Snow From Chicago in Everyday Ramblings

This morning I took a walk after sunrise up behind my place to the grocery store. It was below freezing but clear and I enjoyed it. I am feeling stronger these days and I know my cardiovascular health is better as this is a walk that involves quite a bit of elevation and it felt easy.

The problem is then I need to work with more effort to get my cardio in. This walk was 70 minutes and only 3 of those minutes were cardio. I am not complaining it felt good and the view was spectacular but even though I have close to 11,000 steps and it is before noon, I still need to get my cardio in for the day.

At least I did my pushups. :)

We had a lovely Thanksgiving. It was quite windy in Portland, beach level gorge winds that scour from the east and make you wish you were not wearing your hearing aids.

The train schedule was abbreviated for the holiday so I went down to Salem later than usual and stayed later. We had an untraditional feast with quiche, this yummy kale chard gratin, roast potatoes and an apple spice loaf for dessert. We built the meal around the gratin.

Mrs. Sherlock supplied cranberry compote as well that was a perfect compliment. It was full of pecans; she knows I love pecans. Kes and Most Honorable did all the cooking for which I am deeply thankful.

I supplied the excuse for them to stay at home and not feel obligated to accept other invitations.

Because it was a holiday and once again I was a little concerned about revelers taking the train so they could drink (you can drink on the train as long as you buy the alcohol on the train) I sprang for a business class ticket home. Both business class cars were empty! It was amazing, my own private comfortable warm rail car.

I had downloaded our Forever in Motion’s new Christmas cozy mystery called “Snowfall at Moonglow”. Deborah Garner for those of you who don’t remember her from Open Diary. This is the 5th in the series and she puts holiday cookie recipes in the back. This year this is particularly germane because I finally have time to make cookies.

For some inexplicable reason according to the conductors who were quite annoyed, we had to stop twice for freight trains and got in a half hour late. But I was like la de da, I am reading, I am relaxing and this is great.

Kes and Most Honorable insisted I take a hire car home instead of braving a holiday evening with the local fauna around the train station and so I did. I literally only had to wait a minute. What a decadence!

The company, the food, the train, the ride…

Mrs. Sherlock is taking the whole week off from her various and abundant commitments and so we did not do the group hike today. We are going to hike with Frida tomorrow morning, just the two of us and I am looking forward to that. She did come to class Wednesday, which was lovely.

When I stepped off “my” private luxury train car last night in the dark cold, “my” conductor exclaimed that the snow all over the next track over was from the Empire Builder from Chicago.

Just think, snow from the Midwest made it all the way here just in time to start getting all festive for Christmas.

Last updated November 30, 2019