Dec11th: Merry Christmas

Daytime picture

Merry Christmas to everyone! Here is a picture of my nice little tree. With Wendy's help, I was able to find the tree, and some small retro ornaments, lights and old fashioned garland at a couple thrift stores. Great approach to recycling!

Night time picture

 I also was able to purchase this wreath and Matt fixed the lights so they worked. Great fun.

Well I think my blog covers the need for a Christmas letter. So What to do? I decided some pictures of great memories would be the way to go. I will say, I spent far longer looking at pictures than I thought I would and have included a lot!

                                    Merry Christmas from the gang here on Yesterday's Dream :-)

And yes, Cactus Guy is the same one that sat on the kitchen counter at the farm for all of those years!

The famous/infamous cactus gift to Scott in the gift exchange from Johnny. That was the last year we did the gift exchange!

Where did the time go! The grand kids sure loved Grandma and vice versa!

This is going back further than I can recall. I honestly don't remember the mustache!

Santa came to the farm!

I believe this is a picture worth a 1,000 words. Fortunately captured Linda's fun personality.

And this picture captured where Linda got her fun personality from. The best Mother-in- law ever.

It might help to understand my big Christmas tree obsession. When my twin brother Andy and I were kids we were allergic to pine trees. Therefore, our family couldn't have a live Christmas tree. Rather traumatic for us as little kids but my Dad rose to the challenge with artificial trees and a color wheel which he made himself. Child's play given his phenomenal creative and mechanical expertise.

In 2,000, after we moved to our new house with a vaulted ceiling, a friend said, "You know you could get a live fir tree and it would not bother your allergies. Who knew? 

 So I made up for lost time, Linda rolled her eyes and said, "Whatever!" 

Grandma Drouhard was concerned about my leaning but she was all in on the big tree. 

I really believe Linda enjoyed the big trees as much as I did.

We had so many enjoyable Christmas gatherings.

This picture was taken in Encinitas, CA. The fish on the wall was passed to Wendy when Linda and I moved to our trawler. Linda and I purchased the fish in Bobcaygeon, Canada, to put over our fireplace. Bobcaygeon and the fish brings back way more memories than I can count.

Here are a few more pictures/memories.

Wendy Susan and Rebecca constructed several ginger bread houses over the years.

And then there was Aunt Josie's recipe fabulous buttercreams. Very labor intensive and a secret recipe. Matt helped with working the paddles to mix the centers and covering the final balls with chocolate. This batch turned out great. (Not always a given!)

At the farm waiting for the shrimp to come out, followed by a prime rib dinner and presents!

Rebecca wanted a picture of me and my twin brother Andy.You can guess who is whom in the picture. I think I'm the better looking one, and I'm younger! Seriously Steve is on the right, Andy on the left.

A great Christmas present. Browns jerseys. Never give up!

I recall this great Christmas gathering in Cleveland. The whole Franko family attended as I recall.

Being in California I had to include this picture of our deck one Christmas. It was very beautiful and peaceful.

But then it was quite nice in the summer! Linda's brother Tom who gave her a kidney and his Mom are enjoying our back yard on the swing.

Have a very Merry Christmas!

Dec 7th: Fun Thanksgiving and birthday celebrations

We decided to go to Studio City for Thanksgiving. Rebecca has fun dogs, a fun big screen in the back yard and a great kitchen. We knew traffic would be an issue the Wednesday before Thanksgiving so we wanted to be on the road early. Matt had a great idea. He wanted to get his bike ride in before we went to Rebecca's. When I say "Bike Ride" I mean a serious bike ride. He is staying in shape for a major biking trip in Europe, but mostly he just enjoys it. At least I guess so! I still hear Linda saying, "Do you really think he enjoys it?" We both knew he did. At any rate he decided he could ride north for 30 - 35 miles and we could pick him up and continue on to Studio City. It worked out well and we were in Studio City before 11 am.

We invited Jill over Wednesday night for a salmon dinner. Jill really likes my salmon with dill sauce. I also made some mahi mahi that I had caught. It was a great dinner followed by a birthday surprise for me. My birthday is Dec. 5th. Close enough. London was very excited. He kept creeping closer! I loved the eyes on the cupcakes.

Of course London and Trevi got to lick the plates. 

Trevi is not as food oriented as London but she certainly will get her share licking a plate.

