Wow that weekend was exhausting.  That’s one of those where you need to get back to work to rest up from having fun.  We took off east-bound on Friday, destination Sly Park Lake for a little camping trip.  The facility is very nice, if grossly over-priced.  I guess I should just accept that everything out here is grossly over-priced and get on with it.  Some things just really jump out though, like the camping prices.  They gouged us $50 per night, and that was an unimproved tent spot.  No electricity, no water, and a two-door outhouse.  If that wasn’t bad enough, they dinged us an extra $15 per night for a second vehicle!  Geez man.  Apparently they can get away with it though, as the place was completely full.  As a matter of fact, it’s always completely full, we had to book our site last year.  Well, cost aside, we had a great time.  Our friends Michael & Alaina joined us and we proceeded to… well…. camp.  The lack of amenities made it feel almost Float-Trip-esque, and that was compounded by setting up my ancient relic of a tent from my floating days.  Munkirs and I got that tent somewhere around 1991, and we got a lot of use out of it.  It probably hasn’t been set up in the last 7 or 8 years though, and I was a little nervous that it would just go up in a puff of dust when I unrolled it.  It was in fine shape though, if a little musty.  Luckily I anticipated that situation and had a bottle of Febreeze handy for  good dousing.

Saturday brought more camping.  We started the day off with a solid casserole, appropriately prepared over the fire in foil packets.  For that matter, we cooked pretty much everything all weekend in foil packets…  Kind of hard to go wrong.  After breakfast we took the short walk from the campground to the lake (about 20 yards) and set up the big island float for a day of relaxing.  Just like last weekend, we managed to turn it into an entire day.  I guess we’re pretty easily amused.  We bobbed around the lake all day, then enjoyed a nice dinner of bbq ribs.  In foil packets.

Sunday we got up and ate breakfast, then packed up camp.  We were getting a little grungy from all the dust, and a nice shower at home was in order.  Not to mention, the temp was going up rapidly, it was obvious that it was going to turn into a scorcher.  For evening entertainment we had some friends over for a “vertical tasting.”  That’s some kind of “thing” out here.  Over some amount of time, we’ve collected six different vintages of the same wine from one of our favorite places out here, so we all sat around and tasted each and then discussed in detail the different nuances of each year.  I think we all agreed “Yep, they taste like wine.  Red wine.”  It was fun though, and I grilled up some ribeyes that came out pretty well to go along with it.

Seriously, I guess I need to update this.  What can I say, we’ve been busy, and 90% of it you don’t want to hear about.  Heck, nobody probably wants to hear about the remaining 10%, but I paid for this thing and dang it, I’m going to use it.  Sometimes.  I’m going to just pretend the last few weekends never happened and jump right up to this past weekend.  This past weekend kicked off Friday with absolutely nothing.  Well, the Royals were playing out here on the west coast and those 7:30 games just killed me.  Who even stays up that late?!?!?  On the positive side, they were very watchable on the back patio as it cooled off nicely by that time.

Saturday I got a strong start with a decent bike ride.  I still don’t get many long-distance rides in out here, usually between 15 and 20 miles.  Heck, Munkirs and I used knock out 30 miles on any given week night, 20 is one of my “long weekend” rides out here.  Oh well.  But, what my rides lack in distance, I feel they make up for in climbing.  I’m sure I’ve probably mentioned it before, but no matter what direction you ride here in El Dorado Hills, you will no doubt hit some hills.  I usually ride “this hill” or “that hill” so far this year;  Saturday, for whatever reason, I decided to ride this hill AND that hill.  They aren’t the worst (best?) hills in town, but they ain’t flat either.  Indeed, in my short 20 mile ride I got in 2,000+ feet of climbing.  About the only perspective I can offer on that number is that my all-time record for one day of climbing is 4,000 feet…  And that was spread over 100 miles.  Yeah it’s a little “rolly” out here.  I still have 2 hills on my “list” that I haven’t even been able to make it up.  I almost tried one of the two Saturday since I was in the area, but chickened out.  I’ll wait until it gets really hot and give it a try.  Anyway, fun ride.  I saw some turkeys, which are always sort of cool to watch, and some really nice old cars that were driving around, and quite a few fellow bikers.  Not so cool things, I dang near hit a big snake.  Scared the crud out of me.  I was on a road that was closed to traffic, focusing on trying not to hyperventilate from the climb, and didn’t even see it all laid across the road.  I barely missed it’s head at the last second.  I don’t THINK it was a rattler because I’m pretty sure I’d have been bit if it was.  I sure wasn’t going back to look.  Note to self…  watch the road.  After that bit of exercise we took the pups to the dog park for a little play time, then we all went to the El Dorado Saloon for lunch.

Sunday took a rather unexpected pleasant turn.  Can’t remember the last time that happened.  I had to work that evening, which generally causes me to just write off the entire day and lay on the couch.  But when some friends called and said they were heading up to Camino to check out a new winery, we figured what the heck.  It was a quite pleasant day out, so we dropped the top on the convertible and met up with everybody.  Good times.  We spent the entire afternoon up there in the area, just kind of hanging out and enjoying the weather.  When we got home, everybody came over and fired up the grill while I snuck off to work.  I’ve been on something of a bad run of luck with my work stuff lately, but for once everything couldn’t have gone smoother.  Wrapped up my stuff in about 45 minutes and had a nice plate of grilled chicken waiting on the table for me, woot!

