julee’s sharing needles

Archive for the ‘travel’ Category

thirty three

Thursday, October 22nd, 2009

For my birthday this year, we decided to get out of town. The nearest racetrack is Oaklawn at Hot Springs, but they run in the spring. The nearest track with racing right now is at Blue Ribbon Downs in Sallisaw, Oklahoma. The racetrack is without booze, which seems to be a running theme in our move to The South. Luckily, we stayed in Fort Smith, bastion of wet counties in western Arkansas.

We checked out the downtown in Fort Smith on Friday. The town has a very complex mix of people of Vietnamese, Native American, Mexican, Caucasian, and other southeast Asian heritage. This made for a very wonderful trip to a Vietnamese Pho (delicious noodle soup) restaurant, as well as a very good Thai Curry place called Bangkok Cafe. Friday we went downtown, checking out places to eat, antique stores, and a yarn shop, where I got my birthday present from Ty. (I KNOW! The entire trip was a birthday present!) We went down to the banks of the Arkansas River, which was running fast and full and furious. Check it out, in the picture I’m wearing the yarn I got from Ty for my birthday 2 years ago!

On the night of my birthday, toasted champagne in our hotel room. Then we went a martini bar called 21 West End for dinner and creme brulee, and martinis of course.

Saturday morning we headed out to the western wear shop. I am enamored with a brand called Southern Threads. They have delicate, almost china-like patterns on the shirts for men. All of the women’s clothing had bright colors and too much glitter, or were too pastel in bad ways. Ty found some cool shirts though!

We drove on to the racetrack, and we stayed in the clubhouse since it was chilly outside. My only gripe with the track, besides the booze, was the exacta box betting scheme. At every other track we have been to, we have been allowed to bet $1 per exacta box bet, as long as the number of bets being bet were greater than two. We like boxing 3 horses, so it is normally a $6 bet. At Blue Ribbon downs, it is a $12 bet, a little too rich for my blood. It really didn’t matter, because we didn’t win anything until the 8th race, when I bet a $.10 superfecta and won!

Most of the races that day were quarter horses, appaloosas and paint horses. They only race the straightaway for 250-450 yards, which makes them hard races to handicap. We went back to Ft. Smith and had Thai food.

I got some really cool other gifts for my birthday, but those will have to wait for my next post!

Posted in The South, travel | No Comments »

Arkansas Vacation Part III: Labor Day Weekend with Dave and Neal

Monday, September 21st, 2009

If you’ve ever wanted to visit us down in Arkansas on the weekend, and it’s already Wednesday, just give us a call. That’s what Dave and Neal did, and we had a great time!

Like most of our guests, we took them on a tour of Lake Conway.

They also got the special bonus tour of our nearest border liquor store, Lake Liquor. Included was the unexpected bonus of the bulk ice machine. Dave said he would blog about it, but he hasn’t yet.

While the guys were down here, Ty let them know about his aspirations to purchase a boat. They were nothing but encouraging.

We ended up going to downtown Little Rock on Sunday. The Clinton Library was open, but not much else was open downtown on a Sunday.

Neal and Dave smuggled me back to Nebraska in their trunk, but we made one stop along the way. We stopped at the Precious Moments Chapel in Carthage, MO. We had no idea about the museum component and spent much more than the allotted 30 minute side-trip we had provisioned.

We had a great time in all of the gift shops, with the cement statues, and seeing all of the doe-eyed child figurine history of Sam Butcher. I didn’t realize how Japanese Anime inspired the drawings and figures were, and it was very interesting to find out.

Posted in The South, travel | No Comments »

Arkansas Vacation Part II: Aunt Carol, Mom, and Jen

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

When we get visitors, we love taking them out to see the bald cypress trees growing out of Lake Conway. Even though the trees are conifers, they loose their leaves during the winter making them look even creepier.

Jen had poison ivy, so she rigged up some cut socks and leggings to keep her from itching.

Another Arkansas highlight is the River Market in Little Rock. Right next to that is the Clinton Library. We should probably just get lifetime memberships, because that is the first place people know they want to see in Little Rock.

