The reprise of the road trip to California was scheduled to begin early on Friday morning and so we exchanged some gifts from under the tree on Thursday evening. I’m always so impressed with Diana’s wrapping skills. She got a special edition book of Winnie the Pooh stories and is looking forward to me reading bedtime stories from it. I’m working on the voices – it seems like everyone sounds a bit like Eeyore.
The car was 90% packed up on Thursday night (including the fancy new Yeti champagne transporter) so that we could get a quick start on Friday morning. We were underway by 9am and arrived in Albuquerque around 10 hours later. The 645 miles in one day was just about as much as I can handle. We did stop for a late lunch at the Drunken Oyster in Amarillo, and I couldn’t help but order the Cajun fondue that we enjoyed so much on the last road trip. We made just one navigational error – a wrong turn just before arriving at the hotel – same one I almost missed last time. Bit of a slow learner.
Saturday began with a walk across the hotel parking lot to the Marigold Café, a new place since our last trip. It combines Indian and American foods with New Mexico influences in creative ways. For example, my breakfast taco was served in fresh naan bread rather than a tortilla and included some delicious green chilis. Diana’s avocado toast was also excellent and she raved about the bacon. I’d like to return and sample the tikka mac ‘n cheese.
Our tummies pleasantly full, we made the short drive to Santa Fe. We drove past downtown to the gorgeous and impressive Santa Fe Opera house just north of town. The gate was closed and so we couldn’t get too close but the setting is really unique, with open air views of the high desert and mountains. We were glad the snow came a few days prior to our visit so that we didn’t have that driving challenge.
After checking into the lovely, historic La Fonda hotel, we walked over to Canyon Road and had a ramble past all the art galleries and sculpture gardens that line the street. I really enjoyed these wind machines – so creative and attention grabbing.
We walked back to the square and then enjoyed coffee and a slice of quiche at the hotel. I was interested to see the red chilis hung as ornaments on the square. Here’s the view from our hotel room balcony. The cathedral bells are quite loud. Fortunately the Trump rally (no masks in sight) in front of the cathedral cleared out quickly.
Why did we take the time to detour up to Santa Fe on an already long road trip you ask? Very solid question. Our friends Amy and Ray were getting married on Saturday evening at the La Fonda hotel. We hadn’t planned on attending but couldn’t say no after Amy heard we were just going to be an hour away in Albuquerque. Here’s Diana dressed up for the wedding with the favour that Amy left at the front desk – red chili peppers.
I hadn’t realized the ceremony was to be on the balcony of the bridal suite, in the evening, during a snow storm. I was not dressed properly. And certainly not for the extended event that the “celebrant” (artsy name for the lady presiding over the ceremony) insisted on presenting. I swear that as the snow increased, she spoke slower. There were several elongated descriptions of special parts – mixing sand together, the water ceremony etc. My toes were quite iced up by the end. The setting was lovely, and when we finally reached the exchange of vows, Amy and Ray were clearly very happy and did a great job.
Diana had the right idea when we made it back inside – thaw your hands on the chimney.
Here are a couple of other inside pictures. I did have a jacket and tie on for the ceremony – first time in at least 10 months.
I particularly enjoyed meeting and chatting with Amy’s Dad Bob – what a fun character. That and learning a new game, “Cheers to the Governor”, that the kids introduced. I highly recommend it – you can find the rules online. Diana and BP enjoyed getting their pictures taken on the snowy balcony when we went back downstairs.
We loaded up and headed out early on Sunday morning – destination Las Vegas – a mere 8 hours of driving away. On the road by 8am and we should be relaxing at the lovely Aria hotel on the Vegas strip by 6pm or so. All was smooth with some slow initial going on the snow in Santa Fe and the pace picking up when we merged onto the interstate down to Albuquerque. And then everything changed – and not for the better. There were multiple semi-truck accidents on I40 – we sat stopped on the highway amidst all the trucks for 2 hours straight at one point.
Thirteen very long and tedious hours later, we rolled up to Aria. Vegas is so quiet that the restaurants have very reduced hours – we were lucky to grab a quick drink and bite at the Aria Pub. The juxtaposition of the old, classic Santa Fe La Fonda with the huge, glitzy and modern Aria was quite dramatic. The scale of the place comes through in this picture where the super cars out front look like models.
After our quick dinner, we walked down the strip to Bellagio and watched the fountain show with Christmas music. Always such an impressive sight. On the way we passed through a new and extremely upscale mall called “Crystals” something or other. We were amazed at this tree where each ornament was one of the Swarovski crystal special editions – I hate to think how much it cost to decorate that tree.
Passing the smaller Eiffel tower at Paris hotel reminded us of a wonderful dinner we enjoyed there and of the very special 50th birthday dinner that we enjoyed with Mum and Dad at the real version in the real Paris.
