After the day’s wrap-up meeting session, we headed to a restaurant closest to the hotel. It’s Polynesian fare tonight, folks. This is the first course. 🙂
T. G. I. Th.
Category: Fun
Sláinte!
I drove into San Francisco with several colleagues for dinner tonight. I had fresh Dungeness crab, and after dinner we ordered a round of legendary Irish Coffees at The Buena Vista.
Deeee-licious!
The restaurant’s website has instructions on how to make one, if you want to try to make one yourself:
| Buena Vista Irish Coffee | ||
 Fill glass with very hot water to pre-heat, then empty. |
 Pour hot coffee into hot glass until it is about three-quarters full. Drop in two cocktail sugar cubes. |
 Stir until the sugar is thoroughly dissolved. |
 Add full jigger of Irish Whiskey for proper taste and body. |
 Top with a collar of lightly whipped whipping cream by pouring gently over a spoon. |
 Enjoy it while piping hot. |
Good morning.
We headed to the lake yesterday around noon. We have a long list of chores and minor repairs to take care of on the boat, and we schlepped a bunch of tools and supplies out to take care of some of them. Rain was in the forecast, so not a lot of people were out and about.
About 5 o’clock we called it a day and headed out of the slip to anchor out overnight in Arkansas Bend cove. Lori, Dave and Jake joined us on Camelot. We had a very pleasant night but boy did we get rained on. We hunkered down below on one of the boats and played cards until it let up. After the rains blew through it was quite nice. Good breezes through the boat kept us cool.
This morning when I went up into the cockpit this was the view that greeted me. A beautiful Lake Travis sunrise. A good morning, indeed.
Cheers!
Whew, what a long week. Monte has also had a long and HOT week, working in the shop all day, every day this week in 100 degree temps.
I was happy to hear the blender fire up at about 5:30.
TGIF, and have a great weekend everyone!
Perseids raft-up.
It’s Sunday night, and the end of another great weekend. Yesterday my cousin Devitt and Aunt Joanne came over for a breakfast visit with Monte, Julie and I. Monte made french omelettes, Julia Child style. And we tried our hand at a potato recipe that we got from Devitt:
Browned Breakfast Potatoes
Large cast iron skillet
8 oz bacon, cut into 1-2″ pieces
3 large potatoes, peeled and diced into 1/2″ cubes
1 onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
Salt & pepper
Cook bacon, onions and garlic in large cast iron skillet until browned. Discard bacon fat from pan. Add potatoes, salt & pepper. