Having a great time celebrating Alaina’s birthday

Another down weekend! Maybe I’m saving my strength for something, although I’m not entirely sure what. I’ll know it when it gets here, I guess. Friday night was our only evening of any note. We passed on our regularly scheduled happy hour gathering in Shingle Springs and had some friends up for dinner. It didn’t go “exactly” as planned, but then what does. We put a meatloaf on the smoker for dinner, which I was happy with. I’ve tried it once before, with less than exciting results. It was so boring, actually, that I almost came up with a different menu. Luckily this one came out a lot better though, I’m even game to try it again soon. The rest of the evening was spent playing pool and watching movies. There was supposed to be a bonfire worked in there too, but… There wasn’t.

Saturday and Sunday came and went with a whole lot of nothing. A few less-than-exciting basketball games, then worked Saturday night, and that’s about the whole of it. Donette went to a friend’s house Sunday night for her annual Oscars party. Sounded like a real hoot, but I wasn’t able to score an invite, so I stayed home with the pups. We had a fine time of it, they’re about as hard to entertain as myself. We watched “The Power” and “Candyman” after the basketball games were over. The first was rather silly and boring, but Candyman was pretty darn scary. I think Nacho might have had nightmares.

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Well that weekend was a big bummer. It had a few mentionable moments, but for the most part I was down sick-ish. What is sick-ish? Well, I had a tummy ache. It kicked in hard Friday, right on queue to ruin my weekend, and lasted until Sunday. What a drag! I tried to get in a little fun, mostly because I can’t stand the thought of wasting a weekend. Friday night, some of our friends had some of THEIR friends come into town, so we went for that big meetup. It was all a surprise though, (on our friends that live here,) and we were deeply entangled in their web of lies covering it all up. The details are far too intricate to go into, but the setup has been going on for weeks now. It was quite exhausting honestly, as I am not used to such wanton deception in my daily routine. (Could have been the root cause of my belly ache? Hmmmmm, it bears consideration.) Anyway, the whole scheme was pulled off rather admirably, and now I can resume my standard, wholesome life.

Saturday was just a complete loss. Write it off. I got up at an unholy hour, unable to sleep, and watched TV from the couch all day. I mean ALL day. Lots of the basketball tourney, which thankfully featured some pretty entertaining matchups. The weather was chilly and rainy anyway, so not a complete loss.

Sunday, I managed to limp to the car and we took a drive out to Gorilla Rock Tacos in Lotus. It’s a seasonal restaurant we go to when we have the RV at the campground next door to them. Well, we didn’t have the RV there this weekend, but we’ve been craving the tacos, so we drove out there anyway. Probably burned $20 worth of gas to enjoy $12 worth of tacos, but it was worth it. They are really good tacos. (Burrito actually, in my case.) I won’t go into the authenticity or “how a REAL taco is made” blah blah, I just know they taste good. It’s a distinction I find quite important, yet many people are unable to make. The weather had cleared up nicely from the day before, so we had lunch on their nice outdoor deck, then drove back home for more TV-time. Unable to provide any exciting moments of my own, I’ll mention some friends texted us from the nearby casino, and they’d hit a $11,000 jackpot on a slot machine! Now THAT’S exciting. I’ve certainly never hit that much at a casino. Neither have I been to the casino, which might play a role in that. Then, while they were waiting for all the paperwork, they hit another $1300! Geez I’m missing out. Can’t win if you don’t play.

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Another weekend in the books, and not a bad one at that. Saturday the weather was fantastic, so we put the top down on the convertible and went wine tasting. We didn’t actually do much tasting, more of just driving and enjoying the weather. We cruised over to Sutter Creek, which is about an hour drive down winding roads. Normally I despise that trip, but the day was so nice it made the slow drive rather enjoyable. We had a great lunch at the Sutter Hotel, then popped by Baiocchi and picked up a few bottles to take home. After that, we met up with some friends in Amador, to kind of break up the drive home. Finished up the day on a high note with a soak in the hot tub.

Sunday, we had a sort of impromptu St Patrick’s party. Yeah, a little early, but the odds of us doing something during the week are pretty low. I’d picked up a few corned beefs at Swingles the day before, so I was ready to do some cooking. Alas, one thing I didn’t count on was the meat being completely frozen. That kind of threw me off my game, but after a little ciphering I decided to throw it in the Sous Vide cooker. That solved the meat dilemma, but screwed up my usual method of throwing cabbage and potatoes in the pot. More ciphering ensued, and eventually I decided on a big pot of steamed potatoes, parsnips, and carrots, and then I shredded up the cabbage and did it outside on the griddle. It all came out pretty well! Forgot to take any pictures, so you’ll just have to take my word for it.

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I suppose that was a pretty good week, as weeks go these days. We rolled the RV down to Napa and stayed eight nights at a campground right in the downtown area. It’s actually the same one we stay at for our big BottleRock Festival we go to every year, but during this time of year (i.e., not BottleRock weekend,) it’s $300 per night cheaper. Yep, they gouge you a little bit on the festivals. It’s a great campground in a great location though, and we’ve always said we were going to stay there when the festival wasn’t going on. Well, now we have. I had to work all week, but the view from the motorhome was a lot nicer than from my “office,” so it made it marginally more tolerable. Some friends visiting from Texas joined us the first weekend, and we went out for the obligatory wine tasting one day. That would be it for the wine tasting for the whole trip. It gets a little repetitive quickly, not to mention pricey. The rest of the time was spent just enjoying the town, keeping the dogs occupied, and I did manage to sneak in one mountain bike ride. I could see us getting back down there for another week in the not-too-distant future. There were several trails I didn’t get to ride, endless restaurants we didn’t get to visit, and of course more wineries. They even have free wifi at the campground that seemed to work just fine, so working from the motorhome was no trouble at all. All in all, a successful trip.

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