Yvonne cooked up the full turkey dinner. … Delish.
The bird was brined for 24 hours.
related – the night prior Rockin’ Ronnie the Barbecue king served his guests … hotdogs.
Category: food
visiting the Adlards in Coeur d’Alene
Long overdue for a visit, I was happy to get off the bike for a week in the gorgeous North Idaho lake country.
Since my last visit the Adlards built Garage-mahal, bigger than their log home. Plenty of storage. 🙂
I happened to arrive just prior to final inspection for the Adlard’s new restaurant.
Candle in the Woods
I tried to make myself useful with last minute details.
At one point I was trimming Astroturf with scissors so the patio door would self-close.
Lack of expertise slowed me down as did non-stop libation from one of the best wine cellars in the State.
As everything Adlard, Candle in the Woods is a class act. Plenty of attention to detail.
I was honoured to be one of the guests on soft-opening night. Thrilled to see Chef David Adlard achieve his dream.
On the weekend following Lisa took me out to her parent’s place where we enjoyed great conversation and fun on the lake.
I tagged along too for the Spokane concert with Steve Martin and Martin Short. Hilarious.
Finally, I was a LIVE guest on The Adventure Podcast. Always a treat.
cycling out of Seattle
July 8-9, 2019 – days 6-7.
Day 1 | 2 | 3 | 4-5 | 6-7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12-13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | info | video
I enjoyed a day off the trail visiting friends in Port Townsend.
We had a breakfast meet-up. Then continued the reunion with Chris & Carrie hosting dinner on the deck of their new house. Teriyaki Tuna. Grilled pineapple. And much more.
On the morning of the 9th Diana and I went over to Fort Worden for coffee. Deer and bunnies graze everywhere in PT.
NEW down by the harbour is a totem.
Doug’s retirement hobby / job is developing fitness monitoring apps. He’s much into solar energy, as well.
His latest electric bike is the Elf 2fr. It’s a superb product.
Doug and Diane drove me to the Bainbridge ferry where they were picking up a friend arriving from SeaTac.
That ferry delivered me and my bike to downtown Seattle where Tam met me at Ivar’s.
Ivar’s is a Washington State institution.
In fact this was already my 3rd Ivar’s meal in Washington State. Love the place!
I’d come to Seattle in order to cycle the Burke-Gilman Trail, a 27-mile rail to trail.
It connects with a others including the Sammamish River Trail 10.9-mile.
About 8pm I wildcamped. Hoping it wasn’t going to rain too hard during the night.
Watch today’s cycling route.
Day 1 | 2 | 3 | 4-5 | 6-7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12-13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | info | video
A&W Beyond Meat Burger – my review
Like most people, I was surprised and impressed with the Beyond Meat burger at A&W.
You can swap out beef for veggie in ANY of their burgers.
This burger is pretty much the only thing that would motivate me to dine at A&W rather than competitors I like more — including Tim Horton’s.
A&W Beyond Meat Burger Review: 5 Taste-Testers Reveal Their Ratings
Carl’s Jr. MEATLESS burger
#WIN
I’d order this again.
It’s no worse than the usual lousy beef version. But more expensive.
Beyond Meat has brought its burgers to more than 1,000 Carl’s Jr. locations in the US, marking its Beyond’s largest restaurant deal to date. Order a $6.29 Beyond Famous Star and you can eat a vegetarian (sorry vegans, there’s American cheese) burg that tastes much like its conventional beef counterparts …
A&W meatless Sausage and Egg muffin
#FAIL
I was hoping the new vegetarian alternative would be just as tasty as the dead animal version.
Sadly, I don’t like it as much as regular mystery sausage.
AND it’s more expensive. AND it’s still: Calories 540, Fat 33g.
Count me out.
Del Taco’s meatless taco
My first and last visit to Del Taco. Service was way too slow.
But as tacos go, their vegetarian version with Beyond Meat tasted good to me.
