Chase Sanctuary VIP tour

Posted on by Ian C.

Yesterday afternoon we visited Chase Sanctuary to enjoy a VIP tour that they offer – it’s expensive but the two hours we spent with lemurs, anteaters, sloths and other animals, was a fabulous time!

We began with a presentation of what Chase Sanctuary does, then walked past red ruffed lemurs and some monkeys, into a caged area where we were allowed to interact with and feed the ring tailed lemurs – they seemed very interested in us too!

Next we saw some kangaroos, and “birthday girl” Margaret was allowed to feed one:

There were some black and white ruffed lemurs that we met and fed, in the same area where we fed sloths (see the later video for sloths):

We finished our day with anteaters, including Margaret feeding one of them again:

I also took a lot of video, so here it is:

Making multigrain bread

Posted on by Ian C.

Another trip to Le Petit Paris today, to learn about multigrain bread; I’ve wondered whether the difference in multigrain is just the addition of “grains” and it turns out yes that is basically it – the dough is pretty similar to the sourdough we made last year, except that Stefan added toasted sunflower and flax seeds:

We then were given three separate pieces of dough which we flattened to get out the air then folded into a basic bread shape, with one going in a tin to bake and a second just on a tray. For the third dough I wanted to make small multigrain rolls so Stefan demonstrated cutting the dough into three and hand rolling each to a round shape. All three shaped doughs were rolled in a mixture of oats and seeds, before baking …

This dough takes a long time to work with – it needs resting time after mixing, a lot of proving time, and a 40 minute bake – and for the tin we ran short of time so I suggested that we take the tin and bake at home; the tray bread and my bread rolls needed a bit less proving time so we baked them, and they all came out really well! And when I got home I baked the tin (which had risen really well by now) and it also was delicious:

Another fun morning at the bakery, with lots of flavor to enjoy at home.

Alaska Cruise summary

Posted on by Ian C.

Our Alaska Cruise on the Holland America Nieuw Amsterdam was an amazing experience, giving us the glacier views we hoped for as well as inland Alaska scenery; we mostly lucked out with dry weather warmer than we’d expected, although unpredictable fog had an impact a couple of times.

We chose the best cabin on the ship, the Pinnacle Suite, and we loved the spacious rooms and balcony and the exceptional shower – though I note that the Nieuw Amsterdam in particular doesn’t offer the “premium” experience as well as some ships (no premium dining room for example, no special seating at shows, etc)

We chose the land+cruise package so we could get a taste of Alaska itself in addition to the cruise / glaciers, although our particular choice was limited in the land portion (especially due to early snow at Denali National Park preventing visits there!); on the other hand a longer land portion would have meant a lot of coach travel and less glacier views, so I think we made the right choice.

Here are my daily posts, in order:

Flying to Fairbanks

Coach to Denali Lodge

McKinley Explorer train to Anchorage

Anchorage to Whittier, and the Nieuw Amsterdam Pinnacle Suite

Hubbard Glacier

Glacier Bay and the Margerie Glacier

Skagway and the White Pass Railroad

Juneau

Ketchikan and Bears

The [foggy] Inside Passage