Gorgeous pictures. It looks like you and your brother had a lovely afternoon.

That looks wonderful Lars. We haven't gone down to the desert in the last few years and I miss it. I miss a warm evening, stepping outside to real warmth after dark ;0) We might have two or three nights a year here like that on the Washington coast.

I hope it was a great day!

Morz, how far are you from the desert in Washington? I haven't been to that part of Washington - or that part of Oregon either, for that matter, but I think that Spokane is in the desert, but I could be wrong😵

Beautiful pictures, Lars.

Beautiful photos Lars - how long does it take you to drive to the mountains? I've never been to a desert area and it's hard to imagine 110 degree temperatures with only 10% humidity. It's 6:30 am here, just outside of Philadelphia and the temp is 70 and the humidity is 93% and we're having a high heat alert for the weekend.

Just lovely!

Lars I have to put a fan on and have a lie down once the thermometer hits around 75, so I’d probably be flaked out on a stretcher in those temperatures:)

Fab photos of your day though, and the scenery looks gorgeous!

Happy you had a good day.

How beautiful! I'm glad you were able to get out and enjoy yourselves.

Considering parts of WA state a 'desert' is a bit of a stretch when compared to the true desert conditions of parts of SoCal :-) But there is a central portion of the state that could qualify in terms of annual rainfall and plant and animal life. Mostly centered around what is termed the Columbia Basin.

Spokane is dry but not a desert. It actually marks the start of a heavily forested area that becomes the Rockies.

So important to find calming places. Thanks for sharing these great photos.

So beautiful. Glad you and your brother could get away for the day. It’s so nice to be able to refresh oneself with different scenery that is so lovely.

Sounds like a nice, refreshing outing. I enjoy the pictures of your local scenery.

Beautiful !!

Beautiful scenery!

Just beautiful. But, what did you bring for your picnic??

What a lovely place for a "refresh." Thank you for sharing!

Looks bucolic. Thank you for sharing.

WOW! Makes you happy just to be alive doesn't it.

Beautiful! My daughter and I took a trip to up to Nebraska this week to take my son's belongings to him. We took the back roads coming back to avoid the big cities. In either Indiana or Illinois we kept passing pretty little roadside picnic areas. I told my daughter it's too bad we didn't have an old fashioned road Atlas and some sandwiches. We could have planned a stop or two for meals.

Being at the lake was very calm and relaxing - even with the ducks quacking a lot!

At the Cahuilla Téewwenet Vista Point, I took a panoramic video and got to capture a song bird singing in it, and I was able to zoom in on the bird.

Campgrounds in the state park are closed at the moment, although the park is still open, and so we saw very few people, and social distancing was not an issue.

I made turkey and Provolone sandwiches for our lunch, using turkey that we smoked on our outdoor grill and whole wheat bread that I made myself. We are still eating very well, and I am actually making bread more often now than before. The sandwich also had mustard that I made myself plus lettuce, mayo, and pickles, but I did not make the pickles.

Something I notice with the OP. Last night I had a computer update and had to sign on to many things. Gardenweb was one of them. I started to like the OP and discovered there is no longer a like button there.

If you like desert there is an area along the Oregon coast that is called by the locals "The dunes". It is wind made desert looking dunes. I was traveling backroads going to the coast when I found the backside of it.

There are also dunes at Pismo Beach, and they are large enough that Cecile B. DeMille was able to film The Ten Commandments (1923) there and make it look like Egypt.

I would like to make another trip back to Oregon.

Your photographs are lovely and it looks like you and DB had a wonderful day. DS still has fond memories of the numerous picnics we had at roadside locations when we had a long road trip in preference to restaurant stops.

What a beautiful day trip, Lars, and good food!

Lars--SHAME on you! You really didn't make the pickles?? (Just kidding) But seriously--I like how you make most things from scratch. I like to do that, too. I enjoy hearing about your adventures, your photos are great!

I'll be making more pickles when pickling cucumbers are back in season this summer - I normally buy them at the Mar Vista Farmers' Market. I've pickled other cucumbers, but they aren't quite as good and generally don't keep as well. I only make refrigerator pickles anyway, and so they have to be used in 2 months.

Here's the mustard recipe I use - I like it a lot, and I use juice from sauerkraut that I make, also from Brad Leone. I bought a new digital scale to weigh the salt to make this recipe. It will only weigh up to 1.1 pounds, but it is extremely accurate. I weigh the cabbage on my other scale. It's very easy to use too much salt when making sauerkraut, if one is not careful.

Since I am retired, I can spend more time cooking, and right now is a good time to be doing that, since so many restaurants are closed. My brother is working remotely now, and he can do that from L.A. or Cathedral City, but the past week was his vacation. We had planned to go to San Francisco but changed our plans because of the pandemic. Our original plans were to go to Greece, but that is going to have to wait. We also considered going to Yosemite, but it is difficult to get day passes for hiking there, as they are on a lottery system right now. I thought Yosemite might be good this year because of the lack of foreign tourists, but it appears that American tourists there are making up for that. I still want to go there at some point, as we have never been.

The Palm Springs Tram is closed for now, and so that was not an option either😞. That would have taken us to a much higher elevation, and much more quickly (except for waiting in line to get on), but then it would be a bit more difficult to hike at 8500 feet. Lake Fulmor is only 5300 feet. Black Mountain trail is 7300 feet elevation, and while it was much cooler, it was also more difficult to hike on the steep terrain.