Back at Aria, we relaxed with a cocktail at the “Lift Bar” and enjoyed a talented musician covering all kinds of music from different eras. What a treat.
Upstairs BP was marveling at all the neon sights. I hate to think about how much money these Vegas hotels are losing every hour with so few people around.
We finished listening to the Michael Connelly audio book of “The Law of Innocence” on the drive to Albuquerque. It’s amazing how a good story, well read, can help the time pass. There were just enough twists to keep our interest and not so many that it gets ridiculous – which seems to be the trend these days. D kept picturing Matthew McConaughey in his role as the original “Lincoln Lawyer” as the story unfolded.
I didn’t make too much progress on “Utopia Avenue” this week, but am happy to report that my interest was held much better again. I suspect I’ll finish the book off quickly on arrival in Pacifica as I get plenty of quiet reading time with Clorinda.
I heard the John Fogerty song “Broken Down Cowboy” on the Sirius Deep Tracks station on the drive. I liked it a lot and was surprised that I hadn’t heard it before. It’s not on Spotify but I did find this live version from the Royal Albert Hall:
“If I was a gambling man
Never would’a let you play that hand
With a broken down cowboy like me”
This Chuck Berry song came on while we were eating lunch at the Drunken Oyster in Amarillo – they played great music. Quite different than his normal stuff:
An early Tom Waits song that Jesse covered on the Tuesday Night Supper Club show:
And finally, to recognize the 40th anniversary of John Lennon’s passing, one of my favourites. I can remember pretty vividly walking to school with Drew Kirkland and David Smith the morning after the assassination and talking about how important Lennon’s contributions to music were.
Stay patient and safe.
After a busy Thanksgiving weekend, this week was very quiet with our only real outing to downtown McKinney for coffee today. Diana took my picture with the Xmas display outside the coffee shop. Not quite a Christmas card since Diana and BP didn’t make it in.
She said several times that the grilled lobsters were perfectly cooked. A nicely cooked sea bass makes me happy. So we were both very happy with our meals – and had plenty of leftovers for a late dinner. I laughed when we checked in on the chaos at Amy and Adamo’s home and heard that Adamo had said, “maybe we can go out for lobster on Thanksgiving twenty years from now.”
After Peche, we walked across the street to the Parker Jazz Club (capacity reduced from over 100 to 30) and enjoyed our first live music in 9 months with 12 other folks. Kris and the team are trying really hard to keep the place going with very limited seating weekend shows and live-streaming. The house band was excellent as always – although the new drummer over plays too much for my liking. Kris might have played almost all of his 8 or 9 instruments – going from bass flute to multiple saxophones and a flugelhorn.
Brunch was at the Odd Duck – one of my top three Austin brunch spots. The shrimp and grits with a perfectly cooked deep fried egg were fabulous, as was the ceviche with green curry sauce. It’s always so hard to choose from all the options – and the menu is new every time we go. Diana loved their take on the Paloma cocktail. I’m now expected to try and replicate that – oops, maybe she’d forgotten already and I just reminded her.
Sunday was a dry day and so we were able to execute a 4 mile circuit around the river trail, culminating with another snack at TacoDeli. Then another excellent brunch at Suerte – my top ranked Mexican restaurant. The masa that they make all the corn tortillas and tostadas from is ridiculously good. Diana had a smoked salmon tostada and I tried the bacon and sweet potato tetela (like a corn based pie with bacon and sweet potato puree inside). They were both perfect – particularly the mornay sauce, which I learned is a classic béchamel sauce enriched with a blend of Gruyère and Parmesan cheeses. We have really missed the creative food that is so readily available in Austin. And the great live music.
After brunch we met our friend Neffie at Fixe – a new place she introduced us to that specializes in southern comfort food – supposedly the best biscuits (scones) in Austin.
We passed this sign on the walk to Fixe – so nice to be able to walk everywhere again. My Mum had just been telling us the story of the Battle of Bannockburn where the English tried to sneak up on the Scots at night, taking their boots off for stealth, but were foiled by the thistles that made them yelp and awake the sleeping Scots. And like a responsible Scotsman who payed attention in History class, I do indeed remember that happened in 1314.
I listened to a short story called “Climbing with Mollie” by Bill Finnegan on a couple of my swims this week. A small MP3 player that clips onto the strap of my goggles and some waterproof earphones made this possible. Those and a bit of patience deciphering how to find an Audible book download file, convert it to MP3 format, and load it onto the player. Then some trial and error with different sized earphone end pieces and “fitgoo earbud insertion helper”. Now I’m all set to listen to books while swimming.