Trevi

After dinner we had planned to play video games on the big screen! I only played with Jill once but I am skeptical about her saying she had never played before. She was awesome! The Santa Anna winds had a different plan. The high winds knocked out the power in the neighborhood. Although it was disappointing to miss the video games, it was a nice quiet evening sitting around Rebecca's fireplace with candlelight and just talking.

Thursday morning I started the day with my usual task of walking the dogs. I shouldn't say "Task" because I enjoy walking with them. When I returned the cooking started in earnest. The turkey was ready to go into the oven so that was easy. I also put the green bean casserole together ahead of time so that was also easy, just put it in the oven. 

Our buttermilk brined turkey turned out great. I was responsible for the turkey, green bean casserole, the mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes and gravy. Fortunately my sister Julie gave me a turkey gravy recipe to make ahead of time which was very good! I had the the easy part as far as preparing the feast at Rebecca's because I could get everything ready ahead of time.  Wendy made the dressing,  (stuffing), cranberries, a peach blueberry pie and two pumpkin pies made from scratch! I also provided the Reddi Whip of course!

The dinner was very, very good. I neglected to take pictures of Wendy's pies. They really were the best ever.

We enjoyed eating at Rebecca's Dining room table. 

The Rahns had invited me to a birthday dinner at their yacht club the Saturday after Thanksgiving. I was impressed they knew when my birthday was! They were going to be in Arizona on my actual birthday so we had a second birthday celebration Saturday. It just so happened that the special was bouillabaisse and it was wonderful.

I returned to Encinitas and discovered there was a street fair. I was really kind of worn out but it is in walking distance so I decided I should go. I was glad I went. There were hundreds of vendors with a wide variety of art offerings. My favorite was this one, By Gone Woods. The structures/carvings were very fun.

So it was now after Thanksgiving. Time to put up the Christmas tree I found with Wendy at the  thrift shop. It is a great little tree. The branches are far enough apart to hang many miniature ornaments.

I've had a number of people asking, "What's next?" I plan to stay in Encinitas through December. January 6th I will head to Playa del Carmen to spend 11 days with Cindy and Randy, my boating/Canadian friends. Then I plan to go from Mexico to Marathon and spend most of the winter on Yesterday's Dream. My good friend Mychael is staying on the boat and maintaining, renovating and upgrading the boat. I am anxious to see it. I was invited to join Cindy and Randy and some other Canadian friends for a Mediterranean Cruise at the beginning of May. It starts in Venice stops in Dubrovnik and then travels around the entire cost of Italy ending up at Barcelona. Then I hope to finally return to Guppy in Canada for the summer, again with Cindy and Randy. 

In the Thanksgiving spirit, I am fairly certain it was Cindy and Randy, well really Cindy, but I know Randy agrees, that there is a reason good people find each other. Linda's and my life were enriched so much by Cindy and Randy and so many other family members and friends.. For that I am truly thankful. I am very thankful for the wonderful lives we have shared.

A picture says a thousand words!

Nov. 28th: Enjoying Palm Desert Part 2

 

Karen and Craig sent some additional pictures of our first day hike in Palm Canyon. The pictures are very good so I added them in this blog even though I already covered the first day in the last blog.

The road into the canyon went through this fun opening. The vehicle is the Rahn's Flex.

Palm Canyon Stream & cattails

As we were hiking along the bottom of the canyon we reached the small stream flowing down from the mountains. Of course this time of year it was more like trickling. This stream is what allows the huge palms to thrive. If you look closely, you'll see there are even cattails growing. Amazing, given we were on the edge of the desert! It was significantly hotter when we were out from the shade of the palms. It was wonderful how much the palms kept it cool.

Fortunately for me, the Rahns have a time share in the Villas and invited me for a couple nights. They have had it for I think 17 years, so they saw a lot of growth after getting in on the ground floor. 

Once the sun was almost down it cooled off nicely. The fun continued with a walking tour of the Marriott Resort Hotel grounds. People in the time shares have access to all of the resort amenities. I had no idea how huge this place is. We stayed in building Q (Floor plan left) which has six individual units in it. There are 25 of those buildings each housing 4 to 6 units. So that's around 150 units. Then there are about the same number in the salmon colored buildings which were built later.

View from the balcony

Here is a link that shows pictures of one of the Villas we stayed in. It is very nice with a full kitchen, large living space and two bedroom/two baths, each with its own tub and separate walk in shower, and a very nice balcony overlooking the golf course and mountains. 

