, put the dough in the refrigerator to slow it down. Cold doesn't kill yeast - heat does. When you are ready for the bread, just take it out of the refrigerator to continue its rise."

So I felt okay leaving it in the fridge like that. I learn something new every time! Okay, and what we've all been waiting for:

THE RECIPE

(straight from the cookbook)

We've added egg yolks for a richer flavor and spiked the taste with a bit of cayenne. They both add color, too, to this sandwich bread, perfect for slicing and toasting.

1 package active dry yeast

1/2 cup warm water

1/4 teaspoon sugar

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature

2 egg yolks, lightly beaten

5 to 6 tablespoons milk

  

1. Stir the yeast, warm water, and sugar together in a small bowl. Set the mixture aside until the yeast starts foaming, 5 to 10 minutes.

2. Combine the flour, salt, and cayenne in a large bowl. Stir in the yeast mixture, butter, egg yolks, and enough of the milk to form a mass of sticky dough. Let it stand for ten minutes.

3. Transfer the dough to a lightly floured surface and knead until it is smooth and elastic, about 7 minutes. If the dough is sticky, sprinkle it lightly with more flour as you work.

4. Lightly oil a large bowl and turn the dough in it to coat it with the oil. Cover the bowl loosely with a kitchen towel and let the dough rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes.

5. Oil a 9 x 5 x 3-inch loaf pan.

6. Punch the dough down and shape it into a loaf. Press it into the prepared pan. Cover it loosely and let the dough rise until it nearly fills the pan, 45 to 60 minutes.

7. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

8. Bake the bread until it is golden and the bottom sounds hollow when tapped with your finger, 35 to 40 minutes.

9. Remove the bread from the pan and let it cool on a wire rack.

1 loaf

So, my experience was that I used all 6 tablespoons of milk. I used almond milk, which seemed to work fine. I actually haven't made any bread with regular milk yet though, so maybe I'm just used to the way it comes out with almond milk. Either way, it works fine. I've eaten four loaves of bread made with almond milk so far and enjoyed every one. I also didn't let the butter cool to room temperature, so it might end up being even better if you did that. I can't think of any other specific tips, so if you have any questions, please ask! And enjoy!