Road trip, part II

We were sore and tired after our trek, but totally enjoyed the day. PS. Pat may have done this hike with a kid on his back, but I seriously doubt he was wearing flip flops. Oh, and he was probably not yet 30 years old.

We leave tomorrow for another road trip, this time to SoCal. We'll stay in another historic hotel, that also is named after Indian stuff. Stay tuned, I think it's gonna be campy and fun.

Yosemite

We decided to take a quick trip to Yosemite and do some bike riding. As an aside, I have to admit that I live only 4-5 hours from this beautiful spot and had only been there twice - both as day trips, never even spending the night.
We left Tuesday and arrive at the North Gate around 4. I had booked us a room at the historic Wawona hotel, which I thought was in the valley. Duh. It's about 40 miles south and only 10 miles from the South gate. (where you come in from Fresno). We were starting to get a bit grumpy and tired when we finally arrived to find a hotel that is on the National Historic Registry and was built in 1850.

The hotel consists of several buildings that look like the main one here. Our room was in a separate building, which was good because in the "newer" buildings the rooms have a private bath. About half the rooms don't have one at all and you have to go down the hall.
We had wine in the parlor of the main building where a guy was playing the piano and telling stories. It was like going back to another time. He told the tale of when US Grant visited the hotel in 1870, along with Civil War tunes to go along with the stories. It was fun, entertaining and relaxing.
I have to digress a bit here, as when we arrived I realized I had no cell phone reception. Trust me, there is nothing like going a day without phone, internet or TV to recharge your battery.
Wednesday morning we had a yummy buffet breakfast and headed out to the valley. It was supposed to only be 55 that day, but I think it was 65. We had a great morning of riding our bikes all over the Yosemite Valley. I highly recommend this mode of transportation to see it. Bear in mind we were mid-week in late April. This wouldn't be good on a weekend in June. We saw Lower and Upper Yosemite Falls, Half Dome, Mirror Lake, El Capitan, etc. We decided to have lunch at the Ahwanee Hotel, which we knew would be ridiculously expensive, but did it anyway. It was a great experience.
While lunching Pat suggested we hike to the top of Vernal Falls. I was wondering about the hike and he told me he'd done it before in flip flops with a kid on his back. Um, okay, so we rode to the trailhead and locked up our bikes. Long story short, it was 2.5 miles straight up (1000' vertical rise) to the top of the falls. The last part is steep stairs cut into the granite. Oh, plus it's spring and the falls are raging, so we got soaked. I am not complaining. Even thought it was a tortuous journey, it was totally worth it. This is a pic of the falls showing the stairs. The next one is at the top looking down. You can see the narrow steep trail to the left. After we got done with the hike we rode back to our truck and headed for home.All in all we rode over 15 miles and hiked 5 up and down hill. We were pooped but had a great day. I have no idea how to get rid of this underlined text, nor any idea how I did this. Sheesh. Sorry.

Moving Day

Our office is in the process of moving. We are going about one mile down the same street - one mile closer to our house, so my commute just got cut in half. Yay! It's half a block from Yiassoo, where they make the best gyros in town. (not necessarily a good thing for my diet) and a block from my hairdresser.
Our phones and e-mail were cut off today. I've been tossing stuff and packing boxes for the last couple of days. The biggest fly in the ointment is that I have a big, four drawer lateral file cabinet that I've been told I can't take with me. The new cubicles are smaller, so I've decided to put it and all of my Sons of Norway stuff in our garage.
I had Pat's truck today and was wondering how I was going to get that beast of a file cabinet home. The movers were very nice and took it out and put it in the truck, where it fit nicely, lying on it's back. I figured I'd have to drive around with it all day and have Pat help me when he got home. I was at the new office and was leaving the same time as my colleague, Dan. I asked him if I could borrow him for 10 minutes or so. He followed me home and helped me get it out of the truck and into the garage. Thank you, Dan!
My boxes of files I am moving will be moved on Sunday. The movers would not move our computers and other such equipment, which was fine with me. I took them home and they are in our garage 'til Monday.
I was hoping to set up shop today, but they were still building our new cubicles this afternoon. So I'll wait 'til Monday to set everything back up. All of this while I'm trying to prepare to go to Minneapolis for a Board Meeting. Sheesh. No stress at all. Moving is a pain in the arse!

