Road Trip 2015 Day 1

 Home to Needles, CA

 Mr. B's high school is a small one and, since 2000, they have had an all-school reunion over the Labor Day weekend.  We flew back in 2009 but other things got in the way the next few years, one of which was my Oldsmobile losing its driver's side AC and the GM dealer wanting $1000 just to look at it.  Not gonna happen with a twelve year old car.

 http://www.putnamcountyr1.net/

 We flew back in 2014, first time we had flown since just after 9/11.  Not a good experience.  Anyway, Mr. B finally bought me a new car in January so we decided it was high time we took a road trip.

I had my final post-cataract surgery appointment on Aug 24 so we decided to start our trip the next day, Tuesday Aug 25.  But you know what they say about the best laid plans...
Sunday evening my eye started to hurt, and got worse as the night wore on.  At this point I was thinking we might have to delay the trip.
The next morning it was diagnosed as inflamed, probably due to stopping the steroid drops too soon.  The doctor gave me an anti-inflammatory eye drop prescription and told me to start the steroids again.  The good news is that the pain went away very quickly, the bad news is that he wanted to look at it again the next afternoon.  Well, we could still rearrange our schedule to start a day later.  But when I saw the doctor Tuesday afternoon he said he needed to look at again Wednesday morning.

We took a chance that he would release me then and we would just get a later start, so we took Smokey Joe to the boarding facility in Salinas and told them that if things didn't go well with the eye doctor, we might have to pick him up after one night.  Smokey needs thyroid meds twice a day so didn't want to trust him to a pet sitter. 

Big Red has an automatic food dispenser and a water jug, so we figured he would be okay with our daughter checking on him twice a week.  Plus he has been known to do his own shopping.

Wednesday morning the eye doctor released me and we were on the road by 10am.  We stopped a few times to stretch our legs and added fuel in Newberry Springs on I-40.
 About 20 miles west of Needles, CA we ran into some road debris.  Missed the large piece of tire but couldn't avoid a smaller piece and blew a tire. 

While I was on the phone with AAA I noticed that another tire had a nail in it, so they sent out a flatbed truck to haul us in to Needles.  Of course the tire shop didn't have the right size tires, so they ordered them and drove us to a motel for the night.
Not a great start to the trip but at least we are on our way.

Still Alive

I'm not going to try to catch up on the last 14 months all at once but I am going to try to keep up from now on.

We picked this basket full of absolutely beautiful green peppers.  Several went to our daughter and I am planning to roast the rest tomorrow.  They keep really well in the freezer.

The tomatoes keep on coming.  Cherry tomatoes as well as the larger ones.  We had our first Gazpacho of the summer last week.

One Fine Dog

Buckroy

1999-2014

Dungeness Crab Season in Full Swing

The season opened about a month ago and the first week I bought one for Mr. B.  He really loves those crabs and will spend a good hour cleaning the meat out of each claw and all the other nooks and crannies.  I usually don't buy one for myself because thy are expensive and way too much work.  But today my local market had them for $3.99 a pound so I broke down and bought two.

This is all that is left of those two lovely crabs.  Definitely worth the work but I probably won't be eating any more this season.

Kaepernick Capsizes Carolina!

Final score:  23-10

Mr. B is a happy man.

Photo is from Twitter but I didn't make a note of who posted it so cannot attribute.

Happy New Year

Winter has finally arrived

This morning we had our first frost of the season and the overnight low on our back patio was 24 degrees.  It hasn't gone that low for several years.  We covered the Meyer lemon, the lime and the tangerine trees.  The other lemon and the two orange trees are just too big to cover.  

Speaking of oranges, we have had a continuous supply of fresh orange juice since last January.  They just keep getting ripe. 

We are expecting more extreme cold tonight.  It is not quite 9 pm and already down to 37 degrees.