THOMAS WOLFE MUST HAVE MEANT GOING HOME TO VISIT…

So over Spring Break (from my pottery class…) I made a pilgrimage back to my adopted homeland in Quincy.  Flew into Reno and connected with Ms. Fulton, who graciously hauled my fat butt across Beckwourth Pass and into the good old American and Meadow Valleys.

Now let me state firmly that I still consider Quincy to be the nicest place I have ever lived. There, I said it. That being said, however, if you’re just popping in for a visit… well, there ain’t shit to do or see.  I flew in on a Monday and by late Tuesday I had seen virtually everyone I knew on the street (it took me 45 minutes to get from the Wine Bar to Safeway…) and had food and drink at all my favorite watering holes.  Sadly I didn’t make it to LeCoq, but I have never been there without the lovely Tama and thought I would save that for next time.  I had dinner at Pangaea (probably for the last time unless they improve their menu… say, adding French fries?) but, in truth, most of my recreational time was spent in the Bermuda Triangle that is Quincy Thrift, The Drunk Brush and Timmy’s new taco parlor… if you sit in one spot long enough, the whole world will pass by you…

Luckily I had one of the fleet vehicles from Fulton Motors and could come and go as I pleased. This left me able to drag my ass out of bed in Meadow Valley and soak in hot tub quietude before slowly wending my way into the heart of metroplex.

AND THE MIDDLE CHILD COMES A'CALLIN'...

Shortly after my return from the good old days in Quincy we had a lovely visit from the globetrotting daughter recently back from deepest, darkest Africa.

Since she works on an organic farm in Idaho, we toured most of the local organic grocery stores and Farmers’ Markets so she could compare this and that and buy a small hay wagon full of eatable shrubberies.

We took her to the beach and to Shadowbrook and such, and then, in a moment of casual conversation, it came to light that seeing some honking big redwood trees was well up on her ‘to do’ list.  

Fortunately there is a State Park just up the hill from Santee Cruz and it is just crammed full of the aforementioned ‘honking big redwood trees’ and so into the car we jumped and up the hill we rolled. 

After a false start (dumb driver versus smart phone…) we found ourselves gawking, stiff necked and dumbfounded, at some really old, really tall 2 x 4’s.  A beautiful, sunny day in the woods and a good day was had by all.  

Next visit, the Santa Cruz Mystery Spot…

THE OLD GEEZER GETS OLDER STILL…

Having started this marriage in Southern Idaho it, logically, became a tradition to go somewhere (anywhere) else to celebrate our birthdays… in fact, during those early years, we often celebrated both our birthdays and our antipodal birthdays with ‘away dates’.

This year’s flight of fancy was an overnight visit to that California land of enchantment, Carmel-By-The-$ea.  My what a tiny town it is and my what a large number of Mercedes Benz and Range Rovers…

We found a deal on line at the Carmel Resort Inn… a charming pile of small cottages that began life as a collection of neighboring artist’s studios, slowly acquired by one person and turned into a hostelry.  Fireplace, cute 50’s flavor and a nice, organic breakfast basket delivered to our door in the morning. It is run by a couple who seem to be a displaced Salinas agrarian who no doubt inherited and then sold off the family cabbage patch and invested the money in both the Inn and his mail order Russian bride named Christina (who has taken to the California way of life like nobody’s business).

They let us check in early so we dumped the baggage and headed for the center of town to see what we could see.  Well, even mid-week in the off season, parking was at a premium but we snagged a spot and begin a rather lengthy gallery walk.  Holey moley there are a shitload of art galleries in a four block square.  The number we heard was 110 (down from 175…)  and, in no time at all, they began to look tragically alike.  There were some tasty bits here and there in the California landscape tradition but, really, how much of a need is there for $12,000, life-size bronzes of children playing golf? No, really, life-size. Bronze. A dozen different ones… and they had frighteningly overly large heads…

Whew. Enough art… time for a cold one. A couple of pints of Guinness and a little nosh and we were hoofing it back to the car a step ahead of the metermaid.

