Weekend Plans

We spent yesterday getting Ivan organized for a short trip. Short as in time (just the weekend) and not distance (back to Bs. As.). I am enormously proud of ourselves for cramming packing everything he needed in a LARGE Ryobi tool bag.

How much can one man need for a weekend?

Quite a lot when he's camping out!

Into that one tool/duffel bag went:

The toiletry bag contained not only his shower stuff, but also bug spray, a car charger for his phone (hope he finds someone with a car who will let him recharge it!), and his underclothes. Also in the duffel: his clothes for the weekend, a bag with crackers and cookies and a jar of peanut butter.

He stowed the duffel under the bus with luggage but carried his leather mate bag on board, ready with a thermos of hot water, yerba, his mate cup and a half dozen homemade granola bars that I stuck in.

He'll be seeing old friends (one he hasn't seen since junior high years), more recent ones (a young man he met at an aviation show in Alta Gracia last year) and knowing Ivan he'll also make a lot of NEW friends as well.

He took the overnight bus and called this morning to let me know he'd arrived in Lujan. Before he heads out to the airshow he plans to visit the Transportation Museum in Lujan where Mancho and Gato are on display. Here's a short bio of these famous Criollo horses:

Aimé Tshiffely was Swiss by birth, but in the early part of the 20^th century, he lived in Buenos Aires, where he worked as a teacher. In April 1925, he set out with two Argentine criollo horses, Gato and Mancha, to ride ten thousand miles from Buenos Aires to New York.

Everyone told him he was quite mad. ‘I felt strongly tempted to quote to them saying, “Let fools laugh; wise men dare and win,” but a doubt assailed me as to which of us was really the fool, so I refrained,’ he wrote in his subsequent account of the journey, Tschiffely’s Ride.

It took Tschiffely, Gato and Mancha two and a half years to arrive at their destination. They travelled across mountain ranges and deserts, encountered tribesmen and ambassadors, passed through run-down villages and historic cities – whose finer establishments at first turned the schoolteacher away because he looked such a horrible mess.

Tschiffely was clearly no coward, but he credited the eventual success of his journey to the remarkable resilience of his horses. At they journey’s end, they travelled together back to Buenos Aires by ship, and then Gato and Mancha retired to a ranch on the pampas while Tschiffely himself travelled the globe lecturing and writing.

Then, in 1933, the man on whose land Gato and Mancha now lived received a letter. It was suggested to him that, such was the horses’ fame and popularity, the public might appreciate the opportunity to visit them even after their deaths. And so it was decided that, when eventually the horses expired, they would be stuffed and put on display.

They’re still there – in Luján’s transport museum. They look slightly out of sorts, surrounded by antique motor cars and predictably rigid in their glass case. But these, nonetheless, are the steeds that made one of the most celebrated rides in history. If you ring at the door market ‘biblioteca’, to the right of the museum’s entrance, you can even read through the telegram correspondence relating to the deaths and embalming of the horses in the 1930s and 1940s, as well as old letters and newspaper articles. They’re in Spanish, of course.

Ivan read Tschiffely's book a few years ago and was intrigued by their adventure.

Ivan's own adventure this weekend involves airplanes, not horses. He's had a passion for all things aviation as long as I've known him. Even though we were poor college students early in our marriage, we squeezed out enough to buy the flight school books and materials. But it was another ten years before he had either the time or the cash to pursue flight training.

He managed to get his private pilot's license before life got super crazy again and it's been at least ten years since he's had the time or the money to fly (actually probably closer to fifteen years). The dream of building his own plane dimmed when we moved overseas and he had to sell what he'd managed to do so far on a little Turner two-seat, tail dragger.

But the dream did not die and I hope that quality called PERSISTENCE motivates him to hang in there until he straps himself into his very own homebuilt and flies once again!

[And I chew off the little bit of nail nubbins I have left. I am totally schizo about wanting him to fly again and being terrified when he does.]

While he's gone I'm planning to spend some quality time with my Pfaff. Not sure whether I'll be continuing with a UFO (unfinished fabric object) or beginning something entirely new. Maybe a little of both!

But first I'd like to share this amazing granola bar recipe that I found on Tasty Kitchen. I've tried several recipes over the years and have always been disappointed by the taste and/or texture -- until this one, which scores high on both.

GRANOLA SQUARES

• ½ cups Melted Unsalted Butter
• 1 cup Packed Light Brown Sugar
• ¼ cups Granulated Sugar
• 1 whole Egg
• 1 Tablespoon Vanilla Extract
• 2 Tablespoons Honey
• 1-½ cup Quick Oats
• 1 cup Flour
• 1-¼ cup Rice Krispies
• 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
• ½ teaspoons Baking Powder
• ¼ teaspoons Salt
• 1 cup Chocolate Chips
• 1 cup Chopped Pecans
  

1. Cream butter and sugars together in a large bowl.
2. Add egg, vanilla, and honey.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together all dry ingredients.
4. Pour wet ingredients into the dry mix bowl and mix well.
5. Press granola into a greased baking pan (I use a 9 x 12” but if you’d like thinner bars, go with a bigger pan).
6. Bake at 350 F for 15-20 minutes or when the top is very light brown.
7. Let cool and cut into squares or bars.

Enjoy!
Both the granola bars and the weekend.