I read the book “Silver Sparrow” by Tayari Jones this week. Sometimes I really can’t remember what possessed me to order certain books, and this is certainly one of those. I suppose it popped up on one of those “if you liked this, you’ll love this” lists or on a book review that I trust. Here’s what the Los Angeles Times reviewer had to say:
Wednesday was the 3rd anniversary of that lovely day in Cozumel. I found a card with the caption “May the Honeymoon Never End”. It’s funny to me because we didn’t have an official honeymoon and I think McD has given up on it now. We did have a planning session a few months ago but couldn’t come up with anything that we really liked. Some nice flowers took the sting out of the message in the card.
finally a FaceTime with the Wahbas. We finished up in time to catch the last couple of songs from a Lyle Lovett and Robert Earl Keen song swap live stream. Seeing them both reminded me of the night that I broke my finger. Keen was the emcee and Lovett an Austin City Limits Hall of Fame inductee.
I started “Sontag” by Benjamin Moser this week. At over 700 pages it might be with me for a few weeks. It’s described as “The definitive portrait of one of the American Century’s most towering intellectuals: her writing and her radical thought, her public activism and her hidden private face”. I can’t honestly remember what drove me to pick this biography, but I’ve started and I’ll do my best to finish. I don’t know too much about Sontag and so I’m sure I’ll learn a lot along the way.
The audio book of “Where the Crawdads Sing” kept us company as we traversed the mountains, mesas, and then wide, flat open spaces to Amarillo. We were most certainly road weary on arrival at the downtown Courtyard – this one is part of the “historic” collection and is a remodeled downtown bank building. It certainly has a lot more character than most. Only in this kind of rural location can you stay in a corner suite with wrap around windows for $102.
My book on the road trip was “All Adults Here” by Emma Straub. This is a very enjoyable ensemble family drama, set in small town Connecticut. Three generations of Stricks play out their lives in quite different fashions, and it’s all very enjoyable and engaging.
There was an issue with Clorinda’s hot water heater that Marco was in charge of remedying. He tried to enlist friends to assist with the replacement – this was unsuccessful but one friend did recommend the Vietnamese sandwiches from Dinosaur’s. I filed that away and we ordered a variety of those for lunch on Monday. We sat outside and enjoyed these on Amy and Adamo’s patio. My portobello was delicious.
hosts as usual and showed us videos of the resident mountain lion and cub playing in their fountain. The wildlife on Gypsy Hill has expanded quite a bit over the last year – deer were the main attraction but now we have added bobcats, mountain lions, and wild turkeys. Really, seven wild turkeys were congregated outside Clorinda’s kitchen window on Monday afternoon. I understand they peck at the glass pretty relentlessly – doesn’t seem like very “wild” behaviour.
On Friday we drove down to San Luis Obispo (home of Cal Poly where Will studied Mechanical Eng) with a brief stop to see Will at his office in the afternoon. It was entertaining to see his face when one of his co-workers told him “Your Dad’s here” – not what he was expecting at all. Will gave us a tour of the school that he’s remodeling and then we were on our way south.
After D’s morning exercise, we drove to Alicia’s house for breakfast. She made us some amazing Bloody Mary’s with crispy bacon stirrers and avocado toast – definitely becoming quite the hostess.
Sunday took us on down the coast to Pacific Beach in San Diego to meet up with Campbell and Molly. Diana found an excellent hotel room for us on the beach at a boutique hotel called Tower 23. The balcony had a great view of all the action on the beach.
Campbell and Molly came over and joined us on the balcony for a while before we went downstairs for dinner at the Jordan restaurant in the hotel. Then they came back upstairs to watch the last of the sunset. I really enjoyed Molly telling us that, having to much time listening to Campbell’s sales pitches and follow up, she could easily tell the story for him. I particularly enjoyed her rendition of “and what have you” – something I say quite a bit.
My fancy new kettle arrived on Monday. It allows me to heat water to the perfect temperature for my fancy new cafetiere – 96 degrees, and also features a “goose-neck” spout for precision pouring. I know people in Guatemala who take the art of preparing coffee way more seriously than this – they have three different setups for different styles of coffee. So I’m not that nuts at least.
The Bakersfield sound is a sub-genre of country music developed in the mid-to-late 1950s in and around Bakersfield, California. … Wynn Stewart pioneered the Bakersfield sound, while Buck Owens and the Buckaroos, and Merle Haggard and the Strangers are the two most successful artists of the original Bakersfield era. We stayed just off Buck Owens Blvd and I played a couple of his songs for Diana on the drive.
I finally finished the Robin Williams biography this week. The first half was a bit of a slog but the second half really captured my attention. What a tortured and supremely talented individual. I forgot how many wonderful movies he made in the early 90s – “Good Morning Vietnam” being the first big breakout from stand-up comedy to blockbuster movies, followed by Awakenings, The Fisher King and many others. It seems that a lot of people took advantage of his kindness and generosity. Very sad that he couldn’t ultimately handle his Parkinson’s diagnosis.
He’s one of the folks that has a tremendous feel for the music, coupled with ridiculous dexterity. I get exhausted just watching how hard his left hand is working. Joe started with “Classified” by the legendary New Orleans player James Booker. It sounds and looks to me like an incredibly difficult piece to play well. The credits at the end of the show indicated that Joe had a large part in organizing and producing the show.
Jon Cleary, an Englishman who plays piano like he’s a 3rd generation New Orleanian, is another one with a great feel for the music. Jojo Herman, of the jam band Widespread Panic, was a revelation – he clearly has spent a huge amount of time listening to James Booker and Professor Longhair. He had spent some time learning from Dr. John, who passed away earlier this year, and shared a personal video of Mac performing “Tipitina” at the end of the show. “What is a tipitina?”, asked Jojo of the Dr. “Fess (Professor Longhair) told me it was some kind of bird, but I never heard of such a thing.”
The show finished up with my all time favourite, Long Tall Marcia Ball. Excellent as always with a rare performance on a grand piano – we typically see her with her electric keyboard, legs kicking in time to her beat.
our future. We attempted to finish watching “Ford versus Ferrari” after dinner. One of us finished and the other only made it for a few minutes. I really enjoyed this movie and found Christian Bale and Matt Damon to be excellent – particularly Damon as Carroll Shelby – quite different than some of his more typical roles. The tug of war between the GM “suits” and the entrepreneurial and freewheeling Shelby/Ken Miles collaboration was well depicted. What beautiful cars Shelby made.
My first book this week was “Travels with Charley (In Search of America)” by John Steinbeck. I hadn’t heard of this work until it was cited by Stephanie Land as a big reason for her desire to explore Missoula, Montana. I thought maybe the descriptions of that territory may convince McD to give it a try. Or at least that overly optimistic child living inside me thought so.
All the time at the pool this weekend allowed me to finish another book – a fast paced mystery set in Paris during World War II. “Three hours in Paris” by Cara Black tells the story of an assassination attempt on Hitler when he pays a quick visit to attend a mass at Sacre Couer in Montmartre. The sniper is actually an American from Oregon who is recruited while living on a UK Army base in Stornoway with her Scottish husband. Her attempt fails but she does kill the leader of the German Navy by accident as Hitler ducks. The cat and mouse pursuit of Kate through various Parisienne neighbourhoods by the German forces is well written and keeps the pages turning fast. I recommend this as a good pool or beach read and a good one for those that have visited Paris to reminisce over.
After our Week 4 Day 3 run on Saturday I had some muscle pain and didn’t think too much of it. It subsided on Monday and so I did 30 minutes on the elliptical – bad idea. Now it’s pretty painful and as a result I haven’t been able to run or do much exercise this week. Don’t worry – McD has made up for it with very consistent and vigorous workouts. Maybe I should try the universal cure recommended by our Commander in Chief this week:
We grilled the rib-eye steak from Rye on Monday evening – the first nice day we’ve had in a while. Diana did a lovely job since I wasn’t up for moving around too much. The perfectly cooked steak and grilled vegetables were a real treat. And we have plenty of leftovers to enjoy all week long.
The Tuesday New York Times puzzle made me laugh with a clue “__ Gatos” next to a clue with the answer “Elroy”. How does that happen? I’m always pleased to finish any day of the NYT puzzles in less than 20 minutes.
A text from the Ogans on Thursday morning alerted me to “Jazzfesting in Place.” This would have been the first weekend of Jazzfest in New Orleans (canceled for 2020) and the local radio station, WWOZ, put together a line up of broadcasts from prior years in the same schedule format as the real deal. Apparently the food vendors are set up all around town offering to go treats. I wonder where my favourite Mrs. Wheat’s pies is located? Nothing to worry about – they have a website and I’ve ordered up a sampling of pies for weekend 2 of festing in place.
Snooks Eaglin was the stand out for me on Friday. I was reminiscing about seeing him at the original Rock ‘N Bowl with the Ogans and Sean a few weeks before he passed. Those crazy fingers flying over the fretboard. I set up some jazzfest photos on the patio to put us in the mood. Diana enjoyed the show from her “home office”. Anne is setting up a festing in place party on their courtyard. We laughed when she said Denny would only go on Friday or Sunday because Saturday was too busy.
My book this week was “Maid” by Stephanie Land. This seemed particularly relevant as we see so many low paid workers struggling to survive in an economy mostly closed down. My eyes were hugely opened by Land’s story of survival as a single parent and house cleaner.