We are staying at the Rocky Inn Express rather than the Super 8 (which we used when we stayed in town before) because it was the only place with any spare rooms - and up til this morning we were very impressed - it's clean and spacious and has coffee makers. However at breakfast we discovered the reason why the Super 8 was fully booked and here wasn't. As well as serving some omelettes reminiscent of Andy and my summer job in the egg factory (which isn't a good thing), the Rocky Inn Express doesn't have a DIYwaffle maker. What's that about?! What self respecting motel doesn't have one?
We went over to Molly's to pick her up not long after 10 and were greeted by her perpetual squirrel Socrates, complete with his internal movement-activated squeaker system. Good luck spotting him in the photo. We set off for Rosemarie's and with the benefit of her map and a bit of hindsight we got there with no problems in about 40 minutes (last year the door-to-door journey took more like 2.5 hours).
Rosemarie gave us a guided tour of her and Jere's amazing log house, and we marvelled at it again and how you have to plan gaps so your windows don't explode when the wood dries out and the house sinks down and squashes them. We re-made the acquaintance of Zoe the dog who I didn't recognise because she had lost so much weight, and Rosemarie's tales of being stalked by cougars (four times!), alerted on each occasion by Zoe, scared us off going for an unaccompanied walk in the woods. We settled down to our lunch instead. We put quite a lot of the world to rights before heading back into Rocky, with promises of a rhubarb pie once Andy has gone (he hates rhubarb), made from Rosemarie's rhubarb which grows in state and all alone on a grassy hill.
We dropped Molly off for a bit of a rest and headed over to Pat and Hamish's for a restorative cup of coffee. We started with a quick brisket rub for Toby (the dog) and a visit to the lovely horses who will grow up to work in the rodeo. They don't belong to Pat and Hamish but their owner has rented land for a while now and Hamish is very fond of them. When we left yesterday we went past two pregnant horses who are in another field. One is no longer pregnant and had a little tiny leggy foal with her.
Today is Carson's birthday and Pat had made him a big carrot cake which had got stuck in the tin, so happily for us she'd made him a replacement which meant the less then perfect cake was available for eating. Then some sticky buns came out of the oven which for done no apparent reason had also gone wrong, so we helped out a little with those too. Even in their slightly wrong form they were good, but in their perfect form they are super tasty so I have included the recipe. They are like a cinnamon bun except much stickier, and with pecan nuts and no icing. Not really like cinnamon buns at all from that description on second thoughts but most definitely worth a try.
Pat has had a stroke recently but you wouldn't know to see her. She has some symptoms like pins and needles, and is on oxygen but otherwise seems just like her old self. Hamish's hearing isn't too great but other than that seemed to be on good form and has even been driving Pat around while she waits to see if she can have her license back.
We had a long chat about this and that and put the world to rights and talked about what all Pat and Hamish's children (Joan, Peter, Katie and Carson) are up to. Katie lives not too far away so mum and I might see her before we go. We thought we might see Carson today but he wasn't coming by until later so we had to go.
We got back at about 6.25 having said 6 pm so Molly had decided to eat a sandwich rather than waiting for us to come and take her out to dinner. I wondered whether she might be cross about it but she was fine and even possibly slightly contrite so we had a cup of tea together and then left her to go to bed and drove into town to make some essential purchases before returning to the motel: OFF! mosquito spray, 2 decks of cards and some KFC. We played Sandra's card game with some of the neighbouring liquor store's last bottle of marlborough sauvignon blanc before hitting the sack.
We went over to Molly's to pick her up not long after 10 and were greeted by her perpetual squirrel Socrates, complete with his internal movement-activated squeaker system. Good luck spotting him in the photo. We set off for Rosemarie's and with the benefit of her map and a bit of hindsight we got there with no problems in about 40 minutes (last year the door-to-door journey took more like 2.5 hours).
Rosemarie gave us a guided tour of her and Jere's amazing log house, and we marvelled at it again and how you have to plan gaps so your windows don't explode when the wood dries out and the house sinks down and squashes them. We re-made the acquaintance of Zoe the dog who I didn't recognise because she had lost so much weight, and Rosemarie's tales of being stalked by cougars (four times!), alerted on each occasion by Zoe, scared us off going for an unaccompanied walk in the woods. We settled down to our lunch instead. We put quite a lot of the world to rights before heading back into Rocky, with promises of a rhubarb pie once Andy has gone (he hates rhubarb), made from Rosemarie's rhubarb which grows in state and all alone on a grassy hill.
We dropped Molly off for a bit of a rest and headed over to Pat and Hamish's for a restorative cup of coffee. We started with a quick brisket rub for Toby (the dog) and a visit to the lovely horses who will grow up to work in the rodeo. They don't belong to Pat and Hamish but their owner has rented land for a while now and Hamish is very fond of them. When we left yesterday we went past two pregnant horses who are in another field. One is no longer pregnant and had a little tiny leggy foal with her.
Today is Carson's birthday and Pat had made him a big carrot cake which had got stuck in the tin, so happily for us she'd made him a replacement which meant the less then perfect cake was available for eating. Then some sticky buns came out of the oven which for done no apparent reason had also gone wrong, so we helped out a little with those too. Even in their slightly wrong form they were good, but in their perfect form they are super tasty so I have included the recipe. They are like a cinnamon bun except much stickier, and with pecan nuts and no icing. Not really like cinnamon buns at all from that description on second thoughts but most definitely worth a try.
Pat has had a stroke recently but you wouldn't know to see her. She has some symptoms like pins and needles, and is on oxygen but otherwise seems just like her old self. Hamish's hearing isn't too great but other than that seemed to be on good form and has even been driving Pat around while she waits to see if she can have her license back.
We had a long chat about this and that and put the world to rights and talked about what all Pat and Hamish's children (Joan, Peter, Katie and Carson) are up to. Katie lives not too far away so mum and I might see her before we go. We thought we might see Carson today but he wasn't coming by until later so we had to go.
We got back at about 6.25 having said 6 pm so Molly had decided to eat a sandwich rather than waiting for us to come and take her out to dinner. I wondered whether she might be cross about it but she was fine and even possibly slightly contrite so we had a cup of tea together and then left her to go to bed and drove into town to make some essential purchases before returning to the motel: OFF! mosquito spray, 2 decks of cards and some KFC. We played Sandra's card game with some of the neighbouring liquor store's last bottle of marlborough sauvignon blanc before hitting the sack.
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