We did a drive along the beach (pretty big ocean on one side, pretty big houses on the other…)  A realtor had leaped out of his storefront to let us know that, even though the listing photo we were looking at was reduced to only a million five, houses in Carmel started at $600,000 (that would be that leaning, converted woodshed under the power lines, over by the sewage treatment plant in the neighborhood no doubt known as Carmel-Not-So-Close-By-The-Sea…)

We drove past Clint Eastwood’s ranch but didn’t see him in person or, for that matter, Doris Day or Betty White… now that would have been a birthday treat!

Out of idle curiosity we stopped in at the old Mission San Carlos Borromeo del Rio Carmelo.  These places always have the wackiest gift shops and the lushest, quietest gardens full of flowers and dead holy men.  Besides, on your birthday it is good to see a building (still standing) that was 200 years old before you were even conceived. Puts one’s longevity into perspective rather nicely…

Back to the digs for a couple of gin & tonics, a little television and a nap, then off to dinner. We opted for Flaherty’s, since seafood seemed the logical option when within spitting distance of the briny deep… but then ordered catfish (Tama) and a trout (Me) that grew up about 12 miles from where I did in southern Ideeho.  Well, okay, my fresh water grub was stuffed with bay shrimp and crab so that counts for something.  Toss in some mashed spuds (most likely also from Idaho…) a mess of greens cooked up in cream and port, a bowl of clam chowder, a few more pints of Guinness and a credit card and you have a delightful birthday dinner.

MEAT 'N CHOCOLATE - A MARRIAGE MADE IN HEAVEN

Technically our anniversary was Sunday evening at 11:23 p.m. what with us getting hitched on the vernal equinox and all, eleven years ago.  So we kinda jumped the gun re-affirming our vows on Friday last and, with that attitude still firmly entrenched, we went out a-looking for someplace nice to masticate some grub to honor the occasion.

After some poking around and the reading of on-line menus and such we headed our shoes and taste buds to the top end of Pacific Avenue in the heart of Santa Cruz proper to sample the gustatory offerings of a restaurant named simply “Chocolate”.

What a gem. In spite of the location and its potential high snooty quotient, the place was a delightfully laid-back, nearly down-home eatery where your silverware comes to you in a basket and half the restaurant is “community” tables where someone else chooses your dinner companions for you. You should, in no way, infer from this that we are talking about a grits & gravy or tofu & taste free dining experience.  Even though they only served cage free arugula, fair trade potatoes and organic piggies and such, I was undaunted in my desire to sample their wares. We started with an appetizer of pulled pork in a chocolate barbeque sauce which got me my BBQ fix and thus freed me up to order the fresh tuna, encrusted with coconut and drenched in lime juice.  It came with a slice of potato pie (well, okay, actually potato gatơ, an Italian spud casserole…) and a nice side salad of tossed varietal greens.  Some fresh french bread and a couple of (organic, of course…) beers and I was ready to stay all night. 

Tama ordered the chicken mole to test their skills in the chilies and chocolate department and was more than pleased. This is the kind of place where they cook the chicken slow and low and long in the mole sauce so that each gets the best of the other.  


After we had finally gnawed our way through all that was put before us, we came up trembling before the dessert menu.  We were pretty full of food by this time and everything on the dessert page was “two kinds of chocolate, rolled in a chocolate ganoche, dipped in fudge, sprinkled with fresh grated chocolate and served with whip cream topping and a side of chocolate…” so we slid right past to the back page and ordered 2 cups from the  hot chocolate menu for our dessert.  These came with "two kinds of chocolate rolled in a chocolate…"

We barely made it home alive and can’t wait to go back.

DO YOU LUCY TAKE LASSIE TO BE...

What we figured was, the conference was over on Wednesday and Tama had Thursday & Friday cleared off her calendar, so we tossed our bags on the train and headed down to Portland for a quick visit with the youngest of the familial brood.  We did some boozing and some dining, laughed, drank some more and met Josh’s new room mates and girlfriend.  On Friday afternoon he had to go back to work so we had him toss us out downtown at the Portland Art Museum where we spent a mind-numbing amount of time gawking at an equally mind-numbing amount of art.  Saw some good art, saw some bad art and a fair amount of “art?” art. Stumbling out hungry and thirsty we strolled down a handful of blocks for happy hour treats and brews and then, having a little time to squander before the rush hour crush on public transit, we headed off to 4^th and Couch to the 24 Hour Church of Elvis.

