Challenging Arrival

Our arrival in the mountains today

brought several challenges.

One is the fact that I left the power cord for this laptop

in Amarillo and the battery is weak.

Posts this time may wait until our return.

Before our trip here,
we put together a liter of home made vanilla.

After reading about it on another blog,

I decided to try my hand at making vanilla.

After the wine, this is a breeze!

Ordering the vanilla beans from Olive Nation

was so easy and not as expensive as I feared.

We had the vodka already.

It is 80 proof and triple distilled,

whatever that means.

The beans are very aromatic and

not very pretty, but really interesting.

They must be sliced for the flavor to permeate.

I recommend a really sharp knife.

 Slicing from about 1 inch below the top, 

and all the way down. 

We removed a little vodka from the bottle,

added the beans,

 then refilled the bottle.

Into a cool dark place for about six weeks.
The only thing left to do is invert about once a week. 

Now, back to the mountain arrival...

We found the hot tub low on water
and the heater broken.
No hot tub this trip.  :(
There is an issue with our water, as well.
It looks like a work weekend ahead.

But, the mountains are beautiful

 and the clouds are rolling in

while the fire is warm and inviting.