There must be a light under the bushel!

Mudslides and Homemade Salsa

What is it about going on vacation that makes you want to step out of the box, do things you wouldn't normally do, make life different for a few days?

The Walkie Talkies
On our trip to the beach, we had to take two cars, me, KB, Mike, and Pierre in one car and Mindy and Tim in the other. When we got to Mindy's house, she gave us some walkie talkies so that we could communicate. Never mind that we all had cell phones. This seemed much more practical, and if my and KB's reactions were any indication, it also seemed a lot more fun. We started squealing (much as little girls do) and grabbing for them. Luckiliy, there was one for each of us. Otherwise, it could have been ugly. Mindy and KB immediately dashed off their best trucker talk, which was peppered with lots of colorful phrases that always ended in "10 4 good buddy."

The poor boys in the backseat. They didn't try to take a turn, but I could see the envy burning under the surface, particularly as they chimed in with their own trucker phrases they wanted us to add in. Well, as the cliche says, all good things... Unfortunately for us, we wore the batteries down in about the first 30 minutes, but damn, it was fun while it lasted.

The Cowboy Hat
None of us are cowboy people, but somehow I felt I really needed to buy a straw cowboy hat for the trip, so I did. We hadn't even begun the trip before Mike had it newly shaped and plopped on his head while he loaded up the car. Everyone wore the ridiculous cowboy hat at one point during the trip (and we have the pictures to prove it!). On our way home, KB offered to buy Mike his own cowboy hat but he said, "Nah, that's just for vacation." Hmmm, more things only reserved for vacation.

Mudslides and Salsa
I'm a beer drinker. I only drink in social situations, probably two or three times a month. However, my friends marvel at the amount of beer I can drink, particularly for someone who doesn't drink enough to have built up much tolerance. Give me wine or hard liquor, and it'a pathetic how quickly I get drunk, which is why I stick to beer. But, on vacation, we had to have something new, some fru-fru drinks. Enter the Pina Colada and the Mudslide. KB and I even had special cups to take to the pool with us. At no other time in the year is this so appealing to us, but drinks that invite umbrellas are somehow a necessity on vacation.

KB's homemade salsa was another vacation treat, but I need to talk her into making that a more common element in our lives...

The Fondue Pot(s)
It sounded like a good idea. I even took two pots. I borrowed my mom's 40-year-old pot and bought a shiny new one at Linens n Things. We needed one for dark chocolate and one for white chocolate. If you're gonna do it...never mind. So, the first problem came along because we had to put my new one (the one still in its box) on my luggage rack. Ok, the pot got a little bent and broken, but the pot survived. Unfortunately, the pot was a pain in the ass, so we resorted to the old pot instead. I was all ready to go with some fiesta cheese.I plugged the pot in, and we were in business, that is until the power went out in the entire condo complex. My cheese was only half melted! We tried transferring the cheese to the crappy pot and using charcoal to heat it, but no such luck. Since we had already cut up all the bread, we ate the half-melted cheese anyway! However, if one more person called it fun-do, I wasn't apologizing for my behavior. The corny term that had initially irritated me now made me see red! I got to wondering about the timing of the power outage, though. Surely, the old pot....nah. We never found out what caused it. I did, however, plug the old one in once the power came back on and we had a chocolate feast with strawberries, bananas, angel food cake, marshmellows, and graham crackers for dipping, and it was delicious. We really should do it more often...

By the way, I gave Mindy the new pot. I didn't want to play with that toy ever again.