Hiking

Today started one of my Non-New Year's-New Year's Resolutions. I'm sure that sounds like it makes no sense, but it does. Basically, I didn't make any New Year's resolutions because I either never have any good ideas or I never seem to follow through with them. This past week, I decided that I wanted to go hiking more.  Today, I decided that I would try to go hiking at least once every week.

In central PA, there are dozens of trails around, from short hour long hikes to all day (or multi-day) hikes. As part of my plan to keep from getting into (or possibly get out of) a sedentary lifestyle, hiking seems to fit the bill. Sure, I'm back to going to the gym during the week and I still help out with SCUBA on Thursdays (and the occasional Tuesday as necessary), but I've also noticed that the weekends are usually filled with sitting around the house mostly doing nothing.

I had decided on Friday that I wanted to hike the Indian Steps trail this weekend. I don't really need to do a full write-up on the hike, you can find much more information than I feel like typing here. I did post a couple of pictures to my album that you can find by clicking on the picture to the right. The drive in was interesting. From where we started the hike, you turn of PA-26 onto a dirt road. Because of the snow we've been having, it was a packed snow covered dirt road... through the woods... up and down hills. It was an awesome drive. I *almost* got the snow chains from the trunk just to put them on, but the SAAB wound up handling just fine without them.

After finding the start of the trail, we found a large enough area off the road where we could park (see picture). Mike and I loaded up and headed out up the trail. The steps were not created by Indians (as the name would suggest) but they are old and steep. The hike starts off going right up the mountain, so its a good kick in the pants. Once up, you follow the ridge westward for a while before looping back to where we'd parked. There were a couple of nice flat spots on the ridge with some picnic tables and a couple of fire pits. As the top of the ridge is along the Mid-State Trail, I assume they are places for overnight campers (as we also saw a trail sign that just said 'H20'). We were afforded some pretty nice views from the top; unfortunately, both Mike and my cameras' batteries had died so we didn't get many pictures. I did bring my GPS along with me (as I like to do for my travels) so you can see the track/stats here.

On the way back to the car, Mike and I got talking about various meats that we'd eaten or desired to eat: bison, kangaroo, alligator, rabbit, etc. After all this talk about meat on top of a good hike, we both were craving some steak. With no great steakhouses in State College (that I know of), and my talking about cooking some good steaks over the summer while at the beach, we decided to make steaks for dinner. After getting home, I headed out to Wegmans for my weekly grocery run and picked up a sirloin steak and some potatoes, also. Cut up the sirloin into a couple of steaks and hit them with the dry-rub I'd picked up over the summer. We fired up the grill and roasted the cut up potatoes and grilled the steaks to near perfection. He, Justin, and I feasted while watching some football and then parts of Transformers on TV. Truely a "manly" day.

Carol's Birthday

Ha! A NON-OVERDUE post!  How crazy is this, timely posting.  So this past Thursday was Carol's Birthday.  On Thursday evening, some of us went to the Olive Garden for dinner to celebrate.  It was a nice dinner with a FABULOUS waiter.  I don't know what the standard is for tipping anymore, but I tipped him 26%, he was that good.  Mind you, this is not just good compared to the previous waitress who was awful.

Anyway, we have a lovely time and then came back to the house to watch the season premier of Survivor, because Carol loves Survivor.  Then on FRIDAY, I had LONG planned to have a surprise party for her at the house.  I was going to make a cake and everything.  As it coincided with the Olympic Opening Ceremonies, I decided to make an Olympic Rings cake.  Making the cake was a huge project.  It took 3 days and many hours.  The cakes were all cooked in a 9in round pan.  We bought a GIANT can of pudding because the diameter of the can was the right size.  We use the pudding to make dirt and then I used the can as an inner wall for the cake pan.  All in all, I think it turned out quite well.  I have no plans to quit my job, and am certainly not as crafty as my sister (ask her about her amazing cakes) but I'm quite happy with it.

Well, a week before the party, Carol decided to invite people out to Cafe 210 for the night on Friday night... GAHH!!!  Through much trickery and planning, I was able to get everybody to leave Cafe with a 'reasonable' excuse around 8pm and head back to the house.  Carol was less than happy, as could be imagined.  Eventually I was able to drive her back to my house (while giving EXCELLENT answers to every question she posed as to what was going on) and not tip her off.  I got her upstairs and everybody jumped out to yell "SURPRISE!" and she was very very happy with everything, all of the frustration of everybody leaving was worth it I think.

We wound up eating delicious delicious cake and watching parts of the opening ceremonies for a while.  More pictures here.  More pictures will follow when I steal Carol's camera and upload the rest onto my computer and the web.

Help me Wilford Brimley, you're my only hope...

Yet another overdue post! Almost every weekend we make pancakes for breakfast on either Saturday or Sunday (or sometimes both). Typically Justin would make them and then get everybody else up with the delicious promise of pancakes. At the beginning of this year, I started doing the making because I was up first most often. I started always doing chocolate chip pancakes, because they are AWESOME. Nothing too special, just throw some chips into the batter when they are cooking and you get you delicious chocolate chip pancakes.

A couple of weeks ago while eating pancakes, we had the idea of making chocolate pancakes instead.  Just make the batter with some coco powder and extra sugar; should be delicious, right?  Well, that night over dinner we came back to the idea of chocolate pancakes.

 But we kept adding on.  First we said to add chocolate chips, too!  Then it was lets have hot cocoa while eating our pancakes.  Then the pinacle.... lets use Hershey's Chocolate Syrup instead of normal pancake syrup!

It was here that we coined the term, "Diabetuscakes."  Yes, I know the spelling is wrong (if there is a correct spelling of that).  It is made to be pronounced like Wilford Brimley, 'diabetus.'  On the morning of the Diabetuscakes, we invited Mihir over, as we KNOW he has a sweet tooth.

The few pictures here show the cooking process.  Conor, Mihir, and I all felt a crazy sugar high almost immediately after consuming the glorious-glorious diabetuscakes.  Justin, however, did not get hit until 10 hours later.  And then he couldn't stop shakin/moving.  It was a wonderful day, but one that does not need to be repeated any time soon.  More pics here.