Altanta, Georgia, the home of CNN, Coca Cola and great southern food!
We took a few days off work to go down and visit Dad at a conference in Atlanta. It was not difficult getting around town and so we started at the CNN center taking a tour of the facility which was designed to be a shopping center and certainly had the feel of one.
There we saw the live broadcast of CNN news and watched how they made everything happen. TV cameras, monitors, people running around on the phone,...takes a lot to bring the news to us.
Of more interest was the Coca-cola World where they keep all the history about the company from old posters to the original bottles and glasses that they served Coke in.
They also had all of these huge painted Coke bottles with different patterns from around the world and then right at the end, they have different type of Coke products from around the world.
It is Christmas time and we decided to head to the Windy City for a break and to get some Chicago Christmas cheer. Michigan Avenue was all lit up and decorated with Christmas colors, the shops were full with last minute shoppers, and we just enjoyed wondering around the city taking it all in.
Christmas tree infront of Sears Tower.
Did you ever wonder how pigeons in the city keep warm? Wonder no more!
This morning we went to our local airport - Barstow - where they held a pancake breakfast. They hold this type of event between May and September of each year where local folks can come and see the different types of airplanes people own around the state. Other local airports hold similar events throughout the spring and summer months and send around a general invitation. Such events also supports the local economy and the airport.
Caroline in front of a BT-13A old military trainer built between 1940 - 44. Not sure what type of plane this next one is.
Experimental Water Plane
Red Acrobatic Plane
There are different types of planes. The "experimental" type are commonly home built planes using various types of technologies and materials the design of which, as a package, has not been approved for commercial sale or mass production.
There was also a balloon festival held this weekend involving around 40 hot air balloons, but we were still sleeping when they all took of at 7:30am...so sorry no pictures, but they say that it was a great sight to see.
We drove 2 hours north of Montreal to Quebec City situated on cliffs above the St Lawrence river. Here the French defended themselves against the British in 1759, but lost when the British General James Wolfe scaled the cliffs to surprise the French troops situated near by.
Canon's facing the St Laurence River. A real canon ball lodged in the tree for hundreds of years!
Me and a canon. The Citadelle which houses the Royal 22nd Candian Regiment
While more French speaking than Montreal, the people in Quebec City were just as friendly and willing to speak English.
Montreal is the new playground of the well to do in Canada since recovering from almost economic collapse in the 90s. Since then they have revived the old city by redeveloping the port, turning old buildings into new boutique hotels and a flurry of restaurants. St Catherine Road at the foot of Mount Royale is the 5th Avenue of Montreal and is as busy as Times Square.
Fast cars & boats are part of the culture of Montreal
Notre Dame Church in the old city.
A whole street of great restaurants and excellent food!
Last night (Friday) we went to Bay City for the Pig Gig which is a cook off for pork BBQ ribs. Lots of people were there eating ribs and downing it with watered down beer.
Famous ribs
Ribs on fire!
Best, but not Famous ribs!
Just out of town is Sanford lake where we went for a BBQ with the Cho's and Liu's. We had chicken wings and kebabs with salad.
Sanford Lake
During the summer, hot air ballons take off around Midland. Michigan is good for ballooning because the area is flat and there are plenty of places to land. Looks pretty fun.
Check out these aerial views of places:
Our Midland Home
Our place is the second house to the left of the marker with the grey roof.
Dow Headquarters
I work in the building right in the middle of the page.
Sydney Home
The road through the middle of the page angling towards the left of the page is Blaxland Road. Perpenicular to that is Lovell Road that leads down to the round about. Our place is a little bit down from that intersection.
Macquarie University
Barstow Airport
Saturday we headed north to Traverse City with another family for the day to get out of town for the 4th July Independence Day weekend. It is a 2 hour drive north-west of Midland along the highway that takes us through small towns and farmland. There are even buffalo farms along the way where you can see herds grazing.
Michigan produces 75% of the tart cherry crop each year (or 250 million pounds/114 million kg) and given a mature tree can produce 100 pounds a season, there are at least 2.5 million trees in Michigan alone. Sweet cherries come from Washington, Oregon and California and in total 650 million pounds of sweet and tart are grown every year.
Traverse City cherry picking
Tart Cherries-Red and Pink Cheeks
We ended up picking 7 pounds (3kg) of cherries, so will have a good supply for the coming week :).
Back in May, we went to the Mushroom Festival in Boyne City, east of Traverse City in the northern part of the state. This place is famous for morel mushrooms which are considered a delicacy and known to have more flavor than normal white button mushrooms (Agaricus bisporus) commonly found in the grocery store.
People in Illinois and Michigan go on mushroom hunts to find morels and are very secretive about their location. We tried to eat some for lunch, but because this years season was not very good, they did not have any to serve. In fact, we attempted to have lunch a the local hotel at 12 noon, but after enquiring about whether the mushrooms were on the menu, they said that there were closed for lunch and shooed us out of the restaurant. Highly suspect don't you think?
Anyway, we went to check out the tents and found some dried morels from Illinois which we bought to take home and cook to find out what the big deal was about.
We finally got around to eating the morels with steak, cooking the steak on the BBQ and the mushrooms in a pan with butter. As you can see, the mushrooms look like coral, are hollow on the inside, and look spongy.
Morel Mushrooms
Conclusion? Give me Chinese mushrooms any day. The morels do have a stronger flavor than white mushrooms, but are nothing to really get excited about compared to Chinese mushrooms. We have some left, so will try cooking them in a different way to get more familiar with the taste and may change our minds about them.
Boyne Mushroom Festival
Boyne is a ski resort town during the winter (the mountain is all of 350 m in height) and has a nice bay at the edge of the town. They hung these morel mushrooms on a pole so you can see what they look like.
It is lobster time! Fresh from the cool waters of Nova Scotia were these two poor lobsters who thought they were being rescued from the lobster tank at the supermarket only to find themselves being taken out of the bag into a hot steaming pot of water and then turing red in embarrassment at being seen naked. They were then cut in half, baked for a while in lime butter (a la "Bills Open Kitchen"), and then served with salad. They tasted pretty good and will be remembered as bringing satisfaction to their rescuers' tummies!
Lobster from Nova Scotia
Yum! Yum!
We took a few days off work to go down and visit Dad at a conference in Atlanta. It was not difficult getting around town and so we started at the CNN center taking a tour of the facility which was designed to be a shopping center and certainly had the feel of one.