A new attraction in Little Rock is the Heifer International Heifer Village. I like the purpose of Heifer International, but it is so much fun to bring people to the educational center and show them how Heifer is helping people. My favorite is the rolling water container. As a child, I had to bring 5 gallon buckets of water to the hogs in our lot. At eight pounds per gallon, I carried just under 40 gallons of water as a child. The rolling container lets you leave much of that weight on the ground. This is water people need every day for drinking and cooking!

Aunt Carol really liked it. She liked it so much, she got us this awesome recycled candy wrapper dish at the Heifer International shop.

We also like to take people on the Little Rock trolley system. If they’re crafty, we stop off in Argenta for the art galleries or the bead store.

If you’re planning on visiting us or Little Rock anytime soon, you should make sure to visit between Sept 25 and July 5, 2010 for The World of the Pharaohs at the Arkansas Arts Center.

Finally, if you visit us in Conway, we’ll take you to one of the clubs in town. We have to go to a club because Conway is located in Faulkner County, a dry county. In the heart of it all is Toad Suck Square.

Posted in The South, travel | No Comments »

Arkansas Vacation Part 1: Mountain View

Sunday, August 30th, 2009

My mother Mary Lou, my sister Jen and my aunt Carol came down to visit a few weeks ago. We really got out and explored some of Arkansas. We took so many pictures, that the blog post became overwhelming! I’m going to split it up into parts.

One of the highlights of the visit was going to Mountain View, AR, the folk music capitol of the world. Ty had seen a feature on Mountain View in the Oxford American’s SoLost feature. The Ozark Folk Art Museum up there, but the real life of the town comes out at night when everyone sets up a chair and plays music at the parks and street corners.

We had a great time at the Ozark Folk Center State Park. Each profession has a separate little hut where craftsmen and craftswomen in costume practice their art. I especially enjoyed the weaving, quilting, and sewing. The most delightful and unexpected building contained a bearded broom maker. He showed us his dried grass weaving technique, and had a wall full of turkey wing whisk brooms. It was totally unexpected for me.

Jen and Mom enjoyed the plants and the Heritage Herb Garden. Living up on the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, Jennifer has learned much about natural herbs, healing, and ceremonial herbs. She was delighted to find an entire house full drying white sage. Jen also found a soap to help her deal with her poison ivy!

We got to the Ozark Folk Art Center at around noon or 1PM, and we had just enough time to make it through all of the buildings before closing time. We could have easily spent the entire day there.

For dinner, we picked up a bucket of chicken and sides and made our way down to the park. We moved a picnic table closer to the music and just enjoyed what Mountain View had to offer.

Lots of people gathered on the benches and movable chairs in Mountain View Park, but the regulars brought their own folding chairs, some with 2-3 inches of padding. I heard Elvis, I heard hymns, I heard songs sung once by one musician, and then sung again with completely different lyrics!

We made our way down to the “Pickin’ Porch” where a baptist minister from Louisiana played some funny songs about beans. He could tell we were tourists, so he asked us our names where we were from. From that he derived a song with the chorus “Julee and Jennifer,” which completely delighted us. Unfortunately, we had JUST decided to stay for one more song as the sun was going down and we had a long drive home. We are definitely going back, bringing musical instruments, and staying over night!

Posted in The South, travel | 1 Comment »

swimming hole

Tuesday, June 30th, 2009

On Saturday, Ty, Sujith, and I went looking for a swimming hole south of Little Rock. We all really wanted to go swimming and to have an adventure at the same time. Ty found the Arkansas Swimming Hole website, which led us to this site south of Benton on the Saline River.

We had to stop 2 or 3 times for directions. Everyone knew where the place was, but everyone had different directions for it. In the end, we had to deal with two construction zones that derailed us!

The first site looked good for swimming, except the bank was littered with bait containers and hooks. I was unsure about swimming in a fishing hole, and the local fishermen said there was another place upriver where people swim. There were also some pretty interesting bridges in decay at that site.

The second place turned out to be right beneath I-30! We went downriver, away from the noise of the interstate and floated around in some medium fast moving waist-deep water. Right under the bridge, the river was 2 inches deep with large gravel underneath. Just before the bridge was the packed swimming hole. The water depth was just at 5 ft, and people were flying off of a rope swing.

Ty, Sujith, and I all took turns on the rope swing. I received a bad welt from not waiting until the rope swung back to let go. Ty was a pro. There were all sorts of folk there, grilling out, swimming, cooling off. The craziest site was a 2-3 year old kid in a life vest, tethered to a tree with a clothesline so he didn’t float down river. We also saw some interesting graffiti under the I-30 bridge.

Posted in The South, outdoors, travel | No Comments »

Eight Bit Scrubber

Tuesday, June 16th, 2009

My friends Katie and Amos have almost every video game imaginable. Whenever I go over to a party at their house, there is always someone playing their tabletop video game console, full of Galaga, Ladybug, Donkey Kong, Burger Time, and Pacman.

As a thank you for putting me up over the weekend, I crocheted them this Ms. Pacman tawashi eco scrubber.

Maybe I’ll post a pattern later. Free form crochet for me is becoming less and less trial and error, and more and more derivation of formulas. I did the bow in a crazy figure-8 in a combination of single, double, and triple crochet stitches.

Posted in acrylic, crochet, design, travel | No Comments »

Bloody Mary Brunch

Monday, June 1st, 2009

During my stay with Katie, we weren’t sure what to do on Memorial Day. A very dear friend of ours passed away last year, and we thought, “What would she do?”

The answer is that she would have a Bloody Mary Brunch. Katie made an awesome egg bake that included copious amounts of hash browns and a ham steak. I made cinnamon rolls, but the thing that makes a successful Bloody Mary Brunch is a Bloody Mary Bar.

The basic items you require for your own bar include tomato juice, V8, or some other Bloody Mary mix. We set out vodka and gin with a measuring jigger, as well as large glasses and ice.

The vegetables are very important. We offered a regular relish tray, but the vegetables on the Bloody Mary Bar are much taller: grilled asparagus, lightly pickled green beans or “dilly beans”, green onions, dill spears, red and green bell pepper slices, and of course the classic celery stalk. Garnish is also crucial: pearl onions, garlic-stuffed green olives, black olives, radishes, lemon wedges and parsley served with toothpicks are required. With all of the vegetables involved, someone called the Bloody Mary Bar a “vodka salad”.

The condiments are also very important! A well stocked Bloody Mary Bar will have a variety of hot sauces ranging from domestic to choices from south of the border. Worcestershire sauce is also a perennial favorite. Dry condiments such as salt, pepper, and red pepper will complete your very own Bloody Mary bar.

Be imaginative with your Bloody Mary Bar. Near the end of the party, we baked an entire pound of bacon, and I daresay one slice made the perfect compliment to my drink.

Also make sure to have alternative drinks. We had some Kool-Aid for the kids, and Mimosas for the non-savory drinks. Friends brought over fresh fruit. Katie made curried cashews and set out kettle cooked potato chips that seemed to compliment the flavor of the Bloody Mary Bar even more.

Here my friend Jack Jackson demonstrates his finished vodka salad:

Here our wonderful hostess Katie demonstrates the most important part of the Bloody Mary Brunch: relaxing.

Posted in cooking, fun, travel | No Comments »

Square Foot Gardening: Joseph plot

Friday, May 29th, 2009

My friend Katie helped me build my 8′ x 4′ x 10” raised bed planters in March. I’ve been trying on different careers, and Katie suggested that I become a Life Coach via High Density or Urban Gardening. I believe she said that people who could afford a life coach would benefit from getting a little dirt under their nails, but only if they didn’t have to sit on the ground. When I told her I’d be up in Nebraska for a little while, she said I could help put in her garden.

I’ve read a few Square Foot Gardening and High Density Gardening websites. When I planted my garden, my parents influenced much of the layout, wanting to plant things in rows. Also, the soil was chosen for me: cotton gin waste with healthy lumps of gray clay. So far, winging it, everything has turned out great…even a little scary. While I was in Nebraska, Ty wrote to tell me he counted 23 tiny tomatoes. Last night he came in and claimed to have counted 90. (Keep in mind many of these are just Cherry Tomatoes!) The scary part is being able to eat everything before it goes bad, or before the next vegetable becomes ripe.

Katie and I are of similar logical minds, but she tends to go more by the book. This is possibly because she remembers more of the book, or had the energy to actually track down the book.

The Joseph Family has a very special smaller planter containing their hops plants. We crisscrossed that planter with lettuce and spinach. The hops are a rhizome, and will come back every year. They’ll produce for the first time next year. Katie’s husband Amos Joseph has become a avid brew master over the years, and he’ll use them in next year’s kegs.

