Vacations and time Tech

well, I took a Vacation. I had done a a blog post a week for a year or two, so I would giving it a break.
So, what did I do , well I went on the one eighty west century:

From 9-18-2010

which went by the Richard Nixon Libary and Boyhood home:


and the Santa Ana river trail:

and I went into Downtown Ontario:

From 9-25-2010

From 9-25-2010

and got geeky with my airplanes:

From 9-19-2010

but mostly i've been working on my other writing. I decided to combine two of my hobbies by taking a trip to Vincennes, Indiana to do some research.
It would have been cheaper to stay here , but some times it does pay to get you boot wet, so to speak.
As an example, My Character were living near Fort Wayne,, In when the Shawnee moved to Cape Girardeau. The route was to take the Portage ("The Glorious gate") from the Maumee to the Wabash and trudge down the Wabash to the Ohio, and the Mississippi. I had my folks walking across the plan and down the Little Wabash to the Forks at Huntingdon. I had them take some canoes across the main channel and the ford the next stream, the Salamonie, where one of my minor characters would fall in, catch Pneumonia, and die (Yes, I'm evil).
Only I started to use the Satellite services available with google maps. and lo and behold, there appears to be some rapids in Huntingdon:

View Larger Map
A least the appear they appear to be rapids. I tried using Street View to get a better look, but no luck,as Google hasn't driven their van down the street that runs by the rapids yet.
So , while I'm probably go going to be doing some rewriting here in the evening(not only That, but my character is staging a miraculous comeback), it looks another Trip in order. I need to do some other investigating while I'm there. now do I fly to Ft Wayne, Indianapolis, or Dayton? and from La/Ontario OR LAX? Southwest, where I don't have to pay for my bags, make my friend Phil (the SWA pilot happy) , but only goes to Indy (Lots more driving). Or fly United, Make my other friend Liesel (The United Pilot) happy, get to fly into Ft Wayne ,where I'm thinking should start (or Dayton), or make my Uncle Henry happy (I think he told me his company had the toiler paper contract with Braniff before they went under) and fly American and schedule a nice long layover in D/FW, pay for my luggage and fly in an Embraer. (they do make it to my AAdvantge. how do i get the little eagle to appear between the A's)

Actually, I don't mind flying in Regional Jet. I've got some time before I have to commit, so it's time to go (for now)

Honey, I don't think this is a bike blog

Ok, what's a picture of Boiling water doing in a bike blog? and yes, I need to clean my stove better.
Well, doing research and writing my novel, I found out about some traditional foods in early America. One of the food that people I am currently writing about, The Shawnee, passed on to us is Johnnycakes -which most people think is a mangling of "Shawnee Cakes". So I decided to little experiential research and cook up a batch.
The first item was cornmeal. No big deal. I headed over to Fresh and Easy. They had cornmeal in a 5 pound bag, which for me would be lifetime supply.
I managed to find a one pound can of Quaker at Wal-mart, so it was on again. The next question was what recipe to follow. A lot of them seem to be awfully modern ("mix water, cornmeal, and High Fructose Corn Syrup").In the end, I picked this recipe from whatscookingamerica.net. While I did question the milk (Cows were viewed as "big Knife", or Colonial animals) , I liked the touch of Bacon Drippings. No , Neither Fresh and Easy or Wal-mart had a can of Bacon Drippings. I guess I could have fried up a slab ("bacon Drippings" is the grease left over after frying) Since I would be using my trusty Whirlpool fire,. I Figured I could use PAM.
I combined the ingredients as specified, and then had a problem. The recipe called for the mixture to be fairly thick, but I had something the consistency of soup. I stirred in enough cornmeal to make it thick enough (I used yellow instead of white cornmeal, That must be it. right!) and then fried the results:

I garnished it with Low - Calorie Imitation Maple Syrup (plenty of HFCS there) and real butter.
The result: I haven't died. yet. It may be a little bland compared to our modern foods, and that my be part of our dietary problems, but still it was a good time for a good cause.
and just in case you need a bicycling fix: