Salsify

We get a dandelion type wildflower called a Salsify. In the old days, the root was used to make tea. I don’t make tea with the roots, I just look at the blooms. 

 When the flower is done, it produces a huge fluffy puffball. 

This morning, I accidentally sprayed some of the those puff balls with water. I was fascinated with tiny beads of liquid that stuck to the fragile tendrils of the puff ball. Macro photography is fun!

Back In Time

Today we took a little ride off the beaten track to the lovely Cottonwood Lake. Why the lake is called Cottonwood is a puzzlement as the lake is circled with pine trees.

For every mile that we drove on the gravel road we glimpsed a Wyoming that was more pristine and less touched by the hand of man. We got a feeling of what it might have looked like when the pioneers rolled into the valley in their covered wagons. The animal trails as well as the mountain passes were cut with a plow. Each rut in the road pealed away a few years of human history in this neck of woods.

In Search of a Billy Burger...Part II

Tonight we tried another hamburger place. It's called "The Wolf's Den" and they make a pretty good burger. Not an excellent one but pretty good. It's tastes very good, but it's not juicy enough. We will go back.

In Search of the Billy Burger

Tonight we decided to take the burger search to the home front. Simply stated, we tried to create our own juicy burger. Guess what? We had a wonderful burger for dinner! After watching the fry cooks at Billy's throw hamburger patties on the grill for years and years we thought we knew what to do.

The recipe is easy! Just shape one half pound of 85% beef into a patty about 5/8 inch thick with a diameter a smidge larger than that of a burger bun. Heat a teaspoon of oil in a skillet and when the oil is hot, fry away. Turn the patty a couple of times so it will not burn. When it reaches an internal temperature of 140 degrees the burger is done. Served with unsalted potato chips and a salad, it was the perfect juicy burger!

I believe the secret to a "Billy Burger" is fat. MacPhail's used freshly ground fat free Angus beef. Red Robin made a similar mistake using a lower fat beef (albeit not Angus) too.

Meissen

One of the great names in fine china is Meissen. In the city with the same name we had a tour of the Meissen factory. The craftsmanship was spectacular as we're the prices. Everything is hand made and all the designs are hand painted.

Will This Work

I ran out of picture room on Cruztalking...so I started this blog and gave it the original name of CruzTalking Two. My free blogging days might be over, if I want to post to pictures...and I want to post pictures. Such a dilemma.

In the meantime, here’s two of my favorite wildflowers. I love the blue blue flax. It’s so orderly and crisp. On the other hand, I love the wistfulness of the “red eyed susan” ... it so disorderly and free.

I don’t know if the creation of a second blog will work or not. I deleted some photos from my online Picasa albums and that freed up some space. I’ll write for a few days...if I can continue to add pictures I will. In the meantime, I’ll get back to adding some pictures of our Elbe River Cruise.

Please add CruzTalkingTwo.blogspot.com to your bookmarks so you can follow along. Thanks!

New Blog

Hi Folks,
I ran out of room in my original blog, Cruztalking...so I started CruzTalking Two. If you want to follow along with my travels, please add this URL to your bookmarks, as I’ll be posting here until I run out of room again!

Thanks a bunch
Cruz!