The hot weather is sort of hanging around out here. Not AS hot, but hot. It’s October, I want a high of 75. Doesn’t look like that is going to happen for a few weeks. At least it is cooling off nicely at night I guess.

We snuck in a stealth trip to KC last weekend, hence the missing update. The occasion was Justin (Donette’s nephew) & Jeanne’s wedding, which they finally pulled off after two years of covid-related delays. It was worth the wait! We had a great time, saw a bunch of people we haven’t seen in too long, and the ceremony clocked in at a more-than-tolerable 5 minutes. The day after the wedding, we hitched a ride with her sister Victoria to their house out near St Louis. They moved there some time ago, and we’d never seen the new place, so now we have! Just one night there, then it was back to CA. Happily, the flights home went MUCH smoother than the flights out to KC. Man, I am about ready to put Southwest on my banned list. I don’t even fly that much, but every single time I do they mess it up. We ended up in KC nearly four hours late, getting us in at an unpleasant 4:00 in the morning. Too old for that mess!

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I guess that wasn’t a BAD weekend, per se. Sort of iffy though. We had some fun for sure, but it was just a bit tempered by the abysmal football games. Just a bit though. Saturday we got up and turned on the Missouri game, (9:00 CA time,) which I genuinely thought they were going to win. Yeah, not so much. Losing is bad enough, but losing like that makes it even worse. The afternoon game was Oregon, which we are making some small effort to be fans of. It started off in a manner quite similar to the Missouri game. In fact, after halftime, we just turned it off and headed to an Oktoberfest nearby. This was a win-win for everybody; We had fun watching the German dancers and band, and without our bad luck hanging over them, the Ducks came back and won. Even got some texts while we were there: “Wow, are you watching this game? It’s crazy!” Well, no we are not, and you’re welcome.

Sunday we had some friends up for a barbecue, which I always look forward to. (We don’t get much company up here in the hills…) While the ribs were cooking, we watched the disaster that was the Chiefs. Holy smokes. I know they have a tendency to play poorly in Indianapolis, but that was ridiculous. Those are the games that fuel the “It’s all fixed” conspiracies. It honestly looked like they were trying to lose. Maybe we should have turned it off, like the Oregon game. We stuck out the whole miserable four quarters though, even when it became apparent what the inevitable conclusion would be. On the upside, I was quite happy with the ribs. I finally got to cook some spare ribs, which I prefer any day over baby backs. For whatever reason though, baby backs are usually on sale at the butcher shop, and spare ribs never are. Got lucky this time. Only problem was, I decided I needed four slabs, which ended up being way too much. I’ll be eating ribs through October, which isn’t a horrible situation. Oh, and there was a slight (self induced) problem with the smoker… After cooking on it for probably six years now, and it working perfectly every time, I decided I needed to try a few new tricks. (Insert eye roll here…) I put a few quarts of water in the bottom of it this time when I fired it up. Adds moisture, keeps the bottom clean, what could go wrong? This was despite the guy who built it telling me more than once that it didn’t need any water in it. (But then what would he know, I’m on the Triple Fat Back BBQ team!!!) Turns out, he might be more familiar with the design than me. It threw the temperature all out of whack, and I also had the lovely issue of cleaning up a bunch of greasy water later. Yeah, scratch that idea off the list. For evening entertainment, we watched our psuedo-local 49’s team, who also lost a poorly played game.

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It’s raining outside!! I’m always kind of mixed on the rain. Makes a mess, and it’s cold, but we have to get some water sometime. Considering the last measurable precipitation was the first week of June, I have to admit we’re due. Maybe it didn’t have to happen on my weekend, but such is life. It didn’t really disrupt our plans too much anyway. For that matter, we didn’t really have any plans, which sort of precludes them being disrupted.