Welfare Ranching: Subsidized Destruction of the American West
I’m definitely going to eat less beef in future. Cows are TERRIBLE for the environment.
Ranchers on BLM (Bureau of Land Management) property have 94 percent of their grazing costs covered by taxpayers. …
Ranchers leasing BLM land cost taxpayers an estimated $500 million a year (and probably much more—some say a billion dollars).
According to Stephen Nash’s Grand Canyon for Sale, about 15,000 ranchers receive a $33,000 from the federal government annually.
This windfall of this bill comes in the form of radically reduced leasing fees (that some ranchers, such as Cliven Bundy, refuse to pay altogether). The cost of grazing cattle on privately owned land in the West is $21.60. BLM ranchers pay $1.41 per animal unit month (AUM), the amount of monthly forage eaten by a cow and her calf. In essence, ranchers on BLM land have 94 percent of their grazing costs covered by taxpayers. …
These subsidies apply to only 2.7 percent of livestock producers in the United States. Six percent of beneficiaries get 66 percent of the proceeds. So, rather than these subsidies leading to cheaper meat (which might, depending on one’s economic philosophy, justify them), the program tends to benefit corporate ranchers with names such as Koch, Walmart, and Hilton. …
Welfare Ranching: The Subsidized Destruction of the American West tells the story of a vast region, sparsely populated by people but tragically battered by an activity many of us have mistakenly believed is benign.
In fact, the production of livestock is incompatible with the ecological health of much of the lands in the West.
Aridity is chief among the factors limiting compatible uses of western landscapes. Over decades, the placement of exotic, water-hogging, ill-adapted livestock on western lands has changed diverse native plant communities …
Bikepacking Patagonia – days 19-20
Feb 1, 2019 – Queulat National Park to wild camp (74km)
day 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5/6 |7/8 | 9/10 | 11 | 12/13 | 14 | 15 | 16/17 | 18 | 19/20 | 21/23 end
In bright sunshine I rode out of Queulat National Park.
And immediately had problems. ☹️
No cyclist likes to see something like this coming up ahead.
That means I’d be pushing my bike up a long hill.
But the scenery over these next two days was the best so far.
When taking photos I’m tempted to crop out the road.
Quite quickly it became obvious that my self-fixed pannier rack was not working. The fix I had installed was gone. ☹️
All I could do was replace the spacer with a sunscreen lid held with a zip tie.
To keep this one from breaking I decided to carry my hiking pack rather than try to strap it on the rack.
The great weather and gorgeous scenery kept me going, however.
I stopped at tiny Villa Amengual to use their library wifi.
And bought my first completo.
These are the super popular Chilean hotdogs. Mine actually turned out to be some kind of ground beef.
Little towns like this on the Carretera are all trying to become more attractive to the passing tourists. All are being improved in 2019.
Not to mention the spiffy statues!
As there were no long hikes en route today, I tried to put in some miles. The sooner I get to a bike shop for repair, the better.
About 7pm I happened upon a perfect campsite. Couldn’t resist.
A lovely night. No fly.
Fine dining with red wine.
Feb 2, 2019 – wild camp to Coyhaique (121km)
Next day dawned perfect again.
I decided to try to push though about 120km to Coyhaique in one day.
I took very few photos.
My biggest cycling day of the trip.
In the sun, I worried about heat emergency at times.
Though I drank 4 litres over the day it wasn’t nearly enough.
There was a huge hill to climb just before the city. End of day.
Exhausting.
Still, I was thrilled to actually make Coyhaique. The population is about 55,000 — a megalopolis compared with the other towns I’d seen all 4000 or less.
Too tired to eat I had, instead, chocolate milk, Diet Coke and Rum & Raisin ice-cream.
This is it. The end of the line for this cycling trip. I’ll be shipping back my rental bike from Coyhaique … but not until I do some days cycling around the city.
day 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5/6 |7/8 | 9/10 | 11 | 12/13 | 14 | 15 | 16/17 | 18 | 19/20 | 21/23 end
Rick McCharles 