Month: January 2024

After a green Christmas and New Year’s, snow is back! Went for a snowshoe hike up at Raten in -7°C temps on a foggy morning. I was the first hiker of the day, so I had to break trail the whole way. Tomorrow is forecast to be even colder.

A leafless tree covered in snow on a foggy morning.
A snowy field bordered by conifer trees covered in snow on a foggy morning.

10320 Eldorado Fortress (2023)

The completed Eldorado Fortress (I forgot to photograph the two boats). The modular sections can be combined in various ways, two of which I show here. I really enjoyed assembling this with my son. Now we need to convert the shipwrecked Black Seas Barracuda from the Pirates of Barracuda Bay set into an intact ship to assault the fortress.

The completed LEGO set 10320 Eldorado Fortress with the sections arranged to form an entirely enclosed square fortress.
The completed LEGO set 10320 Eldorado Fortress with the sections arranged end-to-end to form a wide seaside wall.

Dreikönigskuchen

Happy Dreikönigstag (Epiphany)! We’re not religious, but we celebrate by eating Dreikönigskuchen. The one we ate this morning was so good that we bought another in the afternoon! My wife was “king” again for the second year running, which is only fitting.

Dreikönigskuchen: a sweet bread with 6 lobes around a larger center. The bread has chocolate chips in it and is decorated with slivered almonds.

Eldorado Fortress Bag 9

Eldorado Fortress Bag 9/10: We build the foundations for the final section of the fortress. There’s a basement storeroom with treasure accessed via ladder and trapdoor. A pirate skeleton is wedged into the rocks. There are some loose floorboards through which pirates can escape and reach the beach. The final bag will be some sort of building on this foundation.

LEGO build of set 10320 Eldorado Fortress in progress. An L-shaped section of dark and light gray cliffs speckled with green foliage. Some water flows out from a cave to the turquoise waters of the beach. A red crab is in the water.
LEGO build of set 10320 Eldorado Fortress in progress. An L-shaped section of gray stone foundations. There's a treasure room with gold ingots accessed by ladder and trap door. To the right a skeleton wearing a red bandana is partially visible, wedged into a narrow crevice in the rocks.