Katie and I planted most of the 48 square foot plots on Saturday morning. She planted the 8 tomatoes on the end, and trellised them using the recommended square food gardening net and conduit.

The next row over we planted squash and cucumbers, to either train them up the trellis, or train them over the edge of the planter. We ended up filling the rest of the squares with spinach, lettuce, carrots, beets, peas, beans, radishes, and swiss chard.

It was very weird planting a new garden, while leaving my almost full grown one for Ty to care and water. He did a very good job peeling off the suckers on the tomatoes, and keeping the spinach, lettuce, snap peas, and radishes harvested.

The back yard of the Joseph house recently suffered the loss of a gigantic maple tree. After falling on their garage, this got them a practically new garage and a back yard opened to the sun. To give the back yard some more character, Katie wanted 2 rosemary plants in large planters. The idea is to bring in the plants during the winter, and then use them as shrubbery, air freshener, and fish seasoning for the rest of the year. We looked all over town for rosemary plants. We finally ended up at the high-end Finke Garden Center, who had the last 2 rosemary plants in town. The plants were huge! They were the perfect size for people who intend to keep the plants going for years.

The Joseph hound, Hank, appreciated the new shrubbery in red pots. Hank is a blue healer/basset hound mix. I really love the blue healer, part dingo breed because that is the dog my father really bonds with. They are very smart, and love to please, but can be a little too energetic. Hank’s basset hound part of the family makes him the dog I wish my dad’s dog Sophie could be. Sophie will only rest with you late at night, thinks everything is a licking game, and never gets tired. Hank needs a few naps a day, knows when you should take one, and curls right up against you to help on your way to dreamland.

Posted in conservation, gardening, outdoors, recycle, travel | No Comments »

I see South Dakota

Friday, May 29th, 2009

After getting her master’s degree in secondary science education, my sister applied to a number of schools. After receiving a number of offers, she chose the Todd County Middle School in Mission, SD on the Rosebud Reservation. The Reservation is the home of the Sicangu Lakota Oyate Sioux tribe, and my sister has been interested in the Sioux Nation for a number of years.

My parents and I left super early in the morning. I wasn’t sure how things would work, driving through small towns. I’m accustomed to bypassing towns on interstate highways, and not stopping unless the car needs gas or we see a public rest stop. This is where the network of McDonald’s restaurant come into play. For the 5 hour drive, I believe we stopped at 4 or 5 golden arches. At one my mom just got coffee. At the next, bathroom break, sausage muffins, and more coffee. The coffee definitely puts one in a vicious cycle of more bathroom breaks and more coffee.

We met Jen at the school around 11:30 AM and she gave us a tour.

Both my mother and father are retired teachers. My father retired back in 1989, and even though he can be a very shy person, he really warmed up to those kids. Jen gave us a tour of the school, and we met many of her co-workers from all over the United States.

For lunch, Jen suggested the Chute Two restaurant, golf course, and driving range. My father met the owner got us a tour of the clubhouse, overlook patio, and the dance floor.

After lunch, we had a few hours to kill before Jen got out of school. We spent the rest of our time at the Rosebud Casino, of course. My parents love going to casinos, and I believe one of the most important foundations of their marriage lies in the way they gamble. Each has a set amount to gamble, and they never tell each other how much they lose. I brought some birthday money to gamble with, because my mother-in-law would appreciate that. I really had a good time with them. In the end, I lost enough to just watch my mother keep winning.

Jen met us at the casino, and escorted us to Valentine. There, she gave us a tour of her home, and we said hello to her cats. She gave me a Christmas present: tie-dyed tea towels. I had just been admiring my mother’s set.

We enjoyed dinner in Valentine, and then we started back on the 5 hour trip home.

Posted in Uncategorized, peace, travel | No Comments »

Farm Vacation

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009

Spent some time with my parents last week. I did a bunch of chores for them, hoping to get plenty of exercise and an awesome tan.

My parents have cultivated a large patch of asparagus and rhubarb that grows back every year. The crowns of asparagus are so large that they require daily tending. Every morning, they go out and cut back as much asparagus as in the first picture. They even have some renegade spears growing in their rhubarb patch, which is where the really big one came from.