Saturday, April 4, 2009

Couch Potato Afternoon and Evening...



I did get out of the house this morning and had a great few hours at the St. Lawrence Market. 

St. Lawrence Market was the actual downtown centre and city hall location during the late 18th and entire 19th century. The original City Hall building burned down in the great fire of 1849 and was  the elegant St. Lawrence Hall was built in its place. 

I met a friend of mine, and we had a great time catching up on stuff since it had been a few months since we had last gotten together. Shopping for food at a place like the Market is a wonderful expedition! There are excellent things to be had which you can't get everywhere - and at least not in Brampton where my friend lives.

Aside from really great fish fillets, he bought a "fish roast" which was a hunka salmon wrapped around a hunka sea bass and wrapped in some kind of leaves and tied up with a string. It was a 2+ pound hunka fish. I am sure it will be delicious when it is eaten! We also both bought a boneless chicken roast which was stuffed and tied up in a package ready for the roasting pan. I will cook that next week.  I am planning a particularly tasty feast when a certain friend comes to dinner and this will fit the bill perfectly.

So that was the active part of my day. The rest of the day I spent pretty much organizing a picture gallery of my Vegas trip. If you want to view the entire album you can go here to see it. Otherwise, I will be hauling out selected photos in the next number of blogs and providing some commentary on the aspects of my trip illustrated by the selected photos.

I have a scrumptious piece of salmon in the oven with some roast veg ready to eat in about 20 minutes - so I will finish today's blog with just a bit more travelogue.





I mentioned in my last blog that the Canyon Tour I went on included a very nice breakfast spot. After Hoover dam, we travelled down in to Black Canyon, Willow Beach.   Apparently there is a fish hatchery somewhere near or so a sign announced.  The beach was located by a marina and there was a park and a few dozen palm trees, which we were told were about $15,000 each to acquire as they are not native to the area.  

There were also a few other shrubby trees and some wild flowers.  The weather was glorious.  Cold enough for a sweater, but the sky was blue and the sun was warm.  














There the tour guide set out a beautiful packed breakfast on a picnic table by the river. The table was well laid, with white table cloth and a good selection of cold breakfast items and hot beverages.   

We ate our feast surrounded by the most wonderful scenery imaginable!  Coffee, yogurt, sweet buns and fruit at 9:00  in the morning went down fast as we had been awake since about 5:30 to catch our 6:25 bus.  There seemed to be no one at this particular spot other than us travellers and we sat in awe as we ate and consumed both the food and view.  I felt so at peace.  

There was no rush to move on as we wandered around and shot photos and checked out the water.  Barb announced that it was absolutely frigid.  The Colorado river originates in the mountains and I am sure at this time of year it would be very cold.   The ducks didn't seem to mind the cold water, but they joined us while we ate and begged for the crumbs.