 Pics of Villas

The hotel is enormous, 777 rooms and a huge open atrium lobby. As you can imagine, stores, restaurants, bars, etc. Note the little boat in the picture. You can see more pictures at this site. 

Marriott Resort Hotel Pics 

The Rahn's surprised me with a boat ride! It turned out that the little boat in the picture above is available for a boat ride through the small waterway around the hotel. 

They said they knew I was suffering withdrawal from my boat so thought this would help. I never expected to go for a boat ride in the desert! It was a lot of fun.

Black Swan

On our cruise we spotted several black swans. They are permanent residents, why not, what a great place to hang out. 

Nesting black swan

One swan was on her nest in protected fencing. We're told she has six eggs and there is a naturalist on the staff that looks out for all the wildlife. (Wildlife relatively speaking.) 

We ate dinner at a seafood restaurant overlooking the grounds. It was not fancy, comfortable and the food was very good.

Green heron

We also saw some coots, ducks and a green heron. The green heron wouldn't stretch out its neck but at least I got this picture. I really enjoy green herons because they have a very long neck with green coloration on it. But when resting the neck shrinks down a great deal.  I included this link so you can see how it looks with the neck extended. Green Heron Neck Extended

Picture of the canyon below
from about 1/3 of the way up

The next day we went for a Palm Springs cable Tram ride. The cable car is an engineering marvel. Craig and I were able to get some good pictures. Given that the ride up is 2 and 1/2 miles, We could barely see the building at the bottom from the top.

Tram car coming down

We were able to watch a tram car coming down in the distance as we were going up. It looked very tiny.

View close to the top

We could barely see the building at the bottom from the summit.

The tram cars are larger than they look in the pictures. They hold a maximum of 80 people but fortunately they only filled them to 50 people. The tram car floor rotated so everyone gets a 360 degree view on the way up and down. The cars also swing, not a great ride for someone afraid of heights!

The Counterweights and cable system used to drive the tram cars are visible through a window at the top along with some information as to how it works. Relatively simple actually!

Here is a link that provides a lot of the history of the Tram Palm Springs Tram history

When we made it to the summit we started our planned hike. Karen is rather paranoid about mountain lions so she made certain we read the warning sign. There were people around hiking and we weren't going into the deep forest so we all felt pretty safe, well at least Craig and I did. I noticed Karen stayed in between us whenever possible!

Karen remarked, "You know
we'll have to walk back up!"

The landscape is absolutely gorgeous. The trees are huge, the sky is crystal clear and deep blue. The rocks and boulders are very picturesque.

Karen and Craig at
the base of a tall tree

I asked Craig and Karen to walk ahead so I could get a picture that showed how tall the trees are.

Once we descended a very nice concrete path with many switchbacks, we arrived at a very large area of relatively flat terrain. It made the hiking quite comfortable despite the 8,400 foot altitude. We did notice we ran out of breath pretty quickly. 

It was fun looking up while standing by the trunk at the base of these big Sugar Pines. They seemed to climb forever!

Craig took this picture of me at the base of this Sugar Pine. When I saw the

picture I told him I felt like a leprechaun  

Craig and Karen on the trail

Here are a couple more pictures that give you an idea of why we enjoyed the hike so much.

Very impressive rock cliff

Switchback trail to the top

Of course, as Karen remarked, we needed to climb back up to the summit. It was a lot easier going down. Notice how small the people look at the railing on top.

By the time we arrived back at the summit we were hungry. We had planned to eat at the restaurant but the wait was too long. So we got some pizza and a sandwich from the deli like counter. The food was better than I expected, but then we were pretty hungry.

After lunch we toured the visitor center and then climbed more stairs to get above the building to a 360 degree lookout area. There was a nice explanation about the mountain rocks.

It was truly breathtaking! Here are pictures of some of the best views.

Extreme right top behind the trees is Salton Lake

We could see Salton Lake from the summit. The history of the lake is interesting and tragic. You can learn more here. Salton Lake History

Palm Springs and Palm Desert,
(White area above the first level of mountains)

Palm Springs and Palm Desert. Palm Springs and Palm Desert border each other. Palm Springs is an older city which attracted many wealthy people from the L.A. area. The current population of Palm Springs is about 48,000. The city is slowly being updated. Palm Desert is a newer city which continues to grow as an addition to Palm Springs with a population of 54,000.

We enjoyed a relaxed evening after returning to our very comfortable villa. It was a great trip and I decided to return home by driving through the mountains on a scenic highway. Very happy I did.