Well, I made it one more time around the sun.\u00a0 To hear my physician tell it, I seem to be aging at twice the normal rate, but I’m sure he’s misreading the charts.\u00a0 BMI-Schmee-MI.\u00a0 Bunch of gobbly-gook nonsense.\u00a0 Anyway, I had a very nice birthday, which is always something of a surprise.\u00a0 I will admit I went into it with very low expectations, which I guess is how I go into most things.\u00a0 Things started to look better when I had a moderately tolerable day at work though, and then when I went home and found a big cooler full of Jack Stack BBQ on my front porch things really started to look up.\u00a0 Add in a few nice birthday cards in the mailbox, several well-wishes via text, and a fine steak dinner with the wife, and I rated it a very fine day indeed.<\/p>\n
The steak dinner was a pleasant addition to the day.\u00a0 Donette made 5:30 reservations at a new steakhouse nearby, C. Knights.\u00a0 Yes, I know, that’s blue-hair dinner hour; do your worst.\u00a0 Well the only other availability was 7:30, and yes, that is too late for me.\u00a0 So, I guess if the shoe fits…\u00a0 At any rate, the dinner was very good, and I got home in time to catch Matlock.\u00a0 I ordered a 16 oz ribeye, Donette ordered the lobster tail, and we split them to make our own little surf-and-turf dinners.\u00a0 Both were perfectly cooked and delicious.\u00a0 The service was just a bit shaky, (I tend to get a little picky when the prices are that high I guess,) but not too bad.\u00a0 Overall I gave it a solid B+, I’m sure we’ll be back.\u00a0 Bellies full, we headed back home and watched a few movies.\u00a0 I guess I need to start writing this stuff down because I can’t remember what they were;\u00a0 Must have been great.<\/p>\n
Saturday was day one of my self-proclaimed “birthday weekend” celebration.\u00a0 At my advanced age I can only celebrate a limited number of hours in a day, so it helps to spread events over a longer time period.\u00a0 It was a beautiful day outside, so we decided to dust off the convertible and go wine tasting.\u00a0 After a short planning session, we decided on:\u00a0 1) Baiocchi<\/a> in Sutter Creek, 2) Scott Harvey<\/a> in Sutter Creek, and 3) Wilderotter<\/a> in Amador.\u00a0 As is often the case, these plans got tweaked slightly over the course of the afternoon.\u00a0 As luck would have it, they were having a little “event” at Baiocchi, with appetizers and live music.\u00a0 This was probably in honor of my birthday, though they didn’t explicitly say as much.\u00a0 Not being one to turn down free entertainment, we loitered there quite a while.\u00a0 We had the dogs with us too, and as they seemed pretty comfortable we decided to just go with it.\u00a0 We were there a few hours, then scratched the original plan and headed on to Amador.\u00a0 Scott Harvey also has an Amador location, so we headed there next.\u00a0 We hung out there for a while too, and then decided to just call it a day.\u00a0 The pups were getting a bit antsy, as was I, so we rolled on back home.\u00a0 For evening entertainment we turned on Black Panther, out on the back porch.\u00a0 I fell asleep mid-movie, have to try that one again another day.<\/p>\n Sunday marked day two of the weekend celebration.\u00a0 We started strong with a solid breakfast at Firehouse Cafe up the hill in Diamond Springs.\u00a0 We’ve eaten there once before and really liked it, and this visit was a repeat performance of that success.\u00a0 I had a fantastic chicken fried steak with gravy, and Donette had the corned beef hash.\u00a0 Worth the drive to be sure.\u00a0 I’m wouldn’t say it’s any better than the only place close to our house we like (Purple Place,) but it’s quite a bit cheaper and it’s nice to change up the scenery now and then.\u00a0 After downing a few thousand calories, Donette took me up the road a bit and dropped me off for a bike ride.\u00a0 There is a rails-to-trails project up in that area called, not-too-cleverly, the El Dorado Trail<\/a>, and I’ve wanted to check it out for years.\u00a0 It’s oddly difficult to get detailed info on it though, and I’ve never been too sure where to hop on it, get back off, etc.\u00a0 Finally, I decided to just give it a go and see what happened.\u00a0 Well….\u00a0 That plan was only moderately successful.\u00a0 I follow their page (or whatever it’s called) on Facebook, and they always post these scenic pictures with nice wide trails, and families riding their bikes down them.\u00a0 Suffice to say, that is not the part I was on.\u00a0 I still don’t know where that part is.\u00a0 Instead, I rode 17 miles of overgrown single-track, with varying degrees of difficulty.\u00a0 The fact that I didn’t see a single other bicyclist in the entire 17 miles was a pretty solid clue that I need to keep looking for the “fun” part.\u00a0 There were sections when I lost the trail entirely, and had to just ride between the rails.\u00a0 Yeah, that was a little bumpy.\u00a0 It wasn’t horrible though, at least I got to enjoy some bike time.<\/p>\n\n\t\t