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.