Saturday, March 24, 2007

I need a holiday. I got up this morning at 630 or 700, and baked a loaf of banana bread to give to Roger and Chantal for their trip. Internet wasn't working, so I didn't have access to my recipe, but that's okay, because I've made this bread umpteen times, right? So I made it, and I baked it, and when it had cooled I wrapped it in foil and tied a ribbon around it. (I actually found a piece of ribbon in one of the cupboards.) About an hour after that I though omigod I forgot to put sugar in the banana bread. I walked over to their rig, and they started thanking me for the banana bread. "Don't thank me yet," I said. "I've come to take it back." I explained what I had done and assured them they would get another loaf. And I invited them to dinner.

But first, there were other things to do. The guys were finally able to bring the canoe back. Roger drove Robin and me to the estuary, then handed me the keys to the truck. I drove home, parked the truck, got the binoculars out, and went down to the beach. Chantal was there with Blitzen, watching for the canoe to appear in the distance. With my binoculars, I could see it quite clearly, so Chantal and Blitzen went home and I stayed on, walking down the beach, looking for agates, checking on the guys every couple of minutes. They had no trouble, the wind co-operated, and they even paddled past some dolphins, who unfortunately didn't hang around to play.

Then Robin and I packed our dirty clothes into two backpacks, climbed on our bikes, and rode up to the laundry. Usually I do our laundry here at the park, but there were no US quarters available for the machines today. Just for a bit of pampering, we left the clothes to be washed, instead of washing them ourselves. We were told to pick our clothes up at 3 o'clock. At 3 o'clock we piled into Roger's truck and headed up the road. (The water man hadn't turned up, so we all needed to go to the water store.) We got the water, I popped into the grocery store to get some stuff for our big farewell dinner, then we went to the laundry, which closed at 4 pm. We got there at 3:20. It was closed. The sign on the door said it was open, and the closing time really was shown as 4 pm, but the door was locked.

The sign also says the laundry is open on Sunday at 10:00 a.m. I sure hope so. We're planning to leave here early Monday morning, and at this point I have no sheets or pillowcases, and my only two pairs of respectable shorts are there, not to mention our two backpacks and all sorts of other stuff. I wonder if we're encountering another holiday we didn't know about. I noticed that the tortilleria was closed, and it's always open on Saturday. Oh, well. If the laundry doesn't open tomorrow, we'll just have to leave later on Monday - or stay an extra day.

Anyway, I did get around to making another loaf of banana bread, and I did remember all the ingredients. At least I hope so. As for the original loaf, I bought a package of peach Jello and made it up. I was reading the directions, and noted instructions for making the Jello with milk (2 c boiling water, 1 can evaporated milk). I opened the cupboard and got out my can of coconut cream (sweetened coconut milk) and used that instead of milk, poured the jello/coconut mixture over broken up banana bread, and chilled it. I had my doubts, but it turned out to be really good. We had a spaghetti dinner, then the peculiar dessert. Then we said farewell to our new friends. We will miss them.

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