Well, I made it one more time around the sun.  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.  BMI-Schmee-MI.  Bunch of gobbly-gook nonsense.  Anyway, I had a very nice birthday, which is always something of a surprise.  I will admit I went into it with very low expectations, which I guess is how I go into most things.  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.  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.

The steak dinner was a pleasant addition to the day.  Donette made 5:30 reservations at a new steakhouse nearby, C. Knights.  Yes, I know, that’s blue-hair dinner hour; do your worst.  Well the only other availability was 7:30, and yes, that is too late for me.  So, I guess if the shoe fits…  At any rate, the dinner was very good, and I got home in time to catch Matlock.  I ordered a 16 oz ribeye, Donette ordered the lobster tail, and we split them to make our own little surf-and-turf dinners.  Both were perfectly cooked and delicious.  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.  Overall I gave it a solid B+, I’m sure we’ll be back.  Bellies full, we headed back home and watched a few movies.  I guess I need to start writing this stuff down because I can’t remember what they were;  Must have been great.

Saturday was day one of my self-proclaimed “birthday weekend” celebration.  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.  It was a beautiful day outside, so we decided to dust off the convertible and go wine tasting.  After a short planning session, we decided on:  1) Baiocchi in Sutter Creek, 2) Scott Harvey in Sutter Creek, and 3) Wilderotter in Amador.  As is often the case, these plans got tweaked slightly over the course of the afternoon.  As luck would have it, they were having a little “event” at Baiocchi, with appetizers and live music.  This was probably in honor of my birthday, though they didn’t explicitly say as much.  Not being one to turn down free entertainment, we loitered there quite a while.  We had the dogs with us too, and as they seemed pretty comfortable we decided to just go with it.  We were there a few hours, then scratched the original plan and headed on to Amador.  Scott Harvey also has an Amador location, so we headed there next.  We hung out there for a while too, and then decided to just call it a day.  The pups were getting a bit antsy, as was I, so we rolled on back home.  For evening entertainment we turned on Black Panther, out on the back porch.  I fell asleep mid-movie, have to try that one again another day.

Sunday marked day two of the weekend celebration.  We started strong with a solid breakfast at Firehouse Cafe up the hill in Diamond Springs.  We’ve eaten there once before and really liked it, and this visit was a repeat performance of that success.  I had a fantastic chicken fried steak with gravy, and Donette had the corned beef hash.  Worth the drive to be sure.  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.  After downing a few thousand calories, Donette took me up the road a bit and dropped me off for a bike ride.  There is a rails-to-trails project up in that area called, not-too-cleverly, the El Dorado Trail, and I’ve wanted to check it out for years.  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.  Finally, I decided to just give it a go and see what happened.  Well….  That plan was only moderately successful.  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.  Suffice to say, that is not the part I was on.  I still don’t know where that part is.  Instead, I rode 17 miles of overgrown single-track, with varying degrees of difficulty.  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.  There were sections when I lost the trail entirely, and had to just ride between the rails.  Yeah, that was a little bumpy.  It wasn’t horrible though, at least I got to enjoy some bike time.

I hope all the Moms out there enjoyed their special day.  If you didn’t, well I enjoyed it for you, so that’s something.  I did have a pretty grand day of it.  For the last several years we’ve gone out to brunch with a large group, which I have to admit has always been fun.  But, you’ve got the hassle of travel, crowds, reservations, expense, etc etc.  This year one of our friends agreed to just host it at their house, and it turned out great.  As an added bonus, said house was one block from us so we just trotted across the street, packing our slow cooker.  Fun was had by all, and I think the food was better than anything we’d have gotten at a restaurant, especially the ones near us.  After we ate, everybody stuck around on the back patio and hung out enjoying the wonderful weather for the better part of the day.  Good times, hopefully this new tradition continues next year.  (As long as it’s not at my house, mind you…  That was a lot of people.)

Tonight marks a potentially dark day in my life.  I will be fixing spare ribs for dinner.  In a pressure cooker.  GASP.  Yes, it’s true, I’ve been reduced to this.  Hey, if you want to have ribs on a Monday night, what else can you do?  I can’t imagine it going well, but we will see.  My brain keeps being whisked back to that horrible, horrible day 20 years ago when I parboiled a few slabs.  I still feel dirty.  And to make it worse, if you ask Donette what were the best ribs I’ve ever made, she will without fail respond with that travesty of food preparation.  Sigh.  Well, I guess I just feel the need to try something different.  To date, I have not found anyone out here that takes any interest in spending a day sitting in the driveway feeding charcoal to a smoker.  They just don’t get it.  Or I don’t.  We’ll see how they feel about steamed meat.  Honestly, I am scared of the response.  First person to say “They taste just like they do on the smoker!” gets kicked out of the house.