Life on the road

Crap, Crap and more Crap!!!

You know how I told you that I cooked all day on my day off so we could just come home, heat something up for dinner and all that? Well, damn it, my refrigerator has quit working, just like that! So, I called Norcold, the manufacturer, and talked to them yesterday, and found out it is still under warranty, until December 20, and they gave me about 6 phone numbers for authorized repair places in Page (125 miles away) and Flagstaff (220 miles away).

But guess what? NONE OF THOSE PLACES “are working on refrigerators at this time”. WTF??? What that means is “Lady, do you know we are located in the DESERT of ARIZONA and there are people, little old ladies, who have no AIR CONDITIONING, and they are by far more important (read more lucrative, more $$$) than whether or not you and your husband have food?”

Ok, so we what we have decided to do is to go to Page and get a small refrigerator at Wal-Mart, and put it where we now have a chair in the living area of our trailer, and put the chair in the bedroom of our trailer where we now have the laundry basket, and use the real refrigerator as a bookshelf until we get to Phoenix in October. And maybe someone at an “Authorized Repair” place in Phoenix will actually have the time to make the repair before the warranty runs out. And if they don’t, then I will call Norcold again and ask them what they suggest we do.

OK, so maybe I feel better now that I have gotten this off my chest. Thanks for listening.

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Not Much Going On

Karen · 4 Comments

Yes, we had days off, three of them, but we didn’t go anywhere. Well, I didn’t go anywhere. FabGrandpa went to Kanab, to have some more work done on the truck. This time, it got a new starter. And I think this is the last thing we will need to do for a while. At least I hope so.

(Kathy and Zach)

He got up and was ready to go around 5:00 a.m. yesterday. I got up just about the time he left, took a shower, and went back to bed. I finally got up for the day around 9:30, just in time to have a cup of coffee before he came back home.

(Shirley, John, Bob, and Gary)

Later, in the late afternoon, we had a dinner party across the street. Kathy and Ace had been gone to the South Rim for three weeks. I had been watering her plants, and a couple of others had been feeding her Kitty, so to thank us all, they made dinner. MMMM, they had potato salad, baked beans, and pork ribs. All of it was very good, and all gluten free I might add. After we all ate, we went out to the fire ring and just visited around the campfire. What a nice, relaxing, day.

(Gary and Sue)

So, since I will be on the late shift when I go back to work tomorrow, I have been cooking all day so we will be able to eat at a halfway decent hour all the rest of the week. I have baked chicken thighs, country style pork ribs, potato salad, rice, jello salad, pinto bean soup and tuna salad. for tonight, it will be stir fried chicken with garlic, french cut green beans, corn and the last of my sweet red Italian peppers. I’ll serve it with some rice and a pear salad, then we’ll eat the last of that chocolate cake.

(John and Zach)

And while all that cooking was going on, we also defrosted the refrigerator, cleaned the bathroom, vacuumed all the carpet and shook all the rugs, and just generally cleaned everything. Yeah, how exciting! But now it is done and next time we have time off, we will go somewhere and I will come back with some fabulous pictures to share. But, for now, just know we are living the good life up here on the Kaibab Plateau.

(Ace and FabGrandpa)

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Some More Wildflowers

Karen · 2 Comments

I didn’t have time to upload all these yesterday, so here are:

Indian Paintbrush on the Cape Royal Road

Another view of the meadow with the aspen trees:

I don’t know what this one is called but it looks like a coreopsis:

And this one most people would say is a weed, but I still think it’s pretty:

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My Uniform Faux Pas!!!

Karen · 3 Comments

About halfway through my day today, I went to the restroom and discovered that I was wearing this hat:

Instead of this hat:

I guess all those people who saw me pulling weeds at the entrance station thought I took a really wrong turn on the way to work this morning. OOPS!

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Red Canyon and Bryce Canyon in Utah

Karen · 3 Comments

I know you can tell from my last few posts that there is nothing, and I do mean nothing, going on here. We go to work, come home, eat dinner, then veg out on the sofa, doing nothing. Maybe go across the road to the campfire sometimes and have a beer, but not often. Because we haven’t been anywhere much lately, I decided to show you some pictures from Red Canyon and Bryce Canyon for last month. I hope you enjoy seeing the pictures as much as we enjoyed seeing the real things:

This is in Red Canyon, on the way to Bryce Canyon, north of Kanab in Utah:
You have to click on the pics to make them bigger, they are awesome!

Also in Red Canyon:

A tunnel in Red Canyon

Bryce Canyon. Nice but I like the Grand Canyon better:

Another view of Bryce. You can see the hoo doos better in this one:

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Western Tanager

Karen · 3 Comments

Thursday when I was working the morning shift at the entrance station, there was a little puddle of water on the road from the rain the night before. Lots of birds were coming by to splash and drink there when the traffic was slow. This beautiful guy came by several times. I’m so glad I got a pic of him before the traffic picked up.

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Banana Buckwheat Pancakes

Karen · 2 Comments

Ever since I discovered the yummy recipe for the short cakes using corn starch as a main ingredient, I have been using it in more of my recipes. It seems to give the finished product a more “wheat flour like” texture.

So, this morning, I whipped up some pancakes for FabGrandpa and me, and they were really good. Good enough for FabGrandpa to ask for seconds, which in my experience, he won’t do unless something is pretty good.

Here is the recipe I used to make these:

Banana Buckwheat Pancakes

1 1/2 cups buckwheat flour
2/3 cup cornstarch
1 tsp xanthan gum
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/4 cup melted butter

Mix all the dry ingredients together well. Add the egg and milk and stir well, making sure all the lumps are mixed in. If this the batter is too stiff, add a little more milk. Add the melted butter last and stir it in well.

Put some olive oil in a skillet and let it get hot but not smoking. Pour in about a 1/3 cup of batter per pancake. While the first side is cooking add thin slices of banana to each pancake. When there are little bubbles popping along the outside edges, turn the pancakes over a cook until browned on the second side. Serve with melted butter and your favorite syrup, and watch them disappear!

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Oh, Give Me A Home…

Karen · 3 Comments

I really think this place is where that song is about…

These guys were on the side of the road the other day. I took this pic out the window of the Jeep I was driving. There must have been about 50 of them out there. Click on the picture to make it bigger and get the full effect of it.

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