Vacation begins: parade blockaid, basil pizza, and fireworks!

Fireworks from Balcony

After working Saturday, vacation sort of started today. It was, however, a good start.

There was a quick and pleasant trip to Heinen's for the week's provisions --and one donut each-- followed by a drive to lovely Hudson and their annual arts festival. It was a very warm and muggy day that became a hot and muggy day. We got all sweaty just walking around looking at the beautiful artwork on display under tents in the city's downtown park. She bought a pretty pendant, I admired the paintings, and we strolled over to the charming downtown and visited the cook store.

By the time we were ready to leave we figured we would arrive back home at around 2:30 or so and run smack into a road closure affecting the entrance to our development. So we headed off to Whole Foods instead of home and picked up some beautiful produce for us and soy yogurt for She. While there She pointed at the picture on the cover of a frozen pizza box and I said, "I can make that." So the inspiration for dinner was set.

Still too early, in our estimation, to go home so we traveled to Strongsville, mostly to use up some time. Spent some money at Target. Then to Borders where I picked up a nice card and a gift for Mom, whose birthday is coming up soon. A little much-needed rain fell and drove the humidity even higher. Good to see the ground wet, though.

The time was about 4:30 so we figured we could mosey home -- the road closure was for a parade being staged as part of our town's Home Days and was to have started at about 3:00. Got home a bit before 5:00 and the road was still closed. So we ducked into an apartment parking lot across from our own home and carried our goods into the house. Darned parades! This blockaid of access to and from our home happens about three times a year and we always seem to be inconvenienced by it. Do people still like parades?

So I started on dinner. The pizza dough came together easily and perfectly. I let it rise for one hour. I punched it down and stretched it to about 12-inch diameter. The beautiful homemade pesto made from home-grown organic basil (Her doing) was spread on the disk. The pesto was sprinkled with a little mozzarella. I cut fresh, ripe tomatoes into thin slices and laid them out on the presto bed. The pie slid from the peal on to the pizza stone in a 500-degree oven. Bake for 10 minutes to golden brown crust. Picked up easily on the peal without sticking to the stone at all. Served with glasses of shiraz and merlot. A lovely dinner. I came off looking like an excellent cook.

Later, around 9:40, the town festival ended with fireworks. Our balcony (aka: Chaunticlair Observatory) was an excellent vantage point for the show. It was very enjoyable with lots of colorful and unusual air bursts above neighboring roofs and trees; it was a perfect ending to an excellent day.

Vacation plans for the week start off with what won't sound like a lot of fun: She is helping her mother with some things. I'll put in a full day of work at the observatory building on a good start I made on my Friday off. Work will include (I hope) some interior painting, electrical, testing paint removal technique for the setting circle rings on the big scope, maybe some landscape cleanup and even a visit to the archives!. May not sound like fun to you but I'm excited to have figured out some things there and to be ready to make more progress.

We also plan  to do some things that will sound more like vacation fun.