Merry January

I have to think it would be a lot easier to write something on here if I ever did anything. Such is not the case, however. But, since I pay a whopping 10 bucks a year for this site registration, I better throw out a few words I suppose. My latest excuse? It’s just too cold to go outside. I mean, not like KC cold, but Northern California cold. Fifty-ish. Occasional rain, even a few random snow flurries at night. Basically not fit for human habitation. We try to go to the grocery store once a week, as the alternative is starving to death, but mostly we just huddle in front of the heat vent and try to survive.

Just not much to say outside of complaining about the weather. No new toys, no new recipes, no new projects… All quiet in general. The bathroom remodel did finally get finished last week, and it came out great. Well, it looks great anyway. We tried the shower yesterday and there is no hot water. I may well just shut the door and pretend we have one less bathroom in the house. There’s only two of us, we don’t need three bathrooms anyway. Ugh.

Merry Christmas!

Another holiday in the books. I’ll give it a solid “tolerable” rating. We snuck out to Hawaii a few weeks ago, and I think that greatly increased my outlook in general.

For the big holiday, we went over to a friend’s house, and joined their family for a big dinner. Brisket was the entree of choice, and it was great! Then we all gathered around the television for a spirited viewing of the 49’ers game, very yule-esque.

Well, that’s all I got in me. I’m typing on my pseudo-new computer here, and I’m (rightfully) concerned it’s going to crash any second now, thus rendering my 1.5 minutes of typing useless. It’s a sad state up here.

Thanksgiving ’23

Excellent holiday once again this year. Thanksgiving ranks high on my list of holidays, and this year didn’t disappoint. Mass of people, check. Unbridled gluttony, check. Perfect weather, check. Yep it pretty much hit all boxes. OK, yeah, there were probably too many people for my liking, (25 I think?) but I guess that is mandatory for such things. It was a great time at any rate.

I did need a little wind-down after that event though, so we loaded up the RV and headed west early Friday morning, destination Pacifica CA. We’re making some attempt to branch out a little from my usual camping spot, and this was our first pick. It’s a nice little beach town just the other side of San Francisco, about two hours (RV-time) from home. Worked out great! OK, the park wasn’t exactly fancy; It was sort of like a big asphalt parking lot. Actually, it WAS a big asphalt parking lot. That little downside was negated by being right on the ocean though. The view was fantastic. The water access was a bit challenging, as it was right on a huge cliff, but you could get there with a little walking. There were also lots of restaurants, shops, etc within walking distance too. I’d go back!

Jayhawkers in my House

We actually had company this weekend! Our friends David and Jill, from our Texas days, stopped in and spent the weekend with us. We haven’t seen them in so long that they were unaware of our perpetually boring lifestyle, and so they came anyway. They may never come back again, but it was good to see them for a few days anyway. (Despite being KU fans; We all have our character flaws I suppose.)

They wheeled in to town on Friday, and we met up with them at Millhouse in Cameron Park. The weather was great, so we got to enjoy their huge outdoor seating area. I guess I still love to hate that place… Their whole service model is just abysmal. They’ve been open at least six months now, so I’m starting to lose hope that they’ll ever get it ironed out. But, I keep going back, so shame on me I suppose.

Saturday the weather continued it’s unseasonably warm streak, so we took off wine tasting. We only hit two spots, Narrow Gate & Edio, but that’s usually enough. The second place, Edio, kind of wore me out anyway. They have sort of an annual fall event up in that area, not even sure what it’s called. I call it crazy. We even called ahead and asked if it was too busy, and were told nope it was slow. LIARS! It was just insane. We couldn’t even turn off the road, the parking lot was full so people were just stopping on the road in confusion. It’s not just their place either, it’s the whole area up there, so traffic coming and going was total chaos. We made it in and out though, but then scurried back home to relax. We lit the firepit and sat around that for a while, then hot-tubbed it. Oh, and before we left in the morning I’d thrown a chuck roast in the crock pot with a jar of homemade salsa verde. It was nice and tender by the time we got home and made fantastic tacos. Little departure from our usual pork recipe, luckily it turned out OK.

Sunday when we all got up and around, David made a breakfast casserole to get us started. Their travels on the way here had taken them through Albuquerque NM, and lucky for us they grabbed a few extra jars of Weck’s salsa. That stuff is the real deal. Boy it lit me up though, had to keep the dish towel handy for my head. They left a bonus jar too, can’t wait to make it again. After letting my tummy settle for a bit, we loaded up and drove to the Lotus area for a Christmas Fair. (Oh pardon me, it’s a “Faire.” I think the “e” means it’s a lot fancier than just a regular fair.) Our friends from Two Lee’s Boutique set up a booth there every year, and it’s always fun to go walk around and check out all the stuff. The weather was great and they had a good food truck, so it was definitely a nice way to wrap up the weekend.

Halloween ’23

Guess we’re well into holiday season now, for better or worse. We had a rather fun Halloween this year. We are never going to get any trick or treaters out at our house in the boondocks, so this year we loaded up the RV and headed to the river for a few days. They do a big event every year called “pumpkins on the bridge,” (or something very similar to that) right next to the campground, so we decided to check that out. There’s a long-ish bridge crossing over the river, and people bring their jack-o’-lanterns out and line both sides of the bridge after dark. It was worth seeing! I’d guess there were a hundred carved pumpkins, from the very simple to the very elaborate. It was a little disconcerting to have a huge crowd of people with their kids running around taking pictures and wandering around the bridge while cars whizzed by at 60 mph, but nobody seemed concerned. The most important part of the event was that Gorilla Rock Tacos opened for one last time during the festival, so we got one more round of tacos before they shut down for the winter. No river traffic means no tacos apparently.

We hung out at the campground a few more days, then it was back to the house for a standard-issue weekend. We did get out a few times though. Thursday we went to a party at one of the wineries we belong to, which was a good time. Low-key kind of event, and a short drive, so we figured what the heck. Then on Friday, we went to a fund raiser for the Sierra Chaplaincy. That was a lot of fun! We managed to escape without buying any big-ticket items too. I was in the silent auction for some boots for a while but didn’t win the bid, which is OK as I don’t need any boots. (They were pretty nice boots though…) Saturday & Sunday were college & NFL football days. I fired up the grill Sunday for yet another rib experiment, which ended pretty well. Not my favorite ribs, but I’ll try cooking them that way again.