Just kidding, we didn’t have any excitement. Never do, sigh. Probably wouldn’t know what to do if I did actually find some excitement, so it’s safer this way. We pretty much just hung out and enjoyed the long weekend. We had a few interesting moments, if not particularly exciting… Did a small winery tour on Saturday and tried out a couple of new recipes over the weekend.

Friday, we tried out the first food experiment; Philly Cheesesteaks. Yeah, we’ve made cheesesteaks before, but always the traditional “shave up a ribeye and griddle it” kind of thing. This time I used a cross-rib roast instead of a steak. This oddity was, as is usually the case, driven by the fact that the roast was cheap. At least 1/3 the price of a good ribeye. Only trouble is, it’s NOT a ribeye. I really have never even heard of the cut, but for five bucks a pound I decided to give it a try. I ended up dropping it in the sous vide cooker for 30 hours at 130 degrees, and it worked out well. Only thing I’d change was, we didn’t like the rolls we ended up with. Good news is, we have plenty of beef left over so we’ll just get some different ones and try again.

The other thing we tried out was a rib recipe off the Bachans bbq sauce site. I’m honestly not sure how I ended up coming across that recipe, but I thought it looked good. And, luckily, it did come out pretty good, because we had some friends over to join us for dinner. Risky! I was pretty happy with the ribs, but next time I’ll start checking the temp sooner. I let them run the two hours listed in the recipe before checking them, and when I got ready to do the foil step they were already pretty much done. Oops. I cut the last step down to 30 minutes, and they survived.

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Wow, it’s cold up here!! OK, it WAS cold for a brief period of time. Friday, due to some wacky weather phenomenon I didn’t care to research, it dropped from 90+ to 60. That’s a downright midwest-esque weather swing there. It stayed cool all through the weekend, which was a very welcome break. Saturday it even rained! Can’t remember the last time it rained, but it’s been several months. Of course, when it really started coming down, I happened to be out grocery shopping. In my Jeep. With no top on it. Whoops. Yeah, it got wet, and so did I. I went across the street and had lunch to wait it out, and it came down for quite a while. You could tell it was a big deal from the number of people I saw in the parking lot taking pictures of the rain. (Or were they taking pictures of the Jeep filling up with water? Who knows.)

That night we drove up to the Knott Hole Bar & Grill to watch some friends sing. They had a brief stint of four people in the band, but now they’ve gone back to just the two of them. They sounded great, and it was fantastic weather to sit outside and watch them. They play a few other spots nearby, but we usually miss out because they play past our bedtime. (Which is admittedly rather early, but I guess that happens when you get old.)

Sunday we just laid around the house with the windows open and enjoyed the last day of the cool weather. Fired up the grill, watched some movies, and that wrapped up the weekend.

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We have returned from our long-planned trip to the frozen tundra of Alaska. Yep, “frozen tundra” is really a thing. That and “permafrost.” Anyway, this trip was my first time on a cruise ship. We took a little mini-cruise from Florida to the Bahamas many years ago, but I’ve always heard it did not really count in the cruise world. This turned out to indeed be the case, this trip was in a whole different class than that overnight boat trip.

We spent the first few days and nights on a “land tour,” starting in Anchorage and then up to Denali. This was a good way to get to see the famous Denali National Park, although I must I say I could have done without all the bus time to get there and back. Couldn’t really be avoided though, that was just how you get there. After that we took another bus ride to Seward, Alaska where we got on the Norwegian Jewel ship for the cruise part of the trip. I will admit to rather low expectations of the whole “cruise” thing, but it was really great. The port cities were fun and interesting (if quite tourist oriented,) and the ship was just right up my alley. I have admittedly low entertainment requirements, but it certainly had plenty to keep me occupied. The food was great, the crew was great, and I just generally really enjoyed it.

On the downsides? Well, we were with a large group (my family,) and Norwegian just botched up our air travel to an unimaginable degree. I honestly cannot even fathom what they were thinking, if they were at all. At the end of the day(s,) I guess we all got there and back to our respective origin cities, if not without considerable hassle and delays. Smaller quibble: The internet service on the ship was absolutely abysmal. We all signed up for it so that we would have an easy way to communicate within our group. Where we were, daily plans, dinner reservations, etc. It was so bad that the texts rarely went through though. For a little insult to injury, it was $80 per person. I would imagine we could have gotten our money back on that without too much trouble, but I was so happy with everything else I kinda just chalked it up to “lesson learned.” (They did say the ship is supposed to be getting Starlink in the near future. Didn’t help us on this trip but I imagine if we go again that will fix the issues.) Only other downside was I got sick. Not like sea-sick, but germy-boat sick. Donette did too, and some other members of the group. Sounds like that is just kind of a cruise thing. Blech, no fun. Next time I’ll pack my flu stuff along with everything else.

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I guess we’re in summertime now, and that means HOT. We’ve been stuck in triple digits for two weeks now. Supposed to stick around all this week too. I guess that’s what A/C is for. Given the heat, we didn’t do TOO much this weekend. Friday we just snuck out to our favorite local haunt, Bones. Haven’t been there in a while for various reasons, so it was good to see everybody again and catch up on the local news.

Saturday, we had a kiddy birthday party to attend. Well, at least that’s what I enjoyed telling anyone and everyone who happened to ask what we were doing for the weekend. The birthday boy was actually turning 31, so it’s not like I had to go to Chucky Cheese or anything. That’s a kid in my book though. I’m not really sure what area they live in; Fairplay maybe? It was way up a winding rural road. They’ve got a nice property up there, and the altitude made the heat a little more bearable than down at our house. It was a fun outdoor party, I had a great time. I did have something of a revelation while enjoying myself though; All of a sudden, I looked around and noticed that most people were playing games and acting crazy, and I was sitting in a chair with the Old Folk Group. This was a real eye-opener for me. Know what I did? I just kept right on sitting there. I was quite comfortable and enjoyed several conversations.

Sunday, we had a few places planned to visit, but none of them came together. TOO HOT!! Yeah, recurring theme there. I did run up to the grocery store and grab a pack of chicken. Despite the heat I kind of felt like grilling some bird. It was some of the best chicken I’ve ever grilled, if I do say so myself. I’ve got long-running issues with the dreaded leathery-chicken-skin, and for once it came out perfectly crispy. Grilled some passable artichokes for the first time also, so all-in-all it was just a successful cook!

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This weekend we set out in the RV for our second music festival of the season. This was a small event up in the Ice House area, about an hour from our house. It was far enough up in the mountains to be quite a bit cooler than home, but it was still plenty hot. The good news was it cooled way down in the evenings, around 7:00. By 9:00, we were putting light jackets on. This event made up our entire weekend, so I guess I’ll toss out a good/bad list from my perspective.

Good: Location. Great campground, and the entire area is very scenic. We visited a nearby lake to float around and cool off one day, hit a historical place called Uncle Tom’s Cabin another, and did some driving around just to enjoy it in general.

Good: Menu. We ate great all weekend, that was pretty well planned out this trip. Three meals a day, which is more than we eat at home but there wasn’t really anything else to do.

Good: Nap time. We met up with some friends at the campground who are roughly our age, and the daily itinerary always included a few hours of nap time. Just like at home. This should be a staple in all trips.

Bad: The RV had a few issues. Before we even left, we clicked the fridge on to cool down and it threw an error code. Bummer. Very nearly ended the whole trip before it started, but Donette came up with the rather genius idea of putting dry ice in the fridge to cool it off. This plan worked pretty well, it got us through the weekend. Only bad part was all our food froze… Oops. Better than spoiling I suppose. We also ran out of water our last day there, which was a bit of an inconvenience. It was our first time dry camping in the RV and I guess we didn’t fill the tank quite enough. Lesson learned.

Bad: No hookups at the campground. No power, no water, no nuthin. I guess this doesn’t really belong in the “bad” category, they just don’t have hookups. That also meant no a/c and no coffee maker. OK, full disclosure, we turned on the generator for coffee and a few hours of a/c in the afternoon.

Bad: The music. The bands were, in a word, bad. Now it’s up for debate if this is really a “bad” also. The bands were bad for me. Two nights were southern rock cover bands, and one night was an AC/DC & Judas Priest cover band. Not my kind of music, to put it mildly. I knew the lineup when we bought the tickets though, so I pretty much knew I wasn’t going to like it before they ever started playing. We went because some friends did, and the tickets were cheap anyway.

Indifferent: No cell service or wi-fi. Not sure how I feel on this one. The area was quite remote and there wasn’t any service at all, even within convenient driving distance. It was kind of nice to be disconnected for a few days, but it got a little unsettling now and then also. Just not something I’m used to. They actually had wi-fi at the campground, but it didn’t work very well, if at all. Maybe it’s better when the crowd isn’t quite so big.

Overall, I had a great weekend. I’d go back, although the rest of the group came in as undecided. We’ll see when the date rolls around next year and go from there!

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