Thank you for sharing your outing with us. Sounds like a very pleasant and relaxing time. I always love seeing the pictures you post, and the one in your original post looks so cool and refreshing, I think I could sit here and stare at it for hours.

I've never really been to California, except for one fast trip into and out of the Marine base at San Diego, for my grandson's graduation from boot camp there. It was just a few days before Christmas, plus he was so anxious to get home, we didn't take any time for any sight seeing or anything. Wish we could have.

Rusty

Lars--I make sauerkraut too! (and pickles) Last fall I called a local farm stand and "ordered" 6 heads of late fall cabbage. When I went to pick them up--they weighed a total of 98.6 pounds! I had no idea they were soooo big! Needless to say--that was a lot of shredding and salting, but we still have a few quarts of delicious sauerkraut in our garage fridge. It has "aged" very well and gets better every month. But I think this year I'll order only 4 heads! I made mustard last fall, but of course didn't think of using sauerkraut juice--I'll bet that is good stuff.

Stunningly beautiful views.

We visited palm springs years ago and I have such happy memories. Your garden looks wonderful too!

I made a couple of outings to Idyllwild (beautiful!) when I lived in CA, but usually stayed closer to home for my mountain day trips - the Cuyamaca Rancho SP or Mt. Palomar. The dry air and scent of the chaparral and pines were always so relaxing and refreshing to me! Hot & dry is my kind of weather - not what we are having currently: hot and heavy with humidity.

I will have to try my hand at your sauerkraut and pickle recipes. The only pickles I have made in the past 10-15 years was pickled green grape tomato relish, which was made with Indian spicing. I made too much, and didn't use 30% of it in the end because I sort of went off Indian food for a bit..

The Danes have a delicious cucumber salad called agurkesalat (hear the word “gherkin” in there?) that involves thin-sliced cucumbers, vinegar, and sugar (and more). Oh, it’s so good and refreshing, I like it as a side but you can also use it like a relish. I like the cucumbers super-thin-sliced. I haven’t made it, I have enough relatives who do, and probably do it better than I could, without slicing off a finger.

In German, cucumber is gurke so I'd expect something similar in Danish and related Scandinavian languages.

A simple cucumber salad we make is similar but different to what bpath describes.. We use rice wine vinegar (red wine would probably be good too), some salt, no sugar, and we add dill too. It needs to sit in the fridge for several hours, longer is better, for the dill to infuse into the liquid. The dill flavor is what makes it especially tasty for me.

Elmer, I went to a German restaurant recently and was surprised, though I shouldn't have been, to see a lot of Danish dishes on the menu with German spellings.

I don't care for pickles, but I like agurkesalat and sweet relish. But not sweet pickles. What is wrong with me lol

I'm not sure what your source is for what is or isn't a Danish dish but the two countries are neighbors and the border moved back and forth over the years, over the centuries. The cultures and the food are traditional to the region and aren't defined strictly by where the border is. The Germans from the far north have much more in common culturally with their Danish neighbors (and cousins) than they do with Germans in Bavaria in the far south, as an example. Not unlike other areas where borders historically moved a lot.

Elmer, my grandparents came from Denmark, and some from the area you mention, so that’s my source. Of course dishes aren’t proprietary. But I’m so used to having certain dishes at family and Danish organization events, with Danish names. As I said, I should not have been surprised to see the same dishes in a German restaurant, but with German spellings.

There is still a Danish minority in Germany.

Oh, and my grandmother made a dish she called Danish Chop Suey. It had spaghetti noodles in it. Oh, the culinary cultural crossover in all directions! (Not to mention that chop suey originated in America, I hear, but spaghetti noodles originated in China. And I don’t think the recipe is in her cookbooks.) definitely a “melting pot” dish. But it sure was tasty.

Agurk is Danish for cucumber. I have both German and Danish ancestors, and some of my German ancestors are from Schleswig-Holstein. On my mother's side, my ancestors came from Alsace, which is quite different, but they were still German.

I also like cucumbers sliced very thinly, and I use a mandoline for this. I add vinegar, dill, and salt, but no sugar. I think I also add red onions and red pepper flakes and let the salad sit for a few minutes before eating, but it is not as good the next day.

We also make the polish cucumber salad: mizeria. Thin sliced cukes soaked in salt water with finely chopped onion, dill, and a splash of vinegar. Then drained, squeezed and served plain or mixed with mayo. Yum. Very easy and refreshing for sure.

It's a hot and humid day today, perfect day for any of those cucumber salads!

A little off topic, but. . . . .

"some of my German ancestors are from Schleswig-Holstein"

That's where my dad was born and raised.

Rusty

Recht's from Alsace. One of my mother's tales that turned out not to be true was that they were cousins that fled to the US because of parental opposition or Huguenots who fled France except I now know the mass killings were several centuries before they arrived. Because of various things like no cooking from sundown on Saturday to Monday, only essential things being done with no work, walking to church I had been under the impression that they were Jewish who morphed their religious customs to fit in when they came to this country until I had my DNA done.

My mother, who was Czech, made the same cucumber salad as the recipes for agurkesalat, except with the addition of sliced white onions. It always tasted better after a day or 2 in the fridge. I’ve also tasted the same cucumber salad in Amish Pennsylvania Dutch country, which would make sense based in their German (Deutsch not Dutch) heritage.