Menu Planning Monday 8/31/15

http://orgjunkie.com/2015/08/menu-plan-monday-aug-3115.html

Monday - Hamburgs, Copycat Texas Roadhouse Steak Fries
     http://texasroadhouseathome.blogspot.com/2013/02/steak-fries.html

 LONESTAR STEAK FRIES
Texas Roadhouse Copycat Recipe

Serves: 4

1 tablespoon paprika
1 teaspoon chili powder
1 teaspoon salt, divided
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
6 potatoes (about 2-1/2 pounds), with skin on
2 tablespoons peanut oil

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. In a large resealable plastic bag, combine paprika, chili powder, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and pepper. Seal bag and shake to mix.

Cut each potato in half then each half into 4 flat wedges. Add peanut oil and potatoes to seasoning in bag then close tightly and shake to coat well.  Spread potatoes in a single layer on a large rimmed baking sheet. Bake 20 to 22 minutes, or until fork-tender. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt and serve immediately.

Notes: Sure, you can peel the potatoes if you want, but we like the extra crunchiness of the skin. Besides, the skin is good for us!

Tuesday - Taco Night

    Set out as make your own.  Ingredients:

• Tortilla Chips
• Quesadillas
• Seasoned ground beef
• refried beans
• salsa
• guacamole
• black beans
• sour cream

Wednesday - Church Dinner

Thursday Night -  Pulled Pork, Roasted Potato Salad, Broccoli

Perfect Pulled Pork | Kevin & Amanda's Recipes

http://www.kevinandamanda.com/recipes/dinner/perfect-pulled-pork-slow-roasted-seasoned-savory.html

The recipe calls for soaking the pork in a brine, then coating it in a dry rub, and slow roasting it.

Dry Rub

1 tbsp ground cumin

1 tbsp garlic powder

1 tbsp onion powder

1 tbsp chili powder

1 tbsp cayenne pepper

1 tbsp salt

1 tbsp ground pepper

1 tbsp paprika

1/2 cup brown sugar

Roasted Potato Salad

Toss the potato chunks in oil, then sprinkle liberally with salt, pepper, and garlic powder.  Roast.

I love to use Hickory Smoked Bacon - I bake that while the potatoes are roasting

Then it's best with home made mayo - but whatever you typically use to make your potato salad will work.

Friday Night - Football night - Eat Out/Calzones at home

For away games, we eat out in the town of the football game, but I'll make sticky buns for breakfast, calzones for lunch, with an extra calzone for my son and his friends to eat after the game, if they end up here.   

This weeks restaurant - 

    Our favorite restaurant in Muncy is the Main Street Grill, but they take a long vacation each year, to visit greece, and do not reopen until September 10th.

    So we're still deciding between Haywoods, and the Country Store Cafe.  I think we're leaning towards the Country Store right now - I love their soft pretzels.

Saturday - Soup & Sandwiches

Hungarian Mushroom Soup (From the freezer)

Leftover pulled pork sandwiches

coleslaw

Sunday - Turkey Dinner with all the trimmings - stuffing, mashed potatoes, corn, rolls

Geocaching Favorites

After a semi disappointing trip the train trestle cache, I started thinking about caches that truly have taken me to beautiful views.  I can't remember all of them, but I'm starting a list so I can remember in the future.  :-)

We live in Central Pa, so most of our favorites are nearby - although we do travel the state a fair bit.  

I have a photo album of interesting geocaches here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.369864743215946.1073741971.175207949348294&type=3

What A View!

Sharp's Ridge
High Above The Rest
Columbia Hill Summit
Hickory Run Boulder Field
Canyon Vista Trail
The Glens Of Ricketts Glen
Rider Vista
Shikellamy Scenic Look Out


Historical Spots
CCC Museum - also a GREAT container!

Pennsylvania Oddities

 

Graffiti Highway
Scripture Rocks
Land Of Oz
Wilson's Home
Galloping Ghost

Fun & Interesting 
Raiders Of The Lost Cache
Lewisburg Bookswap Cache (find the cache, swap a book!)
Flea Market Find (great container!)
Old Trolls (Great container)


Gadget Caches
Betwixt & Between 6 & 5
How's The Fishing  & Where'D The Cache Go (2 locations, same gadget)
  Slide Me Up The Pipe
  Float Your Cache
The Answer Is The Key (A WVTIM copycat cache)

Evil Hides (super tricky containers)
Nature's Totem Pole

Interesting Caches That I Don't Personally Love

Fools Gold (find the container, then sort through a bunch of little containers inside to find the log)
Train Trestle Falls

Our Journey to the Train Trestle Falls Geocache

At the Train Trestle

Earlier this summer we had the opportunity to visit the geocache with the most favorite points in PA - which at the time was Raiders Of the Lost Cache.  When I posted on You Might Be A Geocacher If..  that we were headed there, several commented that they much preferred the Train Trestle Falls Cache, and that is was the most scenic, beautiful, cache they had ever been to - with a tunnel, trestle, amazing view, and waterfalls.  More than one person could not believe it had so few favorite points, compared to other caches.

