Christmas in Florida

Every year I spend Christmas in Florida because that is why my parents currently reside. This year was especially busy because a lot of friends from middle and high school who are not always in town were going to be around, my best friend was getting married, and my new boy friend was going to be coming down to meet my parents for the first time.

So of course, with all this craziness, I lost my luggage for the first time ever. Now, I've never sat down and counted how many times I've flown. But I started flying by myself in the 7th grade and made yearly trips to Nebraska from then until I graduated high school. Then came college in Boston and more trips, and then traveling abroad and visiting friends all over the US. So I'd say about 40 plane trips, so maybe 100 flights. And no lost baggage, until this year. It wasn't even a short layover either, it was over an hour. Who knows.

But here are my tips so that you don't lose the important stuff or your mind.

Your carry on should always have:
phone chargers
money, gift certificates
important medicine
snacks
jewelry
anything not easily replaced
for overseas flights or flights where you aren't going home (and therefore don't have a stash of clean underwear at your destination) at least one change of clothes

You should also always know what your bag looks like, even if it's new. This includes the brand, how many exterior pockets it has, and any identifying marks. I've never been one to tie colored ribbon on my black bag because I can spot it from a mile away because I know it so well, but this trip I realized the ribbon isn't always for YOU, but for other people who don't know what their bag looks like. So the colored marker isn't admitting you're an idiot, it's admitting you don't quite trust everyone else either.

Thankfully my bag showed up the next morning still in STL, so it was put on the next flight to Orlando and arrived at my house by midafternoon. Phew. That was a close one.

Pumpkin Donuts! (slightly old...this is from November)

So fall is my favorite food season. I think it might be everyone's. Although summer is my favorite beer season. But fall wins it with apple cider donuts and pumpkin donuts for sure. Which means I can't let fall pass completely before I get those. So far I haven't been successful. I was mildly successful in getting fresh Casey's donuts Tuesday morning, but no apple cider donuts yet.

 If you haven't heard me talk about Casey's donuts yet, Casey's is a chain of convenience stores in the midwest that sometimes have full kitchens in them with pizza, subs, and made in store donuts. Think Wawa, but not as fancy. And not all Casey's are as nice. In fact, I also recently went into a super crappy Casey's that had none of these food offerings. So yeah, not as consistent as Wawa.

I know you all love my babbling.

The point! I got three of the moistest donuts I've ever had, including a chocolate cake donut with maple frosting. It finally hit me why their cake donuts are so good. They actually taste like cake! And who doesn't love a reason to eat cake in the morning! The raised were also good, mostly because the chocolate frosting had so much flavor and tasted like something besides wax.

I have no pictures of these delicious donuts, probably because I was sharing them with some friends and we ate too quickly to pause. My next couple reviews will have pictures, and I only know this because I found the pictures on my camera and was like, oh crap, I forgot to review these donuts! Ooops...

The reviews that haven't been

I know I've been missing some reviews recently, but I have been trying! So this is a "tribute" to the reviews that haven't been because stores have crappy hours.

1. Randy's in West Lincoln. Only open till 10am and closed on Sundays. Not helpful. Tried going there at least twice now, I will make it at some point! When I'm up that early...

2. Flyboy's Donuts in Tea and Sioux Falls SD. Tea is a tiny town, so I guess I can excuse this one closing before 1pm on a Saturday. But Sioux Falls is the BIGGEST FREAKIN TOWN IN SOUTH DAKOTA and it had hours till 2pm on Saturday. So we bust our butt getting there through crappy crappy traffic and arrive at 1:55. Door locked. For anyone who was wondering how the clocks work in this world, 1:55 IS BEFORE 2PM. I hate hate hate it when business close minutes before the time on their door. If you want to class at 1:55, then set your hours till 1:55. Don't close five minutes early for the fun of it. Who knows if I'll ever be back in SD to try your donuts, but I probably won't just because now I hate you. Stupid Flyboys.

So those were my attempted donut places in the silence that this fall has been. Hopefully I find some new ones to review soon that are actually open and want to sell me delicious donuts!

Packing for cooking over a fire

The full kitchen box!

This past weekend I got to go camping in South Dakota which was awesome because 1. I'd never been to South Dakota and 2. It had been way too long since the last time I went camping. We rented a cabin in a state park just over the Nebraska boarder and it was AMAZING. But again, that's for another post. Notice I'm trying not to inundate all you readers with a ton of stories at once. This post will focus on packing a kitchen to go. I'm really proud of my packing job because there was only one thing that I was like, crap, I wish I had brought that. And we used almost everything in my kitchen box!




