Cake is for men!

March 17, 2009 By 2 Comments

I joined a Wilton cake decorating class which is once a week for 4 weeks. The first week we didn’t actually make anything. The teacher showed us how to mix the frosting and gave us a list of items we would need for class. Then the teacher told us to make a round layer cake, frost it in light blue and bring it to our 2nd class. Making this cake wasn’t exactly… a piece of cake.

Sunday afternoon I found myself with a cake mix, a new frosting recipe I couldn’t get to the right thickness, and several mini-meltdowns after Bob asked if the cake was supposed to be crooked. My family unintentionally put pressure on me as a kid by calling me “Mini Martha Stewart” and I always thought I was pretty good at baking and crafts. Then Ella, my Wilton instructor came along and proved otherwise.

When I unveiled my not-so-smooth cake she immediately attacked it with a spray water bottle so she could soften the frosting and make it even. Then she tested my colored frosting and decided that needed water as well. So far, things weren’t going great. The girl that sits next to me, Amanda, told me she was frustrated with her cake and was on the verge of tears as well. phew I wasn’t alone!

By the end of the night I had a mandatory pastel rainbow cake with two kinda-sorta-flowers on top. Bob was excited to bring cake to work the next day until he saw it. “What can we do to make it more manly?”. Thus, I carefully wrote BEER on the pastel rainbow cake to make it more masculine. I’m thinking of submitting it to www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com where someone writes a blog about all of the bad cakes out there.

Filed Under: Fun

Cheyenne, WY

March 17, 2009 By 1 Comment

After realizing the largest town in Wyoming was only an hour and a half north, we packed up the dog and headed to Cheyenne, WY.

I did some research first on the tourism web site and it looked like a cute old western town. With a population of 50,000 people I shouldn’t have been surprised at how boring it was. There was a nice Governor’s mansion and the town is apparently a major hub of the Union Pacific Railroad.

I stopped in the tourist information hut to ask the local employee if there was anything cool to see in Wyoming. She told me to drive 4 more hours until I got to Yellowstone. I didn’t exactly have 4 hours so I asked if there was anything cool within an hour of Cheyenne. She thought hard for a moment and advised me to go to a park 30 minutes away. It was her one and only idea so we took it.

The park was pretty nifty, actually. The bumpiest dirt road in the world led us to huge granite formations. I have a hard time imagining how those giant, dull blobs of granite will eventually end up flattened down and sparkly in my gourmet kitchen someday.

Bob found a small dirt trail off the paved path and decided we should follow that for a while. Once we reached a destination Bob was pleased with, we started heading back to the car. I immediately knew it wasn’t the exact direction we came from. Bob said “don’t worry, I’m taking a short cut!”. Mind you, he didn’t have a map or any knowledge of the area and is notorious for having a terrible memory and sense of direction. I was immediately grateful to have Coda’s excellent sniffing abilities so help re-trace our steps if needed. Thank goodness Bob guessed right and his short-cut led us back to the main trail and we were able to get the heck out of boring Wyoming!

Filed Under: Adventure, Fun, Outdoors