The White Rose Cake Show was held the first weekend of November, in York PA. It's about a 9hr trip from where I live. Fortunately, we had an incident-free trip on the way there (not so much on the way home, but we'll get to that later).
I had originally intended to create one entry for the show. However, once the cake was done, I decided that to add anything else to it would detract from the cake, so I ended up with two entries.
I had decided to do a cake based on daisies. I tend to pick a flower/flowers and then design a cake around that. I tried to think of a color I haven't used lately, and picked orange. Not halloween/pumpkin orange, but rather a muted/subdued orange, almost tangerine like. Amazingly enough, there were no real issues or aggravation laden moments with the cake or the flowers! There are things I will do different in the future, and learned a few things while doing the cake, but I was actually pretty happy with it when it was finished.
Here is the cake that I entered:
The daisies and leaves are made from gumpaste, and have 3 layers of petals. The stems are piped from royal icing.The side scallops are done in royal icing, using a template to space them properly.
The border is done with tip 32, with drop strings piped over them. Then little green dots are piped between the shells to tie in the green from the stems.
The cake won Second Place in it's category.
I had also made a lei of daisies that I had originally intended to put around the base of the cake. After finishing the cake, I decided the lei would not improve the cake any, so I finished them up and entered them as their own entry.
The lei won First place in it's category.
If you read my entry the other day, about the Abby Cadabby cake, then you'll remember me mentioning car repairs. I picked the car up the night before I left for the 300+ mile trip to York PA. Unfortunately, the saga does not end there, oh no, it's gets A LOT better!
As I said above, the trip down to York was uneventful, as was the weekend. We left York on Sunday night, and had planned to drive to New Jersey to stay the night (I know..it's NJ....but it was half way home!), so that I didn't have to drive the whole 9hrs home the next morning. Everything was going along fine, until we decided to make a pit stop about an hour from our hotel. Got off the highway, and suddenly the car can't accelerate above 3k rpm's. Shutting the car off and restarting it didn't work (hey, cars have computers, you never know, it could have worked). I, fortunately, drive a standard, and was still able to shit, albeit a little earlier than I usually do. So, I made the executive decision to continue on our way to the hotel, an hour away....driving no more than 55mph (I normally drive 65-70).
Got to the hotel, and looked up the closest Honda dealer (yes, I'm one of those that takes the car to a dealer). There was one 3 miles away that would be open in the morning. Great...went to sleep and planned to be up and at the dealership when it opened. Got there, and explained to the service manager was was going on, and what work had just been done on the car. At this point, I'm thinking it has to be related to the head gasket work, since they pretty much had my engine all apart. After a few hours, and a few phone calls to my home dealership, it was determined that there was an oil leak somewhere, and that I HAD NO OIL IN MY CAR! They found the leak...apparently a seal had not been placed back correctly, which caused ALL the oil to leak out. The leaking oil, subsequently, damaged some other parts in the engine - FABULOUS! This dealership in NJ could fix it, but wouldn't have the parts until the next day. After a few phone calls to my home dealership, they agreed to reimburse me for the repairs in NJ, as well as a hotel room, since I would not be going home that day.
Got a call the next morning at the hotel, and the car was finished and ready earlier than I had expected (noon). Got a ride to the dealership, paid for the repairs, and were on our way. Stopped and topped off the tank, and headed for home. We took the Tappanzee Bridge home (no way I was dealing with GWB), and went to accelerate out of the toll plaza, and AGAIN couldn't accelerate over 3k rpm's. We were no more than 35 MILES from where we picked up the car!! I pulled over and called the service manager. This time, shutting the car off and turning it back on somewhat solved the immediate problem. We continued home, without stopping, mostly without incident. Got off the highway, about 10 miles from home, and it happened again. I figured, I was close enough, and drove home. Checked the oil when I got home AND THERE WAS NONE!
I called my home dealership the next day, had the car towed to it, and told them I didn't want the car back until it was fixed, and expected a free loaner car. Got the car back a week later, no charge, and so far it's been ok. Turns out the technician that did the head gasket work, nicked some housing in the engine that caused the oil to spew out. UGH!! At least it's fixed. It was one hell of a few weeks though!
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