Return to the Tundra!

We had been checking the Edmonton temperatures the last few weeks before we left California. It was warm (by Alberta standards for this time of year) with the mercury in the low to mid teens Celsius most days. Sandy checked the traffic cams to discover all the snow had melted. As the temperatures were getting a little too toasty in La Quinta, in the mid 30sC, she was whining about the heat and looking forward to getting to Edmonton.

Last weekend we spent most of our time, when not on our bikes, getting things packed up ready to make the trip home, and getting the La Quinta house ready to shut down. Monday morning we went on our regular ride with our ladies group, making it special by riding to Shields Date Garden for breakfast and a nice long visit. When we got home, the bikes went directly into the van and the loading started. That was completed uneventfully (except I found later that I had left my cycling road shoes in CA). Next up was time to clean the house and complete the shut down sequence.

This year, since Sandy decided we would have a more leisurely drive home, she said we would not be leaving at 06:00 as we did last year. I was still up at 6, though, to get the dogs walked and fed. We had a quick breakfast and off we went.  Sandy was keen to go a little different route and do some exploring along the way. We headed east to make our way to Lake Havasu, on the border between California and Arizona. In no time, it was 28C and Ben was asking for a drink, which I provided. Then the road became a long session of small rolling hills. Hmmm, that nice big drink of water on Ben's breakfast crumbles, combined with the up and down, up and down of the hills soon made for a car sick dog. Yuck. Guess who was assigned cleanup duty? This is when Sandy would say, "You're the one who wanted the dogs!"  We pulled into a Walmart parking lot in Parker, AZ, and I got Ben's crate pad cleaned up and set out in the sun to dry while we took the dogs for a short walk and Sandy nipped into get us each a pop. By then, we decided we deserved a little treat! Fortunately, Ben settled down to an uneventful journey the rest of the way.

You may recall that I  went to London and Dublin for work each fall. That did not happen last fall, so I have missed my annual London fix. Not to worry, Sandy to the rescue! Into Lake Havasu we went ... the town, not the body of water ... and what did we find?  Nothing but the London Bridge! In the 70s, the original London Bridge was dismantled and moved across the pond to be reassembled in Lake Havasu. We had a nice little walk around with the dogs to take in this displaced icon.

Back on the road, and what was my next excitement? None other than Needles, AZ.  I am a die hard Peanuts fan (I think I use to own almost every Peanuts comic strip compilation book Charles Schulz ever published).  Just in case you don't know, Snoopy had a brother, Spike, from whom he was separated when they were puppies (and they say it's a dog's life!). They reunited as adults. Spike was a bit rough around the edges, a country dog who lived in Needles.  I made Sandy pull over so I could take a photo of the billboard you will see, below.

Our first overnight stop was in Cedar City, Utah. Already, it was getting chilly when I walked the dogs in the evening. And that night, I was so chilly in bed, that I moved over to the second bed and stuffed Rocky under the covers to keep me warm! She thought that was a great idea and Sandy said she had quite a good sleep on her own without my squirming about. The next morning, we bade so long to our shorts and hello to our long pants. Arrrgghh! It was very chilly when I took the dogs out for their morning walk. Some Mormon communities have higher incidences of deafness (the Osmonds have 2 deaf brothers), and while on our walk, I saw a sign that reminded me of that. Also, I found a fire hydrant that had Benny a little confused. You will see what I mean in the photos.

Day two saw us drive through Salt Lake City where there was more snow in the surrounding mountains than we usually see on our way home. That night we stayed in Great Falls, Montana, where it was even chillier. In the morning, Sandy was dismayed when she looked out and saw frost on the windshields of the vehicles, but when she looked closer, she was relieved that it was only a heavy dew. That, however, came hand in hand with fog of varying densities that we had to deal with during the first 30 minutes or so of the day three's drive.

