Picnics and Perishables

Did you see yesterday?! It was gorgeous! Absolutely beautiful day and a killer one to spend outside. B-May and I made the most of it but spent a considerable amount of time in the car. It was alright because we did some pretty cool stuff. But even before we set out for a journey for the day, check this out:

We had a couple peaches leftover from our picking on Sunday and decided it was do or die for the remaining fruits. B-May mashed them up into a pancake/waffle batter and added some pecans! Brilliant! Delicious homemade waffles with a little bit of a crunch and sweet, fruity aftertaste. Totally recommended that you steal that idea.

Just remembered we stopped in town to take care of a few errands and picked up a Costa Rican La Minita coffee at Breaking New Grounds. Not bad at all!

Our adventure took us to the SEE Science Center in Manchester. We are considerable fans of the Museum of Science in Boston and looked forward to what our new state, New Hampshire had to offer. Upon arrival, we saw kids running around, kids crying and kids playing with the mostly "hands-on" exhibits at the Science Center. For reasons below, we coughed up the admission fee and sauntered in. Here's a quick review of the fun stuff we found:

First: build an arch. I've never done this before. It was totally awesome to see opposing forces hold together this ancient staple of architecture. As I said to B-May, I don't know science, but what I do know, I love it! The Science Center presented its guests with a number of these puzzles like the arch from before. The challenge here was to stack 14 bolts on the singular red one. We cheated after an embarrassingly short time and were quite impressed with the solution that called for this peculiar construction.

And here is a photo of B-May levitating a ball! It was under a scientific leaf blower and challenged us to float two balls at once. That didn't happen. We're such amateurs.

Then there were these two chairs that reduced one's body weight to either a fifth or a seventh. B-May is seen above pulling her own weight up. It was rather simple. Yet, when she tried to pull me up the same chair but at a different angle than where I was sitting, this resulted:

...she fell down. It was cute though. So from my vantage at the top of the pulleys, I could see the exhibit we really came to the Science Center for. A re-creation of the old mills in Manchester made entirely out of...LEGOs!!!

As a lifelong enthusiast of LEGOs courtesy of an enabling grandmother, I was truly taken back by the sheer scale and size of this project. I won't ramble on about it, but I cannot recommend it highly enough. Seriously, incredible.

So the plan was to find a place to have a picnic lunch in the city and then go explore some of Manchester. Perhaps we did something wrong but...nothing did look worthy of exploring and the parks were less than appealing. Maybe we're just close-minded, or spoiled by our home in Portsmouth but we split town soon after. Driving back on 101 we exited towards Epping, hoping for another quiet town to enjoy a picnic in a park or something. Remember how beautiful it was? We just wanted to get outside. But alas, we drove through Epping in too short a while and through a series of backroads, ended up in Exeter again which proved a fine backdrop to the day and a nice place for lunch on a blanket.

Before we got to this parkway (I guess that's what it technically is), we stopped at a sandwich shop which is sure to make a bigger appearance in this blog soon enough - I forget the name for now. Picked up some chips and a soda to complement my chicken, mushroom, tomato, zucchini, and spinach sandwich, served up on a deliciously crumbly Arnold Multi-Grain Sandiwch Thin.

So yea, there's a Coke in the picture but I rarely have them and damn their marketing - it seemed like a cool refreshing summer drink. Anyways, we hightailed it back to town and stopped at a bakery to find that their pastries were running two for the price of one so late in the afternoon. Well of course we'll take two! They are pictured a little further down.

After we got back, we decided the day was still too wonderful to sit inside and so we walked down to Four Tree Island where I started reading Born to Run in order to do a little reading of our own. We left when our toes got too cold for comfort. Came back and threw together the main ingredient B-May was concerned was going to go bad: turkey meat. She had been thawing it for some time and we fried it with some leftover rice from the stuffed eggplant and a slew of veggies from corn to black beans and a hint of salsa with all sorts of wonderful spices to end up with this!

We love eating out of bowls and so we rightly filled up on this Mexican-inspired solution to thawing meat. I decided it was the kind of hearty meal that called for more carbohydrates and had a Tuckerman Ravine Pale Ale. An excellent combination but I left room for the pastries from that afternoon:

We're looking at a raspberry turnover and an apple/raisin/raspberry strudel. Washed it down with some decaffeinated green tea and enjoyed a quiet evening of research on weekend activities while watching the Red Sox.

And for today, I had one and a half of the remaining peach and pecan waffles with some milk. Spent the day working with my parents on my Gram's house in South Portland, Maine where we enjoyed Amato's for lunch. I haven't got a photo but I wolfed down a foccacia (sp?) turkey sandwich loaded with veggies. Gram also had some un-salted potato chips so I had a couple of those too.

After leaving, we stopped at The Maine Running Company where I picked up my newest toy: Vibram Five Fingers. I won't elaborate until after my run this afternoon but I anticipate some wonderful and wonderfully weird things to happen!