It was a LOOOOOONG Day!!

Friday was a crazy day! It actually started Thursday evening, I was a bit amped up in my brain and I knew the next day would be hectic, so I stayed up way too late getting things done around the house and getting the car loaded for our road trip to OR. Finally at midnight, I fell asleep.

3:40am comes awefully early on that little of sleep!! Got up, showered, dressed and out the door to drop Derek off at work. Then drove to Freddy's which suprisingly is not open at 5am! Damn. Thank Goodness Haggen was open that early, shopped for the supplies I needed to make cinnamon rolls and then drove home. Fed all the critters and got to work on making the rolls. Our annual horse club cinnamon roll ride was the next day, so it is tradition for me to make all the rolls... LONG ago, it was gramma that made the rolls, so I have restarted and now carry on the tradition. However, I am NOWHERE NEAR the baker that she was, so for the next hour, I struggled with my dough, particularly the damn yeast.. It is very sensitive and I killed it on all 3 of my attempts...

I was hopeful the 3rd try was a go, and I had a few other things I needed to pick up from the store, so at 7:30 I left my dough to rise and ran to Freddys', then picked up mom on the way back home for her to help me out with finishing up my rolls. Darn if that damn dough did not rise an inch!! THANK GOODNESS I bought more yeast when at Freddys.....

So the 4th round I just handed it over to mom to get it right because if that 4th batch didnt work out, I was going to have to go to the store 1 more time, as I was OUT of the other supplies used to make the dough!! :) Whew, round 4 was a success.

My dough only made enough for 6 batches of rolls.. enough for the ride, but not enough for leftovers. The first 3 went in the oven to bake and came out lookin pretty good.. maybe a little soft in the center, but last year I over-cooked the rolls and didnt want to make that mistake again.. When they are eaten cold (no microwave available at the trailhead), it is better to be under cooked than over! We put the last 3 rolls into the oven and 20 minutes later I opened the door to check on them..

They were flat and uncooked! SHIT!! Somehow the oven got turned OFF after the 1st round of rolls was cooked, so with the dropping heat, the rolls un-rose and flattened out.. we turned the oven back on and proceeded to cook the rolls. They baked just fine, but they were the flatest rolls I'd ever seen! LOL

So my baking days could use some work and experience! I ate one of the rolls fresh and hot, it was delicious, then boxed them all up, typed up a note for the club members, apologizing for the flat rolls, but that they better eat 'em and like 'em.... :) I couldnt be there for the event, I was headed out on a road trip.

As soon as the rolls were done, I squared things away in the house, grabbed my overnight bag and headed out the door. Dropped the rolls off at a friends house who was going to take them the next day to the horse club ride, drove to town, fueled up, picked up Derek from work and we hit the road! We left Everett at 2pm and headed to Enumclaw to pick up his saddle that had come in a few days earlier. His saddle looked great and it was exactly what he wanted, so we put it in the car and continued our journey to OR. Weather was great, clear sky's, dry pass and we had a long but safe successful drive to Redmond OR, checking into our hotel at 11:20pm... I struggled to stay awake in the car on the drive down, but as soon as I hit the pillow, I struggled to fall asleep... excitement, anticipation, exhaustion was all kicking in but 20 minutes later I was out!