At the border, we breezed through customs with only one other vehicle in front of us. Ahh, home again. All day, we had overcast skies and patchy rain. Regardless of the weather, though, it is always great to be back home and we both commented how our bodies just seemed to relax when we crossed the border into Canuckland.  We stopped at Nanton, Alberta to get gas and some good old Canadian junk food. For the last few weeks, Sandy had been having a craving for Hickory Sticks (for our non-Canadian readers, think of a potato chip, but it is a little stick rather than a chip). That was the first thing she got, and my trusty Glossette Raisins were my first purchase.  Next up, my sister joined us of a quick visit and lunch just south of Calgary. Snow was in the forecast, so we needed to get back on the road.

We pulled onto our driveway at about 4 PM Thursday afternoon, just as snow flakes began to fall. It snowed continuously for the next two days. Needless to say, we have not been out on our bikes, and Sandy is not exactly thrilled! Rockie is loving being back in her regular yard.  Both dogs seem to be enjoying getting reacquainted with their old neighborhood and getting caught up on their pee-mail.

Hope you had a good Easter!! Here are the photos.

Outside Parker, AZ

One of our last desert blossoms

Ben feeling better after his eruption, the clean-up, and a walk.

Sandy and Ben at the fountain by London Bridge, Lake Havasu

The original London Bridge

Snoopy's brother, Spike!

A fighter jet as we leave Las Vegas (was he waving at us?)

Sign on our walk Wednesday morning in Cedar City, Utah

Ben's conundrum 

Lots of snow on the mountains outside Salt Lake City

Day two lunch break

Day three and finally some Canadian junk food!!!

Sandy satisfies her craving

Just starting to snow when we arrived

Our first morning home!

Ben brings home snowballs he gathered on our walk

Rockie's favourite place when it is chilly

The Desert Season Has Come to an End

Well, there it is ... done! Yup, we all survived spending five and a half months together at our winter get away. The dogs survived the three day drive to La Quinta, the new yard, the new house rules, and figuring out the new creatures found at dog level. I survived not working, and Sandy survived having me and the dogs around ... all the time! All and all, a success I would say.

I had some contract work that allowed me to ease into retirement and kept me occupied the first few months while Sandy was on the links. Rockie enjoyed taking her classes and keeping the yard free of vermin, Ben excelled at his usual work of guarding his bed, and Sandy managed to achieve her best golf score ever, 85, two weeks ago.

There were many things we enjoyed through the five months and I won't bore you with too many details. I will say that we thoroughly enjoyed the many activities in our community and the many good friends and neighbours we have met. Of course, we got lots of cycling done, but looking back, we think we could have done more. Sandy's brother, John, visited us for about 10 days in late November and she enjoyed touring him around the area. My sister, Patti, visited in February and I figure the highlight of that trip was was our camel ride at the Living Desert zoo.

As we are now officially in springtime, the plants in our yard are putting on a nice show of blossoms, as are a number of the cacti in the area.  The cold blooded creatures are coming out of hibernation, which is making things exciting for people and dogs. Saturday and Sunday we took in some of the season ending activities in our neighborhood, culminating in a beautiful show of fireworks. Yup, these are all the signs that it is time to pack up our home in the warm sun and start making our way north to get our Edmonton house all set for spring and summer.

Rather than a long story, here are more photos than usual. They cover from Christmas through the season ending fireworks on Sunday.

Christmas Morning

Heading out on our Christmas morning ride

Snow in the mountains, this is a "white Christmas" for the Coachella Valley

Sandy makes Rockie work for her water

Prickly pear cactus

Yucca blooming

Ocotillo with its firey blossoms.

Little lizard warming up in the early morning sun

King snake

Rockie checking out a toad on our evening walk

Double hibiscus in our yard

One of our regular hibiscus

Long stemmed roses in our yard

Red with white roses

Benny getting serious about his dinner

Rocki's grad photo!

