Just Rest Between Meals

Well, it wasn't just resting for either of us really. Dick went to work while I went back to The Bookworm - one more time. Yes, it was open so I wandered the aisles and tried to resist temptation. I did get the Te of Piglet and a cookbook from the Gilroy Garlic Festival. I'll have to make it back to Gilroy CA for that festival. The town smelled of garlic even on a regular day. Delictious.

On to the camera store for rechargeable batteries and a different card, and then TY Lee for a heads up on a great new food store, Sunflower. It's like Trader Jo's or Whole Foods but with much better prices. Again, it was really hard to resist buying when I thought of the reality of airline regulations. The ginormous artichokes were a real hard buy to have to leave, but they would have taken about 1/3 of my suitcase.

We had set a 5:45pm date with Lee and Max at Radda with the understanding that we would ALL try to make that time. And we did! Both couples arrived at almost exactly the same time which made our getting a table pretty easy. Then came the hard part..the menu.



This is a fairly new restaurant that Lee and Max had tried, but from the winter menu. Now we had a spring one and looked long and hard.

Lee and Max shared a Caesar salad but it didn't get a photo op. I had the Radda salad which was lemony but in a different way from their Caesar.



Dick went with a small order of pasta with olive oil and garlic and a good sprinkle of red pepper. It was truly heady with garlic, and we were sure there would be no vampires round us that night.



On to our entrees...Dick chose the veal meatballs with lentils - lentils with bits of pork cheeks in them. This is the 2nd time he's had pork cheeks!


Lee had the pork chop with plums and ricotta salata. It was quite a piece of meat and the plums certainly added a good sweet/tartness.



Max had a dish we were curious about..a pasta that is a bit larger than penne with a wild boar ragu. He said it was perfect, and the dish was empty pretty quickly!



And finally I had the Radda Tortellini which were just wonderful. I actually didn't ask what the stuffing was but I really liked them with the greens and broth.



Oh yes...the happy diners. Sometimes with the food and the nattering, we almost forget to get a picture of the happy eaters.

While there were take-home boxes of lentils and some porkchop, that didn't stop us from thinking about dessert. Thinking about it and then ordering it! Then, what a surprise.. Lee's business partner Charlotte was spotted across the room. In fact it was Charlotte's hubby who took the above picture.


Back to our food and talk..

I had to have a taste of my berry panna cotta before I took a picture. It was sliding down my happy throat as I took this.



Dick's expresso ice cream sandwich was messy but delicious. We all tried to get a taste without covering ourselves in the caramel.



Lee had a double dose of plums that night...a strawberry plum tart with an expresso chaser.



Happily full, we said our goodnights and good byes and planned to meet again on another trip to Boulder. Thank you so much Lee and Max for finding time to meet up with us, and pick such a great location. HUGS !!!

Thursday in Boulder

One of the high points of our trip out to Boulder was to meet up again with friends we met thru the internet in a Cooking Forum. But there was a lot of the day to enjoy first.

The day started off overcast with potential of thunderstorms.

We got our reorientation of Boulder thru one of the funky tourist maps but saw there was something VERY good nearby.


We figured we would spend a good part of the morning at a used bookstore, The Bookworm. Alas, it was not to be as the store was locked up, customers waiting but no sign of a key person.


Well, our gps led us to several other bookstores that turned out to be private sellers (i.e. in their home). We don't look for rare books, just used books. But we did spot something just about as good...a bakery, Breadworks.



What else does mid-morning call for other than coffee and a pastry. Sadly, my camera battery died after this shot so there was no view of Dick's to-die-for peach tart. I had one of those scones in the glass case-almond and raspberry.



Well..Dick had to go to work in the afternoon, so I was off to get a new battery. More later.

Airport to Airport

Most trips involving airplanes seem to take at least one day going simply from airport to airport. We are lucky that BWI, our closest airport, is so very near Washington DC (government...), and thus is often a test airport for pilot projects. We kind of laughed when we read about the new tranquil security check-ins. But it worked! The area has all signs in pale blue, the lighting is not as bright as usual, but there is a whole body scan you walk thru. We had almost no line and I was thru in about 2 minutes. Dick, however, had a wheel chair get in front of him and that went a lot slower. But we then had over an hour to kill at the airport before takeoff.


I saw these police dogs as we did a survey of all the food sites, and asked if I could photograph them. These dogs are on loan to the State police thru the TSA and are Belgian Malamuts. Good solid dogs and he said Jacqui just had her vet checkup and is healthy, with good bones at I think 12y.o.

The police also have bicycles to ride around the airport terminal. It gives most everyone a smile, and they also ride Segways.




Yes, next stop is Denver. This is the train that takes you from the actual arrival terminal to the one where you collect your luggage. The sounds and music they make really made us laugh but at least you are told which terminal you are at and to HOLD ON. No Mind the gap. as there are no gaps.

Onward and upward. For all you mobile makers, these were very attractive.





We have arrived.



Luggage retrieved (it got to the carousel before we did!) and just need to ...Get in the Car.

A few years ago in Colorado

I'm thinking this was 2000, which would have made it at least our 2nd trip to Boulder, Colorado. I had first been to the Rockies on an work related Air Force trip. It was late September and yes, we had snow. I also fell in love with the Rockies. Mountains to me had mostly been the nice, fairly tame ones we have on the east coast of the US. If I had been given a choice between east coast mountains and the ocean, the ocean would will every time. Then I saw the Rockies.

I have never been east of Denver to see this exact shot but it is truly amazing that there is this incredibly flat part of the US...the plains...and then rising up are these massive mountains. There is snow on the 14ers today as we drove west but the clouds were coming in too much to get a good shot. It was also rush hour out of Denver so we hightailed it into Boulder and an early night.

The Residence Inn had a light dinner so barbecued pulled pork over green salad, and we're ready to read and hit the sack. In addition to the time change, we're about 1 mile higher than our sea level home. It's good to acclimatise.;-)

May...so where shall we go??

Since going somewhere every month seems to be turning into a habit - a pretty nice habit! - where shall we go next? April was an unusual stay at home months ince I had a Jin Shin Jytsu class and dh had a retreat. 5 days of intense 'learning' for me was almost a trip away, in fact I felt as if my mind was in a different dimension.



But May takes us to an old favorite thanks to some work for Dick. See you in ....the place we got our marriage license 7 years ago. The lovely old building was not where we actually got the license tho. Can you guess where I mean???