We took a quick trip out of town this past weekend, if not very far. I don’t know if this was following “the rules,” but we went and got the motor home and rolled about an hour down the road to nearby Lake Minden. As far as the lockdown… Well here is my reasoning: We got our motor home, we drove to the lake. We did our little camp thing for two nights, interacted with nobody, and drove back home. Seemed the same as staying at home to me. Anyway, we had a good time. We hadn’t been to this campsite before, and I’d say it earned a B-. Nice enough, but probably not worth the extra drive from our go-to spot in Coloma. And the mosquitoes…. WOW. With my luck I’ll escape the big virus scare but get malaria from that place. They actually drove us into the motor home in the evenings, which sort of stunk. I wanna sit outside! Eh, we made do. Saturday was our “full day.” We fired up a smoker and cooked a 6 lb. pork butt for entertainment. Came out good! Put it on about 8:30 in the morning, sat around watching it cook for 10 hours, and had a nice dinner. Day well spent in my book.

OK so in reality, we haven’t been even semi-quarantined. For better or worse, we have been effectively carrying on our normal routine, such as it is. Being in the state of CA, that could change very soon though. State motto, “There is nothing that can be done, that can’t be overdone.” If all our usual haunts get shut down, I guess we’ll just stay home. We’ve got a few dozen eggs and a nice variety of dried beans, should be good to go.

As for the weekend, it was pretty much on par with any other. Friday we had some friends over and grilled chicken sandwiches. I think after dinner we must have watched a movie or played cards or some similarly wholesome activity, but the details elude me at the moment.

Saturday I headed out with a few other couples on an impromptu “support the local economy” tour. I must say, I am a bit confused on all the new “rules.” Half the directions are to stay home and occasionally mist yourself with Lysol, the other half are to get out and support the suffering businesses. So, at least this weekend, I opted for the latter. We had a great time, although I doubt my $4.95 contributed much their cause. Meanwhile, Donette was spending her time volunteering at a local animal shelter. Admittedly probably better time spent than mine, but we can’t all save the world. She has been spending some time at Foothill Dog Rescue, better known locally as “Home of Quinn & Nacho.” (I fully expect them to update their signage any day now.) It was a rainy cold day, and we sort of anticipated them shutting down early so she could join our crowd. Matter of fact they were crazy busy and adopted out 15 dogs!

Sunday was rainy and cold too. Not much to work with here. We went out for dinner mostly out of sheer boredom, and that pretty much covers the day.

So that’s the end of that vacation. It was a good one though. Sort of hard to go wrong in Hawaii. We started off in Honolulu with our friends Michael and Alaina. We were only there for two nights, which honestly is about all I want to see of that island anyway. We kind of kicked around checking out the area around our hotel since we didn’t have a car, and then the second day went to the Pearl Harbor Memorial. Unfortunately it was so crazy-windy we didn’t even get to dock at the memorial. Can’t control the weather I guess. After that short stop, we flew on to Maui and met up with our friends David & Jill from Texas, and their daughter Casey. Haven’t seen them in quite a while, so that was a good time. Honestly there isn’t a whole lot to cover here, despite a nice 5 night stay. Day 1, we went to the beach and pool, and did a little snorkeling. Day 2, we went to the beach and pool, and did a little snorkeling. You get the idea. It all went by way too fast, but I guess vacations do. Got some great pics though, here’s a few.

A quick note, just to let everyone know that we are, in fact, still kicking. We are in the lovely state of Hawaii, enjoying a brief respite from The Grind. We spent the weekend in Honolulu, and now we’re in Maui. And, as usual, it’s glorious. Having laboriously typed this lengthy update on my phone, I shall now head to the beach.

One more weekend in the books. Actually I have today off, so it continues to some extent. I doubt I leave the house, so this holiday is of limited use to me. We did actually voyage out the front door on a few occasions this weekend though. Friday, however, was not one of those days. Instead, we invited a few other couples over and hosted a nice Valentine’s dinner. Any day I don’t get off work is not really a holiday in my book, but somebody mentioned “crab legs” and I was all in. Dinner came out reasonably well. We had steak, twice baked potatoes, and king crab. I’ve really struggled with my steak lately. New Years Eve I over-cooked it, and this time around it was a bit on the rare side. I will say, if I am to err on the meat, I prefer it to be towards the rare side of the scale. The cut was filet too; Just not our preference. I’m not complaining though, (too much anyway,) it was a great meal.

Saturday was a fine day, I feel like we got some mileage out of it. The weather was quite nice, in the mid 60’s and sunny, so we put the top down on the car and ventured out a ways to look at some motor homes. We are exploring the idea of a new(er) rig, so we lined up a few candidates and headed out. The drive was great, the motor homes not so much. It really baffles me that people will spend that much money on a coach, then just let it go to the point these were in. I think we looked at four, and all of them were in rough shape. The search continues I guess. For our evening entertainment, we went over to a neighbors house and enjoyed a fancy “vertical” wine tasting. The things Californians come up with for fun… Eh, it WAS fun as a matter of fact. He had four identical wines, but each was a different year. If my bad memory is correct, the years were ’11 through ’14. You have a taste of each and then discuss in detail the unique nuances of the vintages. Lots of swirling and sipping involved. Most importantly, there were some fantastic appetizers.

Sunday wasn’t terribly entertaining, but not a total loss either. It was another nice day, so once again we took the convertible out. The random destination this day was a few parcels of land out in the Sutter Creek area. Not being able to find a house that even remotely interests us, our latest made-up plan is to buy a piece of property and build what we want on it. The downside of this scheme is that we have absolutely no idea how to do that, not to mention a complete lack of funding to get the ball rolling. Those little snags aside, we enjoyed the weather and Sutter Creek is a fun town to visit. For dinner we went over to a friends house for Chinese take-out; Can’t go wrong there.