St. George, Day 1

We started the day by vowing to avoid another greasy spoon breakfast, and instead went to the Venetian, to Thomas Keller's bistro called Bouchon. My parents had given us money to treat ourselves to some nice meals, and after a night poor in sleep but rich in Zoe antics (chloe took the brunt of this one), I figured we deserved it! Getting there and parking is so easy that I'm sure it will become a standard destination when we are in Las Vegas.

The food was superb: we had the signature french toast, Belgian waffles with caramelized walnuts and fresh strawberries, and beignets (donuts) straight out of the fryer with a pot of jam and nutella.

It also came with a decent demi (not as good as Acme Bakery), and some excellent butter (but not a good as plugra). The french toast is quite unique and is almost a bread pudding.

If you're torn between the french toast and the waffles, I think the choice is clear: go for the french toast! From the Venetian, we stocked up on staples at Trader Joe's, and then drove to St. George. We stopped at the Target in St. George, where we noticed that the average family is just a bit larger than the average family in the bay area. After checking in to our somewhat grim hotel, we headed north to the Chuckawalla wall for a few burns. Our brilliant plan was to sit Zoe in the pack and play while we climbed some routes. It turned out that Zoe was not 100% on board with this plan, and we ended up having to wait for our friends Amy and Mark to show up with their son Charlie, and take the kids for walks. In the end, we managed to get on three of four routes. I was very happy to finally get on Second Coming.

It's a cool line with fun moves on big holds. Chloe and Amy also hopped on it,



while I fed stolen cheerios to zoe

and then we packed up and headed into town to look for food.

Oakland to Vegas

Today we made the long drive from Oakland to Las Vegas, spending most of that time on my most un-favorite freeway : I5. Although the day started somewhat inauspiciously with the CHP shutting down 580 for some unknown reason,


we made good time, and Zoe was in a great mood. Eight hours after we left, we found ourselves in a strong dust storm on 15 near Barstow. We could actually see the desert sand and pebbles skittering down the asphalt,



and at one point I was almost outrun by a soft drink cup trundling down the freeway at high speed. The land sailors were happy, though!

We eventually arrived at one of those casinos 30 minutes east of Las Vegas and declared it "far enough" after almost nine hours on the road.


Edit: the freeway was closed because of this, and it turns out that if we had left just a few minute earlier, we would have missed it :
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/05/BAKI13BJJC.DTL&hw=580&sn=001&sc=1000

The Green Day Letters

A few from the past couple of weeks. We get 1-2 of these every day

more house shots

downstairs office/bedroom


Baby room with a fantastic mural by the parents

Breakfast with Zoe

I went to breakfast with the parents and Zoe, who has really started enjoying toast


We also stopped by a wonderful toy store that I used to go to as a child called Mr Mopps


And then back to the parents house for bath time

Unpacking

getting there!

Green Day

Right before moving in, I discovered that fan mail for one of the member of Green Day was ending up at our new house. I talked to the former owner about this, who explained that overzealous fans had assumed that she was this band member (because she has the same initials). This has led to a lot of mail, many phone calls and her having to change phone numbers a few times.
Since moving in, we have also received ~4 or 5 fan letters so far, and I have been diligently taking pictures of them and sending them to my friend Taras, who claims to be some kind of fan of theirs. I should clarify this last statement and say that despite the temptation I don't actually open them, but return them to sender.

The Later life of Squirrel Nutkin?

While out for a walk with Zoe, I came across this strange and somewhat uncanny sight: A dead squirrel on the side of the road with a dollar bill clutched between its paws.

Another promising career in nut gathering and cat evasion cut short in the pursuit of the almight buck.
queue "Deception" by Blackalicious

The next day the squirrel was still there, but had been despoiled of his $1 (I wonder what the currency exchange rate is to squirrel bucks -- maybe he was a squirrel millionaire!).

Megawindowwasher

Nissan GTR

I saw one of these bad boys on the way to work. They don't look like much, but damn.

Zoe enjoying our fabulous new garden

The work begins

painting, painting, painting. Big "boo" to whomever invented textured plywood. BOO!

Labor Day

We took a trip up to Alta, staying overnight with Zoe in the tent. After unshuttering the cabin, chloe noticed something move behind the door and bravely dispatched me to investigate. It turned out be a bat:

which was not very happy to have been woken up, and briefly swooped over our heads before nestling him/her self behind some tar paper.

zoe, as is typical for weekends, was resistant to sleeping and wore both of us out, even before Chloe's friends showed up. She did manage to go to sleep briefly while in the ergo baby though. As an aside, BIG THANKS to our friends Taras and Katie for giving us the ergo baby; it sis so much nicer than the baby bjorn.



Once Chloe's friends showed up, we caravaned up to go to Salmon Lake, but got stuck in very atypical bumper to bumper traffic on I80, and got off the freeway at the next exit (Crystal Springs, I think). We regrouped, and I suggested a hike that I had heard a lot about, but had not done before: the Euchre Bar trail. It's actually very close to our place, and the signs are clear. There is even a toilet at the trail head -- cushy! The trail winds down something like 1600 or 1800 feet of switchbacks under oaks, madrones, and even some bay trees and eventually deposits you at the North Fork, where this an excellent and relatively warm swimming hole





We all went for swims, and dipped Zoe's toes in the water:


before heading back up to the bridge and then back up the trail




The hike back up turned out to be kind of a slog, and we were all totally exhausted by the end. Thankfully, we had Chileno beef blue cheese burgers, corn and a lot of other delicious things (including smores!) to pig out on. We also fired up the soaking tub to sooth our aching calves and thighs.

I probably would have slept quite soundly, if not for the fact that poor Zoe was kept awake by the shriek of trains, which seemed to be coming by every 30-40 minutes or so. Union Pacific had been doing some track work during the day, so I think there were a lot of baked up trains waiting to get out of the valley. In any case, neither chloe nor I slept very much.


The next morning we all headed to the fabulous Oddfellows Sunday breakfast, which they do only a few weekends a year now:


And then drove up to Lover's Leap, to peer over the edge into Giant Gap




The road up the Lover's Leap is a bit worse than I remember it, and the Prius (literally) just scraped by.

Closed!

We closed on our house today! Wheeeeee!