Home again!
Aug. 24th, 2008 07:46 pmOh, but it's nice to be home.
I didn't get much sleep on the first leg of the flight, between Moscow and Atlanta, but during the second leg, between Atlanta and Albuqeuerque, it was all I could do to rouse myself for the snack. The coordination between me getting my bags and Galina in the "cell phone parking area" in Albuquerque went well, and after getting picked up, I figured I could drive us home to arrive not too far after 1 am (which was somewhere in the late morning, as far as my internal clock was concerned).
I rose at about 5:30 am local time, and knew - once I woke up - that I would not be going back to sleep immediately. So I went outside to watch the last of the stars fade against the brightening dawn, and then made coffee for me, Galina, and Alla.
At about 8 am, Alla and I took off toward Wolf Creek, with the intention of scouting some mushroom sites and visiting Lobo Point, up above the Continental Divide.
The first place we stopped was where I found the handful of lobster mushrooms almost exactly two years ago. Initially, my special little clearing looked barren of mushrooms, and then I found one, then another, and so on, everywhere (including places I'd already looked) until finally, we had about 2 pounds of the tasty 'shrooms.

We continued on, up to the Continental Divide on Wolf Creek Pass, whereupon we turned left onto the road going up to Lobo Point.

Alla was quite impressed with the whole package: the view, the smells of the blue spruce and pine forest, and even with the Amanita muscaria (Fly agaric) mushrooms that we found growing along the side of the road.
On the way back down the road, we went exploring and found the conditions on the forest floor to be good (lots of moisture), but very few mushrooms. Still, we did find one small colony of early Boletus edulis (King bolete), which we added to our take.
Upon returning home, I recreated the Caprese salad that I had at Goodman's in Moscow (pretty easy if you consider the ingredient list: tomato, mozzarella, basil) while a pan full of the lobster mushrooms was cooking on the stove. It was all marvelous.
The kids came by later, tried some of the mushrooms, and liked them. Even Huntur tried a bite and gave her seal of approval.
Dinner time. Gotta go. In short, today's been a fabulous day.
Cheers...
I didn't get much sleep on the first leg of the flight, between Moscow and Atlanta, but during the second leg, between Atlanta and Albuqeuerque, it was all I could do to rouse myself for the snack. The coordination between me getting my bags and Galina in the "cell phone parking area" in Albuquerque went well, and after getting picked up, I figured I could drive us home to arrive not too far after 1 am (which was somewhere in the late morning, as far as my internal clock was concerned).
I rose at about 5:30 am local time, and knew - once I woke up - that I would not be going back to sleep immediately. So I went outside to watch the last of the stars fade against the brightening dawn, and then made coffee for me, Galina, and Alla.
At about 8 am, Alla and I took off toward Wolf Creek, with the intention of scouting some mushroom sites and visiting Lobo Point, up above the Continental Divide.
The first place we stopped was where I found the handful of lobster mushrooms almost exactly two years ago. Initially, my special little clearing looked barren of mushrooms, and then I found one, then another, and so on, everywhere (including places I'd already looked) until finally, we had about 2 pounds of the tasty 'shrooms.

We continued on, up to the Continental Divide on Wolf Creek Pass, whereupon we turned left onto the road going up to Lobo Point.

Alla was quite impressed with the whole package: the view, the smells of the blue spruce and pine forest, and even with the Amanita muscaria (Fly agaric) mushrooms that we found growing along the side of the road.
On the way back down the road, we went exploring and found the conditions on the forest floor to be good (lots of moisture), but very few mushrooms. Still, we did find one small colony of early Boletus edulis (King bolete), which we added to our take.
Upon returning home, I recreated the Caprese salad that I had at Goodman's in Moscow (pretty easy if you consider the ingredient list: tomato, mozzarella, basil) while a pan full of the lobster mushrooms was cooking on the stove. It was all marvelous.
The kids came by later, tried some of the mushrooms, and liked them. Even Huntur tried a bite and gave her seal of approval.
Dinner time. Gotta go. In short, today's been a fabulous day.
Cheers...