Spring Break

Due to different schedules at schools, it seems all of the kids have break at a different time. My niece, Megan (age 12), is here from Modesto this week. Unfortunately for her, Kristen and Laura have already had their breaks. Megan has a few friends over here, but they are in school, too. So the poor kid is stuck with us old folks.
Pat & I took her downtown yesterday. We rode the light rail, had lunch at Gordon Biersch, and walked over to the Tech Museum. The Tech is such a cool place. They have all kinds of hands-on exhibits. You can scan the bar code on your ticket into various displays, then log on to the computer at home and look at what you did at the museum. Megan did a thing where she put jellyfish DNA into something, then into a petri dish with agar. It has to incubate for 24 hours. She can log on today and look at the glow in the dark jellyfish cells she made. Pretty cool.
The highlight of the day (at least for me) was the movie Blue Planet in the Imax theater. Imax film is 70mm and runs vertically. They show the movies on the inside of this huge dome and the sound is incredible. This movie had a lot of footage of the earth shot from space. It was a very cool day.

Busy Day

What was I thinking? I went to Costco yesterday - a Saturday and the day before Easter to boot. The place was packed. BUT, I did find my brown throw pillows. Nice, cushy, corderoy - 2 for 14 bucks. Yay!
Then I decided to go to Dick's Bakery to pick up their famous burnt almond cake to help my sister celebrate her birthday. Again - it was packed.
I got the garden in with the help of Karen, Kristen and Laura and I'm not too sore today from the rototilling. So I call Saturday a success.

Before and After

In looking at this before pic I wonder how we lived with this mess for so long. Seemed like a good idea at the time. There are two antique kimonos hanging on the gold wall. I'm not sure I'm going to hang those back up.

Now looking at the after - I realize it's a lot of blue and we could use some more brown. The problem is that I am frugal (and broke) and refuse to pay $40 for a stupid throw pillow. I'll figure something out.

Project update

The bedroom is put back together and looks pretty good. It's a little too blue, so we need some brown throw pillows or something.
The new curtain rod is nice, with a taupe chiffon-like fabric. It's supposed to be draped around the rod. The problem here is I am not an artist and it's just sort of hung there. It looks okay, but I am a spaz at this sort of thing. I need help. Wa come home and help me!
I did take before and after pics, but am too tired to do all that right now. It does look better and we're happy with the results. More on this later.

The Project

Oh yes, it started out innocently enough. Let's go take a look at some fabric - I want to recover the comforter. This stupid comforter set has been a bane to me ever since we got it three years ago or so. Yeah, it looked nice enough. The problem was that the fabric was shiny and slippery, so the darned thing constantly fell off the bed. Further annoying was that the top of the bed skirt was the same material, so the mattress was always sliding off the box spring. So here we are looking at fabric and Pat says he's sick of the color scheme (maroon and gold) so let's check out Bed Bath and Beyond. I had never been in this store and now I'm sorry we found it. I love it! We found some nice (badly needed) bathroom rugs. The old ones were shot.
We found a new comforter and sheet set, which then made it necessary to have new window coverings. The new comforter is sort of a robin's egg blue with taupe and brown stripes.
Oh - now we have to paint that gold wall behind the bed, as it'll clash. Well, hell, if we paint that wall, we should paint the entire bedroom. It certainly needs it. We picked out a taupe color (think cafe au lait) for the one wall and three shades lighter in the same palette for the rest of the room.
We were sitting around the house this morning about to get going when El Camino called. It seems Pat was supposed to work 8 to noon and they had neglected to tell him. SHIT!
So I spent three hours moving furniture away from the walls, etc.
After I cleaned out my armoire I discovered it was filthy, so scrubbed it out with Murphy's Oil soap. Ditto the back of my dresser.
Pat came home with paint, ate lunch and we got to work. After scrubbing all of the walls with TSP we were finally ready to paint.
Seven hours later the paint was done and it looks great. We are absolutely exhausted!
Tomorrow we vacuum around the edges, put the switchplate covers back, hang the new curtain rod and put the furniture back.
I can't wait to put it all back together and see how it all comes together.
Beware. A simple trip to the store can turn into a MAJOR project!

Irritation

I just returned from the bank where I made a rather large deposit of OPM - Other People's Money.
In this batch of checks was a Cashier's Check in the amount of five figures. I had a tenant who due to various circumstances, paid six months rent in advance.
Imagine my surprise when the manager told me they had to put a three day hold on this money. Um, hello, it's certified funds - CASHier's check???? Nope - due to the current state of the economy or whatever they are holding the funds. That's one of the stupidest things I've ever heard.
Good thing there's enough money in the account to cover the check I wrote the owner yesterday. I'm getting a new bank - I'm tired of stupidity.