Monday, August 17, 2009

A Hike And Some Chalk Art

Monday: (08/17) Ernie fixed a nice breakfast of eggs, bacon and hashbrown potatoes. I'm busy back to avoiding work, or at least delaying beginning it.

Goofed off so much we forget what I did?

Tuesday: (08/18) Ernie and the dogs left early this morning for a little trip North to see the redwoods.

Toast and jam for breakfast.  I had a dentist appointment this morning to get a filling repaired. I seem to break a lot of them. After the visit to the dentist I had lunch (barley beef soup and lemon cheese cake) at the Country Inn in Cupertino. It's amazing that the mouth is no longer numb for days after a visit now days. Things have improved.

Dinner?

Wednesday: (08/19) Lou and I dropped Dawn off at the train station in Mountain View. We all had breakfast at the Hong Kong Bakery before she left.

We goofed off shopping around and had lunch at Lou's favorite spot, Luu Noodle house sharing our usual combination chow fun with a couple of egg rolls.

When I returned home I did a little work filling the trench for the pipes and chipping away dirt to the level I determined after staking the area and determining the grade. I didn't really accomplish much though.

Dinner?

Thursday: (08/20) I got up early and hitched up the RV for a trip to it's doctor Leale's RV in San Jose. The generator has been sick since we left on our winter trip last December. It coughed and ran rough. I looked at it and, knowing nothing about it, couldn't fix it so we limped along. Actually we just lived within our solar generating abilities. It's now running nice and smooth with a clean carburetor, new fuel filter  (which I never found) and new spark plugs. When I arrived iIwas told it might have to be there a few days. I had thought my appointment first thing in the morning would allow it to be completed in the one day. I really hate leaving the RV anywhere. I went a short distance up the road to Denny's for  Grand Slam breakfast.

Southern Lumber is close and the best lumber store in the bay area. i needed some 2x12 pressure treated boards for the fence and couldn't find them tinted red, the chain lumber store only have green boards which i don't like. While Southern is well stocked it also isn't cheap but getting the boards there may save some gas to offset the higher price. I also checked on steel tubing price and availability at Sims metal which is also nearby. I stopped by Family RV to see if they had any good cheap used trailers for Ernie, nope. I did see one for sale with an open house in the parking lot of a Home Depot i stopped at. It looked good so I called Lou to come look at it. There turned out to be some title problems so? The Leale's service rep called before noon and promised the RV would be completed today so I continued to goof off shopping. Lou and Dawn came down and looked at the trailer then went on to their dental appointments.

I had a slice of pizza from Sbaro's at a mall for lunch. I picked up the RV about 4pm, hitched up the toad and returned home. Even though it was commute time traffic wasn't too bad.

After getting the RV parked Lou was ready for dinner so we went out to Chevy's for dinner. Wow, ate out all day. We didn't have the usual Chevy Cinco combinations for dinner this time trying new things. Lou and Dawn shared an assemble d combo of chili relleno, steak enchilada and ?. I had a combo with chicken and shrimp skewers, steak enchilada and taco. All good, and different.

Ernie returned late this evening, with doggies, from his trip up North to the redwoods.

Friday: (08/21) Cereal with bananas for breakfast.

We tinkered around in the morning and had lunch before heading North to the San Mateo County Fair. It's been a pretty good fair while many others are dying like our own Santa Clara County Fair. It was a good fair with lots of crafts and such, animals, etc but they have closed two of the building  whick look like they are becoming the turf club. The Bay Meadows horse race track next door closed recently. How it stays a real fair.

We stopped at the Chavez Market Taqueria in Redwood City for dinner.

Saturday: (08/22) Breakfast of a Don McMuffin sandwich.

I started by re-locating the avocado tree that I just got planted a couple of months ago. It's been in a planter pot for more than eight years, finally made it into the ground but I put it in the way of the new sheds so it was moved again. Poor thing. Fortunately, it hadn't established itself yet so it moved fairly easily except for the ground being so hard to dig. I then continued chipping away at the area where the sheds will be. I need to remove 4-6" of dirt to install the base rock and concrete floor to the correct level. This was interspersed with lots of resting.

Lunch was leftovers, for me black eyed peas and European bologna. For Lou a salad.

About 3pm I cleaned up and Lou, Dawn and I went downtown to the Palo Alto Art Festival. Unlike most of these street fairs the vendors here seem to be doing their own art not importing it. Lots of neat stuff. And there is also the sidewalk chalk art. The pictures were about have done when we viewed and should be finished tomorrow so we'll probably return tomorrow.

Ernie fixed a nice baked tuna and noodle casserole served with Lou an Dawns fresh green beans.

Sunday: (08/23) Breakfast was cereal. After a relaxing morning in the yard having tea, at least that's all I did, I had the leftover tuna noodles for an early lunch and headed for the hills. It's hike day.

Portola State Park, Pescadero Creek Portola State Park, Pescadero Creek
I've been trying to get out at least once per week to take a hike. Today's the day. I headed West just over the mountain to Portola State Park. Fortunately, it was still open, not closed by our dear Governator yet. I took a little hike into Memorial Park next door to the Pescadero River then along the old Haul Road to the Iverson Trail.

Portola State Park, Pescadero Creek Portola State Park, Iverson Trail
It was a pleasant hike along a creek an in the redwood forest.

Portola State Park, Tip-Toe Falls
I stopped for a look at Tip Toe falls, barely a waterfall. Our backyard pond has as much flow. Then headed on back to where I parked. About 5-6 miles of hiking was enough. A few years ago, I took a hike here starting up at the Tarwater Trailhead, down the mountain to Portola park (3 miles) then through the park to the Peter's Creek Grove and back to the park visitor center (13 miles). I had a cold and it was dark so I surrendered and called Lou for a lift back to my car up the mountain. Sometimes, I am smarter than I look and know when to call it a day. I mentioned all this because today, I opted for the shorter trail rather than the 13 mile trail out to Peter's Creek and back. I haven't been hiking much recently and need to build up to the longer hikes, or be prepared to call Lou again.

Palo Alto Art Festival Chalk Art Palo Alto Art Festival Chalk Art
When I got back down the hill I stopped downtown and called Lou to let her know and remind her that the chalk sidewalk art should be ready for another look. We had another look and they were impressive as usual.

Palo Alto Art Festival Chalk Art Palo Alto Art Festival Chalk Art
Some probably won't be finished with les than an hour left to do it. Unfortunately, some of the work was modified by shadows so bad photos. Sorry. The picture above right was good enough to post wven with the bad shadow.

Palo Alto Art Festival Chalk Art Palo Alto Art Festival Chalk Art
I loke the polar bears but it looks simpler than it must be to do. At one end of the street there is a young artist area.

Lou had been slow cooking some pepper steak for dinner. She used some peppers we get a the Iranian market in Mountain View. The peppers are small mild green peppers. It's the same market where we get our Mediterranean yogurt. We find interesting items all over and if we like it we return especially for it. This market has two specialties.

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