Moving On

Good morning, my friends. If you thought you were going to get a break from my incessant prattle this morning, then you will be disappointed. I woke up early enough that I have time to write. This park in Fort Stockton is not too far off the freeway. Somehow, it's less noisy than one might expect, and we've slept well while we're here. Kitties usually have us waking up pretty early in the morning. I believe even they have slept in these past mornings.

The kitties have liked it here. Sadie has figured out that if she begins the morning in her window hammock, she can follow the path of sunshine around the RV, moving first to the recliners, and then to the couch. Following this route, she can get the morning sunshine until well after lunch.

We tried to get Smitty out for a walk, but it was another one that lasted less than a minute. Most places we've stayed have been too exposed for his liking. I'm hoping this next spot will be a little more secluded for him.

The human occupants of the Traveling Three Cats Ranch took yesterday off, for the most part. We ended up getting a few more items from the grocery store toward the end of the day, but mainly because we were bored. Along our way, we returned to see the historic cemetery mentioned in an earlier post.

Here's what it says about it. Pay particular attention to the last sentence in the paragraph on the right.

The cemetery gate is locked, and so we didn't wander around at all, but here's a picture.

Soldiers from Fort Stockton are buried here, along with some of the early settlers.

Backing up to earlier in the day, I spent my morning in the kitchen trying out this recipe from King Arthur for Tiramisu for Two. It takes a bit to put it all together. One must first bake a cake...

Tiramisu is often made with Lady Fingers. In this case, the cake is light, like an angel food cake. It's made by whipping up egg whites and then mixing and whipping up the egg yolks with the rest of the cake ingredients. Then the egg whites are folded in to lighten the batter. It's a thin cake, and so it bakes pretty quickly...12 minutes for mine.

While that baked, I made up the "soak" from Kahlua, espresso, and vanilla.

Finally, I made the filling from whipping cream, mascarpone, confectioner's sugar, and vanilla.

Mine was made in mugs. From here, these were covered and refrigerated until dessert time last night.

If you click on the link I've given you, you can see how this is layered. This is the picture that accompanied the recipe.

King Arthur used wide-mouth pint jars for theirs. It's filling, cocoa powder, soaked cake, then more filling, and on until you've used two layers of cake in each. The cake would be cut with a biscuit cutter, but I used the lid from one of my tupperware containers. While we watched our TV last night, we tasted it. We put a little dollop of Redi-Whip on top of ours, and whoa. This was really good. It was decadent without being too rich. We really liked it. It's a keeper for sure.

The only other thing we did yesterday was to get out for a walk after dinner. Along our way, we were accompanied by these birds. I believe these are the "Great-Tailed Grackles." They have a loud and varied call like a "Common Grackle," but a long tail like a roadrunner.

They make quite a racket, but it's enjoyable listening to and watching them. I believe they roost in the taller trees here in the park.

And I saw a few more blooming things. I've seen this yellow before, but I haven't been able to identify it.

I believe this is the seed head left from a gaillardia.

Here's some white mallow. It has just a slightly pink-tinged center.

Okay, so we're heading down the road again today. By day's end, we'll be in Georgetown, Texas. It will be our first time staying in a COE (Core of Engineers) Campground. If memory serves, there is a lake there. I've been studying up on the location of the Texas Bluebonnets, and I believe we'll be in one of the areas where we might see them. Rest areas are often planted with native flowers, and so we'll give it a good look while we're traveling today. Fingers crossed.

All right my friends. Our drive is long today. Breakfast awaits. Time to get going.