Items for two people for a two day camping trip:
1. 6 inch fry pan
2. 4 quart pot with lid that would also fit the fry pan if needed
3. Spatula/scrapper
4. Spatula/flipper

Cold breakfast the first morning before
we got firewood.

5. Two plastic cooking spoons
6. Two pot holders
7. Three tea towels
8. Collapsible bowl with lid
10. Two distinctly shaped sponges (so we could tell them apart if need be)
11. Small tupperware of dish soap (approximately 1/4 cup)
12. 2 8-in plates
13. 2 10-in plates
14. Cutting board
15. Sharp knife

Dinner the second night cooked
over the fire.

16. Metal pinchers
17. Utensils (assorted butter knives, forks and spoons)
18. Corkscrew/bottle opener
19. Can opener
20. Scissors
21. 4 bowls
22. 4 cups
23. Paper towels
24. Assorted ziplock baggies
25. Trash bags (large glad ones and some old grocery bags)
26. Tub of antibacterial wipes

Hot breakfast cooked over the fire.

Everything fit into a collapsible crate that I had from college that measured approximately 18x12x12. We didn't use everything, but the only thing I wanted and didn't have was some duct tape (although, not sure if that counts as part of the kitchen packing or not). If I go camping more in the future or for longer periods of time, a dish bin would be nice for doing dishes (the collapsible bowl worked fairly well, it had a lid which was nice, but it wasn't very big) and a kettle for warming up water on the fire.

Donut Review! -- The Doughnut Hole --

Where: 350 Canopy St, Suite 120, Lincoln
What: Maple Bacon long john and Chocolate Oreo cake donut
When: Tuesday, October 29th 2013
Website, Twitter

It had been awhile since I had actually gotten to a new donut place and I was going through some withdrawal. What is with all these donut places closing so early in the day? Like before noon sometimes! But that's for another post.

Today's doughnuts were wonderful. I'll spell it correctly since The Doughnut Hole does. But only for them. Also, before getting my doughnuts I did a pretty awesome parallel parking job. Anyways, off topic again.

The chocolate oreo was nice and moist with good flavor. It was also quite thick for a doughnut. The maple long john was I'd say at least 8 inches long. It fit a full strip of bacon across the top. I should have measured. The bacon was a good thickness and had some maple flavoring of it's own and the frosting was my favorite type of maple frosting with more of an artificial flavoring. I'd give both doughnuts a 5/5. Definitely will be going back, just not often because the total was $4.23 for two doughnuts...so like dessert/special treat doughnuts.

I've been so busy! :-(

So my sister and I tried to get to Randy's in West Lincoln and still didn't make it. So we went to LaMar's, which I feel I've talked about enough.

Then my boyfriend and I went to South Dakota and tried to go to two different outlets of Flyboy's Donuts and both were closed, including the second one that closed 5 minutes early. We just wanted some donuts! Another failure.

Tomorrow I'm going to try to go to a new donut place in the Haymarket area of Lincoln because I have some free time in the morning.

But, I also have a special treat for the blog! I can make a post about packing for a camping trip :-)

Yeah, I need to travel more...and possibly eat more donuts. Or at least more new donuts. Because today I had a glazed from Conroy's, which is quickly becoming my favorite donut place in Lincoln. Which is pretty awesome since it was one of the first places I went to in Lincoln :-)

Wawa

Where: 6500 S. Semaron Blvd, Orlando
What: Pumpkin Spice
When: Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Wawas have recently been popping up in Central Florida and it's kind of exciting. Since my sister moved to Philly, I began to understand the obsession my college roommates from New Jersey had with Wawa. The sandwiches are great and the stores are always well lit and super clean for gas station convenience stores. This particular Wawa is just north of Orlando International Airport and for the first couple weeks they were open they kept their gas at 2.99/gallon. Even more amazing when you compare that to the two other stations between them and the airport who regularly charge over $5/gallon to get all those tourists returning their rental cars. Such crap.

Anyways, DONUT REVIEW. Duh. I had the pumpkin spice on the way to the airport leaving Florida. I am so in love with fall and anything pumpkin flavored (or baked goods pumpkin flavored, pumpkin beer is not my favorite). However, the "spice" part of this donut was just too much. I felt like I was eating out of the jar of pumpkin pie spice. I couldn't finish it. The donut was moist and the glaze was nice, but just not a good flavor for me. 2/5. I hope fall has some better pumpkin donuts in store for me.