Friday we never really got anything going. Another tedious day at work, then… An evening on the couch. Saturday didn’t bring a whole lot more activity. Watched a few of the college games, then met some friends at a place in Shingle Springs for some afternoon billiards. After that we went home and started a nice little fire in the firepit and enjoyed the 60-degree weather. Finished off the evening with a Marvel movie and called it a day. Sunday, we made the rounds of the local wineries. Haven’t done that in a few months due to the heat. That’s always a good way to spend a Sunday, even if it sprinkled on us a few times. Stopped by Bones on the way home for dinner, and that ended the weekend.

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So, the heat wave finally broke this weekend. Is that the end of the triple-digit weather here? I would sure like to hope so, but being a pessimist by nature I think not. Maybe I am a closet optimist though, as I’ve already begun looking forward to a Friday evening by the fire pit. That thing has sat in disuse for several months now, it’s just not too appealing when it’s 85 degrees at 7:00 in the evening. Guess we’ll see. According to the forecast we’re in for quite a treat this week, but it’s been wrong before.

I feel like, for the most part, we made fairly good use of the weekend. Friday night was sort of a non-event, as it was still miserably, intolerably hot. We ventured up to our neighborhood haunt, hung out for a few hours, and scurried back home to the a/c. Bones has a/c, of course, but it kind of struggles keeping up in this heat. Overall, though, I do believe the place as a whole is growing on us. We are going to try and go there once or twice a week for some undefined period of time and see how it goes. It ain’t no Brooksider, and definitely a far cry from the Bier Station, but it does have it’s appeal. At the end of the day, it’s pretty much the only option for entertainment within a 10 mile radius, so let’s hope for the best.

Saturday turned into a quite unexpectedly good day. I had the rather ill-advised idea to purchase tickets to the El Dorado Hills Brewfest some time ago, and the event finally came Saturday. I ain’t going to lie, I dreaded it all last week. The weather has been absolutely insane, 110+ every day. I actually saw 117 one afternoon at our house. Uhhhh, no thank you. Then, about mid-week, a large wild fire broke out near us and the air has been full of choking smoke. I thought they would cancel it due to the smoke, I kept anxiously checking my phone all night Friday. Well, Saturday came around, and all the stars aligned. For the event organizers anyway, not for me. The weather finally broke, and a favorable wind temporarily cleared the smoke, leaving me to dread my future for another whole day. Know what? I just don’t like El Dorado Hills. Don’t like the people, don’t like the town, don’t like the drive… I do not like EDH, Sam-I-Am. As it turned out, I had quite the enjoyable evening. We kicked off the afternoon over at a friend’s house, celebrating his birthday. Talked to a few people I hadn’t seen in a while. We hung out a few hours, then the whole group headed over to the brewfest, which was just a short walk from his house. It was a well-done event; They didn’t oversell the tickets so it wasn’t too crowded, the weather was a very welcome surprise, and they had several good food trucks. OK, there was that brief moment when I almost hit the DJ over the head with a chair, but we all have those. Geez buddy, find a new hobby, you are terrible at that one. Then, in what I believe was key to the success of the event, I called it a day. Went back to my buddy’s house, enjoyed the awesome nacho bar he had out, and took my happy self back up the hill. I cannot lie, I’m already looking forward to next year.

Sunday was, of course, the first day of NFL football. After no small amount of finagling, we were able to get the Chiefs game on, so that was fun to watch. The rest of the games, not so much, but it was good just to have the season back underway. Go Chiefs!

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Well, I will file that one under, “Take the bad with the good.” The good news was, we got out in the motorhome for a nice long weekend in nearby Coloma. The bad news, it was the hottest weekend of the year. As in, hottest by far. I had a great time all the same though, it was quite relaxing. Fine line between relaxing and boring, but I’m gonna go with it. For the most part, we stayed in the motorhome with the dogs, blasting the a/c and trying not to move. We were pretty darn successful at it too. We did spend a fair amount of time on the river. The water comes down from the snow melt in the mountains, and it is absolutely freezing. No matter that it was 115 degrees outside, jump in the river and it will take your breath away. Felt great! Now we are in for a full week of this heat, and then (hopefully) we’re in the clear. We’ll see how trustworthy the forecast is…

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