Well, my big vacation for the year is done. I’m going to label it a success, if not 100%. I had some sort of crud the majority of the time, which did cut into my enjoyment a bit. I tried to power through, which of course likely just made it worse. We definitely managed our share of fun though, sick or not. We spent a full week in Ireland, made a brief two-night stay in London, then on to Scotland for the remainder. The travel was a bit on the brutal side, but I guess that comes with trying to see a few thousand years of history in two weeks. The flight home was a rough one too, it took a full 24 hours door to door. I’m too old for that! Here is a photo dump of some of the things we saw during our time there.

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We had a great week touring Ireland. Spent a quick two nights in London, now it’s off to Scotland today.

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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