Bhutan Photos

Two of my very dear friends, Vicki & Dave, have recently returned from a trip to Bhutan. Vicki used her new DSLR to capture some really beautiful images. I will share a few with you because they are just spectacular.

Bhutan is in the Himalayan range - their mountains are sacred and have not been climbed like Everest and K2.


Great people shots.


Bhutan is a Buddhist country, they have many festivals. This is one of the dancers. I love the way her head is back.


Tiger's Nest - built on a sheer cliff by hand.

Bhutan is a beautiful country. They are the first to adopt the measure of Gross National Happiness as a metric for how they're doing, instead of Gross National Product. I like that in a government.

It rained last night, the first significant rain since we got here at the end of September. After a brutally windy day yesterday, today dawns bright, crisp and calm. I think we're going to put Christmas lights on the palm tree. Holiday lights on an RV are challenging, to say the least.

A Spatchcocked Thanksgiving

VEGETARIANS - this may not be a blog you'll enjoy. Avert your eyes.

Spatchcock. It's a lovely word with a murky etymology. Jim and I were watching Food Network the night before Turkey Day and we saw Alton Brown prepare a Cornish game hen in a panini press. We had two game hens defrosting in the refrigerator and Jim decided that he would use this technique the following day on Thanksgiving dinner, using the grill, not a press. I am very impressed with his willingness to try this, but what the heck, with 5 pounds of stuffing, no one would go hungry if it didn't work out.

The method as demonstrated by Jim:

With the bird breast side down, remove the back bone with a sturdy pair of kitchen shears. If you don't have a pair of these, you should. Get thee to a cutlery shop.




Open the bird up, mash it down flat until you hear some bones break. Then, using a sharp knife, cut a smallish hole in the skin below the ribs. You'll be pushing the end of the leg through the hole, so make sure you've cut the hole in a place the leg can be pushed. Mock it up before cutting.


Turn him over and remove the distal end of the wing, as they tend to burn. You are done spatchcocking at this point.


Are they not lovely?


Jim rubbed them with olive oil, then sprinkled them with oregano, garlic pepper, and a pinch of salt.


After grilling you get this.

They tend to flatten out on the grill, and cook evenly. They were really really good. I think this may be our new go-to poultry dinner.

Yesterday's cooking lesson for me was to make sure that the two pans you want to put in the teeny tiny RV oven will actually fit in there, at the same time. We ended up at Safeway buying smaller disposable pans that would fit simultaneously. One gets used to having large ovens, until one doesn't!

Hope you and yours are having an excellent Black Friday. We are contemplating a new external hard drive, but I don't think we're ready to execute yet. I have GOT to start backing up more often.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy T-day from the desert southwest! Hope you are all having a wonderful day with family and friends. We're going to spatchcock a couple a game hens and grill them. There will be pictures.

Another Mystery Solved in the Old Pueblo

This is our third winter in Tucson. Since arriving we have been mystified as to why there are CO2 cartridges everywhere on the roads in south Tucson. As a bicyclist I like to think of myself and my fellow cyclists as responsible citizens, would cyclists really throw that many empty CO2 cartridges on the ground after fixing a flat? Why would there be piles of them on the ground? Was there a mass flatting? Saturday Jim asked a bicycle police officer "what's up with the cartridges all over the place?" As it turns out, the cartridges used to make whipped cream are filled with nitrous oxide (aka laughing gas). They're called whippets. Apparently there is a segment of south Tucson's population that's driving around in cars, transferring nitrous oxide from the canisters to balloons, and they're getting high - while driving. Another sign that I have totally lost touch with my culture.

Yesterday was not a good day, had a lot of pain in my face and jaw. Today has been much better. Our outing for today was to drive up to AJ's Fine Foods and Campbell and Sunrise. We also toured the Pottery Barn and Williams Sonoma. They are such pretty stores. After that I was pretty much whacked so we came home. This was taken in the parking lot. Very upscale shopping there.


Look at that sky - really blue. I am wasting perfect weather this week. It never fails.

El Tour de Tucson

Today was the Tour de Tucson, actually for some people doing the long courses, it still is. We got up early, hoping to see the leaders come through by the RV park, but we were not early enough. The 109 milers left downtown at 0700 hours, and were already going by us at 0720. It was a chilly morning!

We drove to the 80 mile start, which was out at a community college at Irvington and Houghton. Everyone rides the same course, your mileage depends on where you start. These people had come out to view the festivities with cow bells.


So these are the leaders 29 miles into the ride. Notice the pack bearing down on them.


The pack in hot pursuit.


At 9:00 they released the 80 mile group. They had to come out of a side street and merge in to the 109 mile group. It was successful, no one collided with one another.


And here he is, JimE who is doing the 109 mile course today.

After Jim came by, we went back to the RV, had breakfast, and then I went back to sleep for 3 hours. I'm still tired.

Graphic Pictures of my Ear!

Ok, the first picture isn't bad, I'm just giving you time to decide if you want to see the gooey side. I got home yesterday about 2:00, laid around the house and napped, had pudding and noodles for dinner so I wouldn't have to chew. Chewing hurts some. Sleeping was difficult, I have slept on my left side forever, but that won't be happening for awhile.


This incision gives them access to the ear drum. They cut there so they can fold the ear forward and work in the ear canal. They put packing behind the ear drum, graft tissue on to the ear drum and then put more packing on top of the ear drum. Then it's all topped off with a giant cotton ball and a big band aid.

The other weird side effect is a metallic taste on the tongue. One of the 6 nerves that goes to the tongue goes right through the ear where he was working. The surgeon says it always goes away. We'll see. On the bright side, I have had no nausea or vomiting, which is very common with this procedure.

So, for the next two weeks, Jim has to wash my hair for me while I hold a plastic cup over my ear so that no water can get into the ear canal. That might be worth a picture (not!). Maybe in a couple of days we'll be hiking again. No biking can be done until I can turn my head to the right side. Other than that, I have nothing new to report. Convalescence is boring.