It is, after all, our impending 11^th anniversary this Sunday so what better way to begin the celebration than frittering away 25¢ having Elvis aid us in re-affirming our wedding vows?

A few minutes and we were on our way home content in the knowledge that the universe at large and Elvis in particular understood the depth of breadth of our commitment.

OUT OF THE SKY AND INTO THE DRIZZLE

So, being a good wife, I followed Tama to the Emerald City where she is attending a work related conference for a few days.  A little cogitating showed me that I haven’t been back to Seattle since I moved away 14 years ago, and a couple of days reminded me why.  Okay, like all big cities, there are some things to like.  The trick is to find more of them than things you don’t and that, I think, gets harder the older you become.

Things I like…

I still like the urban skyline, shades of old WPA art prints. And, in spite of any Sunday afternoon filled with throngs of slack-jawed, shuffling Midwesterners, You can’t beat the Pike Street Market for the pure joy of hoofing it thru a place where you can buy fresh anything from cheese to nuts.

I like the effort put into window dressing. Eye catching is important with the fast paced crowd so people throw a little extra at the job.  We passed a clothing store that had maybe a dozen big windows each of them filled with dozens of vintage manual sewing machines… made me stop… ‘course I didn’t buy anything.

I also like the fact that, with so many kinds of restaurants to choose from, there is almost always a second tier of them so you can have “hole-in-the-wall” and not have to hang out in the trendy crowds.

Of course, when you are flying blind, all those choices can also exponentially grow your chances to be disappointed.

Saw some art, most of it very good, and … oops, so much for the things I like about Seattle…

I find that I am no longer amused by all the loony toons wandering the streets, nearly as common as the corner Starbutts.  And while we are at it, why is it that its almost always the street people who jump the light at the cross walk… I mean where, exactly, do they have to be for which they are running late?

I won’t even cover crap like bad urban planning, traffic and swaggering, attitudinal young gangstas.

The conference is over and today the sun finally surfaced so, of course, we are leaving on the choo-choo and on to Portland…

OKAY, SO ANY TOWN WITH FOOD IS A GOOD TOWN...

You know me, I do love to eat.  Seattle does have lots of stuff to eat and, even though we were trapped downtown without personal transportation, we did manage to chew a little too much.  We got in late on Saturday night so we just hit the pub in the basement of the Hotel… fishy chipy Guinness and I was good to go snooze-wise.  Mornings I hit the bakery right across the street of coffee and spanking fresh pastries.

Sunday, Tama only had a short gathering and was out by 3 o’clock so we went all tourista and did the street stalls at Pike Street Market.  Steamed pork buns, pot stickers and BBQ porkie bits eaten standing up, under an awning, watching the rain pour down.

Monday night we hooked up with two old friends from my days of living in Seattle who had been part of an ongoing foursome dinner group.  We met in the hotel bar and started out with copious amounts of alcohol and happy hour appetizers which included some right tasty fresh shrimp and crab leg nachos. This was followed by more alcohol, much laughter, calling of absent parties and a lovely dinner of sesame crusted, lightly seared ahi tuna with goofy greens.

Yesterday, while Tama was shuffling through government regulations etc. I wandered down to the International District (see also: Chinatown) and then off into Pioneer Square for a little lunch.  Coming down a side street I found Marcela’s Creole Cookery where I had a cup of gumbo and a slice of Crawdad Pie… think Thanksgiving dressing made from spicy crawdads and veggies all ladled into a pie crust and baked.  Sorta like a crafish quiche?

Last night we strolled down a few blocks to a good, unpretentious Vietnamese diner for Pho… the classic soup for dinner meal choice.  This is a generous bowl of thick, meaty broth loaded with a big dollop of long, thin rice noodles, assorted chopped veggies, paper thin slices of the meat of your choice and a side dish of sprouts, peppers and fresh Thai basil.  You are always tempted to think, “…just a bowl of soup… I better order a little something else.”  By the end of the evening, as you stare at the half eaten side of egg rolls, you realize that there is a buttload of meal in every bowl.  Never left disappointed, never left hungry…