Time for another trip

I decided I needed some chocolate cake, discovered I had the ingredients for Ann's Chocolate Chip Kaluha Cake, so threw it together and popped it in the oven.

Back in the '70s -- it was either '76 or '78, I forget which -- I took a trip to Mexico with my dad. He grew up in the border town of Douglas, Arizona, so we drove down there from the Calif Bay Area, visited his mom and sister, then drove into Mexico and toodled on down to San Carlos Bay where we went fishing.

On the way home, before we crossed the border, I stocked up on kaluha. I guess I must have been going thru a kaluha phase as I brought back quite a few bottles. I was over the limit of what you can bring back, so I stuffed the extras in the sleeves of my ski jacket which was in the trunk of the car. We sailed on through the border crossing and continued our vaca with stops at the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, and Disneyland. It was a great trip and one I'm glad I took because he died suddenly in January of 1980.

My kaluha phase must have not lasted very long because those bottles of kaluha moved with me quite a bit as I went from place to place, both single and then married, eventually ending up here on Whidbey Island where they dwindled down to one lonely bottle. But over the years, every time I used some kaluha, I thought about my dad and that trip.

So I got the bottle down to use in Ann's cake. The recipe calls for 1/3 cup. I poured the kaluha into my measuring cup and I had exactly 1/3 cup left.

Bittersweet.

I am gonna really enjoy that cake when it comes out of the oven!