So I immediately added it to my "want to go there" list.

It was only a few weeks later that we heard of a geocaching wedding taking place half way between this geocache, and where we live. A bike trail I had been wanting to do was also nearby (The Little Toby Bike Trail).  So we loaded up the tent and the bikes, and made a week-end out of it.

We made a wrong turn headed to the cache and turned back a little dirt lane, which was then gated with a sign denoting private property.  We had to back back out the lane to get out.

This is what the actual parking location looks like:

To the far right, out of this photo, there was a short, mildly steep, trail leading up to the top of this wall.

 The view from the to of the wall.  Not pictured here are piles of trash, a campfire area, and many other signs that made it clear this is a popular party location.  I was glad to be back out of here in the afternoon - I don't think this is where I would want to be on a Saturday night - just not my thing.  :-)

A very short walk back a pretty trail led us to the entrance to the tunnel.

The cache description is clear, and repetitive - BRING YOUR FLASHLIGHT.  Probably not the one on your phone.  We had our spotlight along, and were happy to have it, in the middle of the afternoon.  The description is also clear that you might get your feet wet - especially if you don't have a flashlight.  I didn't hesitate to wear flip flops, because I didn't care if my feet were wet - but if I went back I'd wear boots.  Not because of the water, but because of all the trash floating in the water.

It's so cool in the tunnel.  Almost immediately you escape the heat.

About half way through I had the fleeting thought that if this tunnel collapsed on us, no one knew where we were.  The tunnel appeared to be pretty secure - but there was no cell phone signal anywhere in the area, and we really should have made sure someone knew what we were doing.  This is true of so many of our trips...

  The tunnel is long - much longer than it appears in photos.  Maybe a quarter of a mile long?

 

 You come out of the tunnel to a small area, right before the train trestle.  In early spring, or winter, the view would probably be more impressive.  Walking out on the tracks would have allowed us to see more of the creek - but it didn't feel smart, after remembering that no one knew we were out here.. and I couldn't envision the view being great.  I was also thinking about all of the recent articles about being on these train tracks being tresspassing...  it just felt wrong to be out there.  I did venture out a few feet before deciding the view wasn't really worth it.

There were trails to the left, and to the right.  We explored the one on the left, away from the cache, to see if there was a better view (no) and found a campsite and more signs of partying.  Then we headed to the right, towards the "waterfalls" and the cache.

Spoiler alert - there were no waterfalls.  Not even "cascades".  Nothing of the sort.  :-(

Other cachers talked about the view - I'm thinking they were there in the winter?  In the summer, this is the view of the creek from the path - 

The actual cache is easy to find - but hard to get to.  It's STRAIGHT up a steep hill.

Then it was back to the tunnel - 

All in all, it was just really disappointing, because I had the cache so elevatedin my head.  I think I would have enjoyed it more if I had NOT been told about it, if no one had raved about how awesome and beautiful it was, I might have been more impressed. For me, it felt a lot like tresspassing, was dirty, and not even close to one of the 50 most beautiful spots I've been in PA - let alone THE most beautiful.

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We only had a few hours to spend in the area, and there are so many interesting caches here.  The ones we did really enjoy included:

Scripture Rocks - read the cache description. This is one of those PA Oddities that I love, and never knew about.  I love that geocaching takes us to places like this!

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GCN9ZD_scripture-rocks-1?guid=3e83bcd3-d457-4797-8d65-df85da66d2d1

This series of PVC caches area fun, simple, gadget caches that we enjoyed very much:

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC3JM80_float-your-cache?guid=e7204f79-f1d8-49cf-9e9c-686321bad7d4

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC3JMAT_hows-the-fishing?guid=b1641034-e715-4d08-b779-3e1072e8c77e

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC3JMA0_slide-me-up-the-pipe?guid=1b89b800-ad5e-4ce0-a32f-3da1c851d94c

We didn't get to this one - but I really wish we had!  It was raining a bit, and dark, so we skipped it.  :-(

It has 110 favorite points, as of 8/23/15 - http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC35EY4

We did stop by this one - and although it's a pretty spot, and I enjoyed stopping there, I am unsure how it merited 72 favorite points?  It must be on location alone - which was nice - I do enjoy caches taking me to locations like this.

http://www.geocaching.com/geocache/GC16922_helen-furnace-cache?guid=91345532-d479-4c48-aaa5-c04b9dcce803