With my sister, Patti, on our camel ride 

Four baby wart hogs at the Living Desert zoo

Two of the cheetahs at the zoo

Sunday brunch and drag queen show in Palm Springs

At the Oceanside pier

Sun over the palms on a morning ride.

Best helmet hair ever!

Season ending fireworks in our neighborhood.

When Leif Gives You Lemons ...

This post is about an adventure of a different sort, a culinary adventure that didn't even have us leave our property. And, no, that isn't a typographical error in the title of this post. We have three citrus trees in our La Quinta yard. Two lemon trees and a tangerine tree. When we arrived in November, we found that our larger lemon tree and the tangerine tree were loaded with fruit. I have decided to name our large lemon tree, "Leif." He produced our biggest crop of lemons, yet, and the fruit just kept getting bigger and bigger as the season continued. There are more than we can use, so we have made a number of deliveries to neighbours and friends (at least those who don't have their own lemon trees). Even the huge lemons, and I mean easily over 6 inches long, are very juicy.

This was the first tangerine crop we have had in four years. About one third were dry, one third half dry and half juicy, and one third were very juicy, sweet, and delicious, but boy did they have a lot of pits. We enjoyed a number of them with breakfast, and I used some to make an orange chiffon cake that was pretty tasty.

But back to the big boy, Leif the Lemon Tree. What to do with all those lemons he produced and ripened throughout the winter? A favourite and refreshing beverage in the desert is just a glass of ice cold water brightened with fresh lemon juice or lemon wedges. There has been plenty of that consumed in the Williamson-Reed household through the last few weeks as the temperatures have been well over 30C.  We found that after the tart lemon water, lemonade was just too sweet so I never made a second batch of that, instead, I just enhance Crystal Light lemonade and iced tea by adding fresh lemon juice.

I have scoured the internet and my cook books to come up with all sorts of other things to try. I am happy to say that everything I have presented to the tasters seems to have been accepted with compliments (or perhaps everyone is just too polite.) There was one recipe failure, lemon pecans, which I didn't even make Sandy try. I will have to give that recipe another go since I think the biggest problem was I left them in the oven about 1 minute too long and the nuts got rather bitter.

So what have I made? Well, let see, my lemon culinary endeavors on the dessert side have included multiple well received lemon pound cakes, a couple of batches of sticky lemon rolls (now a Boxing Day brunch favourite), lemon pecan cookies that seemed to disappear rather quickly, lemon crumb squares that require no eggs (for our egg allergic friend), lemon pudding cake (which is a favourite of Sandy's), and a lemon cheese cake that is to die for. In my not so humble opinion, it is the best cheese cake I have ever had, whether home made, store bought, or restaurant fare. The only problem is, making one is pretty much an all day affair, but boy is that worth it!!!  

For a nice savory dinner, a batch of lemon pasta with grilled chicken or Italian sausage is one of our favourite meals, and likely one you might be served should you stop by for a visit when the lemons are ready.

I have even tried my hand at candy making. So far, my attempts at making hard candy lemon drops have been a complete failure; burnt lemon candy is hardly a treat. On the up side, though, I think I may have mastered lemon toffee. Pretty tasty, but with the heat here, it needs to be kept in the fridge.

About three or four weeks ago, we had a massive and almost overwhelmingly fragrant blooming of all our citrus that attracted lots of bees and hummingbirds.  Already there are a number of teeny tiny tangerines set and a few lemons. I do not think we will have the bumper crops next year that we had this year. Both Leif and the tangerine tree are due for a pruning in September, so it will be interesting to see how next year's crop is doing when we return in the fall.

 Here are a few photos for you to enjoy. Hope they don't make you too hungry!

Leif, the Lemon Tree showing off some of his crop

A lemon windfall after a big windstorm last week

Sticky lemon buns, with cream cheese icing.

Lemon pound cake

Lemon cookies with pecans

Lemon pudding cake with fresh local strawberries

The oh, so delicious lemon cheese cake

Lemon toffee