And now, for something completely different.  This weekend, for reasons unknown, we headed up the hill (over the hill?) to the city not-so-affectionately known as “Dirty Reno.”  Hmmm, yeah, sounds like a place I’ve always wanted to visit.  It’s a consistent moniker though;  Pretty much everyone around here refers to it as Dirty Reno.  So much so, that when checking the weather forecast I actually typed Dirty Reno in the search field, and then was briefly puzzled why nothing showed up.

Anyway, it wasn’t really for reasons unknown.  I wanted to attend a festival up there called Canfest, and by either good or bad fortune that’s where it was.  We went with another couple also, who can’t seem to get enough gambling, so there was something for everyone.  First though, we had to make the arduous drive up I-80 to get there.  That, people, is a miserable drive.  It’s technically two lane, but with the large number of semis plodding over the mountain at 20 mph it’s effectively reduced to one lane.  Slow, tedious, frustrating drive.  We got there though, albeit with no small amount of grumbling.  Friday night was kind of a bust for me.  Everybody just wanted to stay in the casino (we stayed at Circus Circus) and throw their money in the air, so I joined them for dinner and then snuck off to the room to watch TV.  (Not an all-together unusual scenario actually, even without the gambling circumstance.)  Saturday they continued with their gambling ways, so I just kind of people-watched around the city until the real fun started.  And, by the way, the people-watching was top shelf entertainment.  Wow.  There are some hard people in that town.  I didn’t lack for material, I’ll just say that.  (Bonus side note:  The Sporting KC farm team was in town, staying at our hotel.  Enjoyed talking with a few of them.)  When the miscreants were done gambling, we headed off to the canfest.  It was… A festival.  A good festival, I must say.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.  I’ll go so far as to rate it “worth the drive.”

As for the “Dirty Reno” title?  Eh, I don’t know, it was actually pretty darn nice.  The casinos were all very clean, and didn’t have the horrific smell of the Vegas places.  The restaurants we visited were all very nice too, not to mention reasonably priced.  Heck, everything there was reasonably priced, more so than at home.  I’ll go back if there’s a good reason.  (And that reason excludes gambling.  Not my thing.)  They’ve got a rib-fest coming up, a balloon fest….  All kinds of good stuff.  Done travelling for now though.  We’re back home in good ol’ El Dorado Hills, enjoying the scorching 108 degree weather.  Thought we were done with the heat for a bit, sigh.

We got out of town for a short while last weekend, it was a much-needed break on several fronts.  Work, weather, you name it.  We rented a motor home and rolled down to the Russian River area for a few days.  In some ways, it’s not unlike the Ozarks area.  Rivers, lots of forest, and…  uhh…  different people.  I’ll spare the details.  Just…  Different.  I guess another little difference is, if you get on the river and float a few miles downstream you end up in the ocean.  Anyway, good times.  We played lots of cards, ate lots of good food, and just sort of “camped.”  We took the same trip last year and slept in a tent;  The motorhome was a welcome upgrade.  Still not ready to buy though, the rental seems like the way to go to me.

I won’t even feign interest in this past few weeks.  Go to work…  Go home… repeat.  BLAH.  Bringin’ me down.  Here’s a few pics.  Enjoy.  Or don’t.

Good times this weekend.  Our friends the Martins came out and joined us for a few days, and we did our best to entertain them, in our non-entertaining kind of way.  I’m rather focused on the Royals game at the moment, so I’ll just touch on a few of the highlights and then add a bunch of pics for filler.  Solid strategy.

Aside from our standard-issue wine tasting outings and restaurant visits, we actually mixed in a few genuine “activities.”  While a real rarity for us, we knew they liked to exercise occasionally so we tried to accommodate them.  Our first outing was a hike to Horsetail Falls up near Tahoe.  I guarantee that every single time we’ve driven to Tahoe I’ve said “Man I want to hike that some day,” both on the way out and back.  Well, I guess now I’ve done it.  It was a moderately difficult hike, and least for me, but well worth the effort.  I hope to go again soon as a matter of fact, maybe when it’s a little cooler.  Still a good hike though, despite being a bit on the warm side.  I like my hikes to have a “destination,” and the falls at the end was surely something to see.  I about filled up the memory on my camera taking pics along the way.  The hike took us about three hours, then we decided since we were so close to Tahoe we might as well drive on up for a late lunch.  That decision was mostly based on the fact that it was 100+ back in El Dorado Hills, and about 82 in Tahoe.  We enjoyed a tasty meal at a beach-side pub, then made the inevitable run back down to the scorching heat at home.

To close out the weekend, we took a 3.5 hour float down the American River.  I’ve “floated” on this river a few times before, but at a much higher elevation where the water is a lot rougher.  This time we were down near Sacramento, where the flow was very mellow to say the least.  We kicked back in tubes and just kind of bobbed down the river for a few hours.  The water was quite icy, but it felt good in the 100 degree heat.  A nice little diversion to be sure;  We’re planning on hitting it again this coming weekend if we have time.

Well it’s gotten to the point where it’s so hot out we just don’t go outside.  Bound to happen.  It is still rather pleasant in the evenings, but by then we’re so bored we STILL stay in.  Vicious cycle.

I think we did something fun Friday night, but that was so long ago I’ve forgotten.  Sorry.  Or, maybe we didn’t.  We’ll never know.  I have some recollection of Saturday.  I got up and headed out with my kayak to one of the nearby parks, namely Negro Bar.  Usually I go to Willow Creek, but I was feeling rather adventurous and decided to branch out a bit.  OK, I missed my turn and decided it was too much trouble to turn around.  However I got there, it ended up being a good decision.  After not too much time, I came to the conclusion that it is just a lot better area than Willow Creek, at least this summer.  It was amazingly clear and the shorelines are a lot cooler.  There’s more to look at in general, to occupy my short attention span.  There’s also a few big bridges to pull up under and cool off when it get too warm.  (Or, just splash some of the icy-cold river water on you I guess.)  The reason I never go there is because parking is a little sketchy, (there’s WALKING involved, ugh,) but I came to the firm conclusion it is worth the extra effort.  After that outing I brought the car back to Donette, and she rolled down to the airport to pick up our friend Kelly.  We took her out to some average Mexican food, then treated her to a visit to my favorite spot, Steve’s Pizza.  Then we went home and turned the Royal’s game on and promptly fell asleep.  Quite the hosts, we are.

Sunday our friends Michael & Alaina came over for a big breakfast, then we headed out to Sutter Creek for a little wine tasting.  We hit our favorites:  Baiocchi, Scott Harvey, and Yorba.  Great wine, but holy smokes it was HOT.  It was all I could do to shuffle from one place to the next without getting heat stroke.  For lunch we went to the always delicious Gold Dust pizza, but it was so hot out we couldn’t even enjoy their great deck.  Finally we called no-joy on the heat and scurried back home for more Royal’s baseball and air conditioning.  It’s mercifully cooled off about ten degrees since then, so we might survive the rest of the week.