Bettinsons planned a summer dinner for us in their lovely backyard which was ideal because they are remodeling their main floor – Big Time! It should be wonderful with high ceilings and spectacular views of Mount Olympus when they’re finished.
Their trees were covered in twinkle lights, pink flamingos were lurking all about. Paper mackaws were hanging in the branches. We ate well, as usual and finished with Key Lime Cheesecake – made by me from Debbie’s recipe.
Making the cheesecake is a bit of a story. I couldn’t find key lime juice, but Albersons had bags of key limes. I thought that fresh lime juice may be superior in flavor to the other stuff and so was contented to buy the fresh limes. There were about thirty or so of the little dickens in the bag. I began to squeeze. If I was lucky, some of the limes were as big as a walnut. I cut them in half and finally resorted to squeezing them with a pair of pliers to get the most juice out. When I finished the squeezing the whole bag of limes, I had ½ cup of juice. I needed a full cup.
Jeff came to the rescue and went to the store for me. We ended up with Key West lime juice from Florida. At that point I didn’t care whether it was “key lime” juice or “lime juice from Key West”. I used it.
We took the barely baked cheesecakes to Debbie’s and put them in the fridge to cool. Then we stalled because you can’t serve warm cheesecake – unless you want it to puddle right on the plate. Luckily Greg had entertainment for us which consisted of pictures from Fred’s 60th birthday cruise we did together in February and then some hilarious comedy DVD’s of people falling in waterbeds, marching band mishaps, people falling in holes, etc. Slapstick is my favorite.
The canyon was super crowded. There were no picnic spots available. Luckily Rustin knew of a picnic area above the Tibble Fork reservoir that was unmarked. We kept going and going and found one of the most lovely spots shrouded in autumn glory I've ever seen. It was chilly but very beautiful! Rustin and Nicole had brought their Ranger, so after eating they took off up a dirt road and the two cars followed slowly behind. We took turns driving and riding in the ranger going quickly through the trees and leaves. At one point Carole and Clark took us on wild rides around another lake high in the mountains.
We loved it so much that Jeff and I met Nicole and Rustin back at the same place Monday evening and took the ranger all the way to the top of the mountain. It was exhilarating to be outdoor and submerged in the autumn colors. Oh how glorious.
As it turned out, that was really a good idea, because this Conference weekend it is dark and gray and cold and raining. We would have missed a spectacular experience in Utah's mountains.
