Coca Cola Cake

 Tom loves the Coca Cola cake at Cracker Barrel so I decided to try and make one for this weekend. The recipe is available at Just a Pinch Recipe Club by clicking here.

 It'd probably be easier - and maybe just as good - to buy a boxed chocolate cake and add Coca Cola as part of the liquid. There's a lot of dishes that come out of this recipe. But it's still warm and I haven't tried it so I don't know if it's worth the extra effort.

 This is my completed cake. It certainly fills an 9 x 13" cake pan to the top. I'd call the frosting a ganache ... it's shiny and soft (but the cake is still warm so it may still set-up).

 The cake batter is equally liquid and it pours into the pan easily. I've had other cakes with batter this liquid so I wasn't particularly worried about it.

 The :"frosting" requires cooking, too, so there's multiple stages to worry about and some pans to wash. Yes, I used the same pan, just rinsing it out between steps. By the way, I used "dark chocolate" cocoa (Hershey's Special Dark) as both Tom and I prefer the darker version.

 The cake is quite beautiful. It rose perfectly. One note: the recipe calls for a baking time of "20 to 25 minutes". I found much of the center of the cake quite undone at that time (it even jiggled when I moved it) so I looked up other similar recipes and found a 40 minute baking time wasn't out of the question. I put it back in for this full amount and then tested with a toothpick. Clean!

 The cake should be iced while still warm. I suspect the icing dribbles down into the cake a bit giving it extra moisture. This is going to be a sticky cake. But that's what's good about some of these chocolate cake recipes. I'll post a picture when it's cut and give you a final opinion.

Later:

 After a night in the refrigerator the frosting was set perfectly and was easily cut. I opted for fifteen pieces because I figured it was going to be rich.

 It's as close to "death by chocolate" as you can get. The ganache seeped slightly into the top layer of the cake because both it and the cake were still warm when it was applied. Perfect!

 The cake is more dense than what a store-bought cake mix makes. So my earlier comment may allow for an easier Coco Cola cake but it won't be the same thing.

 The taste? Wonderful! I poured a cup of hot, black coffee and enjoyed it one forkful as a time. This recipe is a keeper.

The Paulsen Side

 It seems the Schmidt side of the family had volumes of photo albums. I credit that to my grandfather's interest in photography - he was an early-adopter of 35mm - and my grandmother's desire to carefully preserve photos in albums.

 In other words, there was a good record of my dad's early life. My mother, on the other hand, had many fewer photos taken, let alone preserved. Yesterday I decided to try and find the old albums that had been passed to us ... and found nothing. It turns out that Mom had removed the photos from albums and placed them in a Ziploc plastic bag. I suppose this was in the interest of saving space.

Many of the photos I reviewed I have seen before and I am thankful they were kept. But to ensure real preservation, I scanned them and will place the best here so that I can view them later and others can share in them.

The first photo of Mom?

Mary Catherine Paulsen - 1925

Then there is a gap ...

Mom - First Communion

 Then winter fun at 335 S Riverview in Miamisburg, Ohio ...

Mae (mom's sister), Jack (her father) and mom 

Mae, Katie (mom's mother) and mom 

Mae and mom

John Joseph Paulsen

 In 1932 tragedy struck. Baby John was born and died of yellow jaundice six days later (July 20 - 26).  I remember my grandmother showing me this picture and her comments were always tinged with deep sadness. I don't think she ever got over losing this baby. I've included the picture here only because the baby deserves remembrance.

Mom and Mae

 As usual, this picture was taken in the front yard of 335 S Riverview. It's facing east,

Mom, Katie, Mae

They're growing fast. This was taken by a friend and is the most professional photo in the group.

And just like that, they've grown up ...

Katie, Mom

 This must have been some sort of studio shot.

Dad, Jack, Kate, Mae

 Soon my father enters the picture. Mom and dad were married in 1945. It wasn't much later that Charles Boyer enters the scene, too ... Mae's husband.

Kate, Mom, Mae and Charlie

 This shot was taken behind 335 S Riverview and facing west. That's the Rammel farm in the distance.

 I arrive in 1949 ...

Katie, Bill

 At this point the focus moves away from Riverview. Mom and Dad get married and move in with his parents (810 Cottage Avenue in Miamisburg) and then, not much later, to 735 N Eleventh Street in Miamisburg. They'll move to the house directly across the street (734 N Eleventh Street) in 1956 just after my brother, Bob is born.

 Mae and Charlie live briefly with one of his aunts on Main Street (a second floor apartment with dark stairs that I found scary and difficult to climb) and then move to 552 Dee Avenue in Miamisburg where they'll spend their entire life.

 There are other pictures, of course, but these are the highlights.

The Price ... [quote]

Heart at Blossom

 On the morning of August 4 Tom and I were still vacationing in Bear Lake, Michigan. But we knew we had a big day ahead of us and we needed to be at the Blossom Music Center in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio by 6 pm.  We planned to meet Don and Pam Beery ... who, by the way, had our tickets.

 We were rerouted by Android Auto due to an accident on I-23 and had to make a detour towards Detroit. Even so, we arrived on time ... even early (about 5:15 pm). And then we waited. It turns out the the Berry's had accidents to contend with, too. Two of them. They didn't arrive till nearly 8:30 pm. The concert began at 7 pm.

 We spent the late afternoon sitting in the car and watching the parking lot fill up. And quite a crowd it was!

 Tom was bored enough that he began collecting sticks and building a sculpture on the ground...

 While we waited (we couldn't get access to the concert because we didn't have the tickets), we listened to Elle King in the far distance but couldn't really make out a thing. Later, when we walked close to meet the Beery's we were able to hear Joan Jett quite clearly ... but we only got to see her last two songs.

Joan Jett - Everyday People

 We pretty much arrived in our seats just as a long intermission began. The stage was being set for Heart. At least we arrived for the headliners.

 In the distance Heart performs. Both Ann and Nancy Wilson were terrific!

Heart - Stairway to Heaven

 I suppose they played until about 11 pm and then the mad exodus began. We walked to our car (passing two men who were peeing through a chain link fence while throngs passed by) and sat there till nearly 1 am. We arrived home at 4:45 am and was in bed by 5 am. I slept till 9:30 am and Tom got up about 11 am.

Tom found this ticket on a seat after the concert

 Thus ended our vacation.

Bear Lake vacation

 It was short - just four days - but it was also the second time this summer we've been to Bear Lake. I appreciate every minute I have there.

 Here's what we saw ...

 We stayed at the Bella Vista Inn.

 Our first evening there (Thursday, 08/01) we drove to Benzonia to eat. The Roadhouse, a Mexican place of sorts, was one Bob and I enjoyed many years  ago and a burrito that was surely a pound. This time the place was redecorated and appeared to me more of a bar with seating. The place was incredibly busy and we ate at the actual bar. It was a little too busy - and too loud - to enjoy.

 Somehow Tom - and me, too - got on an old-time movie kick and we watched some of the classics from the 1940's and 1950's on TCM. We did this during our rest times and in the evenings.

 Bob wanted me to look at a piece of property on M-31. The orange arrow is due to surveying crews checking the location of gas and fiber optic lines. Obviously some sort of construction is in the offing around the lake.

 There were no steps down to the water.

 We drove over to the public access point nearest the Dayton Club and I took these two shots. We had beautiful weather the whole time we were there. No more than an occasional cloud deck but mostly sunny and pleasantly warm.

 Then to Pierport where we watched the sun dip below the horizon.

 While driving out of Pierport we saw a young deer standing on this rise beside the road. I fiddled with the camera but till I handed it to Tom the deer decided it was time to move on. That's him at the upper left.

 Friday morning we enjoyed breakfast at the Lakeside Cafe. It's a crowd favorite and ours, too. Very hearty breakfasts for the price and nice waitresses.

 Later that day I walked along the south side of the lake (S Shore Drive), a two mile round trip. I usually do three miles at the Y so Tom and I repeated the walk that evening and I can fairly log four miles.

 We seldom had more than a few fair-weather clouds.

  Fire hydrants in Bear Lake have long rods attached. Surely this is to identify the spot when the winter snows lie deep.

 We spent part of the afternoon walking out to the Frankfort lighthouse, The beach this day was busy with bathers and volleyball players.

 Red cone flowers at Crystal Gardens. This is a must-stop place for Tom who walks among the greenhouses in a trance.

 That evening he repotted his purchases (four, I believe). It may be our vacation but plants retain a high priority with Tom.

 We had a late lunch at Papa J's. That's Traverse Cherry Fudge on the left (for me) and Michigan Pothole on the right.

 By late in the day (Friday) some clouds began to roll in but they were short-lived and Saturday morning dawned clear.

 We ate at the Lakeside and I took this view of my beloved Bear Lake through their window.

 Saturday we devoted many hours to a mini-trip to Petoskey, Michigan, a place I've heard about but never been to. Of course we wanted to search for Petoskey stones.

 This shot, and the last, was taken at Bayfront Park, The beach was lined with these large stones and there was little to no smaller gravel to search for Petoskey stones within. We drove west and found the perfect location.

 There were lots of finely washed small stones and that's where we looked for Petoskeys.

 It turns out I found seven and Tom found thirty, He's a much more serious collector than I. Part of time I removed my short and lay in the sun.

 This is one of the Petoskeys I found this day.  They're fragments of a great coral reef that lived during the Devonian Period (about 420 to 359 million years ago).

 Finally, Saturday evening we had finished with our walk and outdoor activities and had retired to our motel room, Late evening, after 9 pm, I began to hear terrific explosions and walked out in the parking lot to find a great fireworks display  underway. Was it signalling the end of our vacation? It seemed, at least a fitting bookend to our wonderful few days in paradise.