Middleton Place

One of our stops in Charleston, SC was over at Middleton Place in West Ashley.  Middleton is a former rice plantation and an interesting tour of history.  The building pictured below was one of three built by Henry Middleton in the mid-1700s, the land being part of his wife's, Mary Williams, rather large dowry.  We learned about how rice was germinated, protected, and harvested with the help of flooding the rice mill ponds at different times of the growing cycle.  The gardens, while not at their height-of-season best, are still beautiful to stroll around, and numerous other buildings show what life was like hundreds of years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middleton_Place

Spiced-Up Burger

The talented chef I'm proud to call my wife made up this spicy variation on the everyday hamburger and it's now a staple on our menu.  She makes each patty with 4 ounces of ground chuck and 2 ounces of ground chorizo.  She buys 2 pounds of ground chuck and 1 pound of ground chorizo, a total of 48 ounces, which results in 8 patties.  What we don't use that day gets wrapped and frozen, making quick-and-easy meals when desired.  

Utility Pump

Twice a year we drain and fill the hot tub, but this fall our previously-faithful utility pump began leaking oil into the water and made quite the mess to clean up.  Not only have we replaced the pump with an oil-free motor, but we've also upgraded the horsepower from 1/10 to 1/4, which upgrades the throughput from 390 to 2,220 gallons per hour, which should reduce the amount of time it takes to drain the hot tub from well over an hour to 15-20 minutes.  If I had known just that, I would have upgraded a long time ago.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B08BLTM97Q

That Pig Ate My Bacon

Located on the top floor of The Restoration in downtown Charleston, SC is The Watch Rooftop.  My choice for a cocktail after a very long day of traveling was the "That Pig Ate My Bacon" pictured below, consisting of bacon-infused bourbon, apple cordial, maple syrup and lemon bitters, topped with a strip of candied bacon.  Candied bacon!  Where have you been?  Each bite was pure heaven!

https://www.therestorationhotel.com/community-outlets/#the-watch

The Griffon

One of our stops on the Original Pub and Brewery Tour in Charleston, SC was The Griffon where I had a Freehouse Folly's Pride Blonde Ale.  The most striking feature of the place were the walls with dollar bills stapled to them, which we, of course, had to participate in.  While the walls were covered, our server informed us that the owner had taken down around $18,000 dollar bills which helped them pay their employees while they were in COVID lockdown.  Can't imagine what it looked like before that.

https://www.griffoncharleston.com

Fuel Credit

I was puzzled when we returned our Budget rental car last week and found an "On The Road Expenses" credit of $-0.77 which slightly reduced the final cost.  Scanning the detail of the invoice I found the explanation.  I returned the car with 18.4 gallons of gas in the tank, but the car had only 18.0 gallons when I picked it up, and Budget gave us a 77 cent credit, which works out to $1.78 a gallon.  I never knew that they could measure the amount of fuel in the tank that closely and it's nice to see they treat their customers well who really do return their rental with a full tank of gas. 

https://www.budget.com

Lawn Aeration

The latest project knocked off the 2020 list was a long-overdue lawn aeration.  Thought about renting a machine and doing it myself, but as I approach 65 years old this week, I've decided to be smarter and let the younger folk do the heavy lifting.  The timing was perfect as I had just finished mowing the lawn, a bit shorter than usual for the aeration, just as Weed Man pulled up to the house.  Timing is everything.

https://weedman.com

Summer Harvest Pizza

This was a couple months ago, but I have to talk about it before Fall got too far along.  This Summer Harvest pizza from Figlio restaurant in Kettering featured a spicy red sauce, chorizo sausage, corn, jalapenos and banana peppers, a hot and flavorful combination.  I like the choice of thin crust, roasted to perfection in their wood-fired oven.  

https://figliopizza.com/dayton

Lincoln Highway

During a recent trip to Valparaiso, Indiana, I noticed several signs for a Lincoln Highway and wondered what that might be.  A little research discovered that the Lincoln Highway was part of an early 1900s effort, called the National Auto Trail system, to help drivers navigate cross-country before U.S. Routes and Interstates came to exist.  

The Lincoln Highway consisted of many different roads (which changed from time to time), all marked with the same signage, where you could start at Times Square in New Your City and travel west all the way to Lincoln Park in San Francisco along the route shown below, about 3,300 miles.  

https://www.lincolnhighwayassoc.org

Sophie and Gunner

Our neighbor's dogs have a routine when they want to play ball.  When Sophie, the black lab, retrieves a throw, she brings it over, puts her front paws on the top of the fence, chews the ball a few times and then drops it on my side of the fence.  But when Gunner, the golden lab, gets the throw, he brings it over and only when he's ready for another throw, will he drop the ball so Sophie can do her thing, as shown in the video below.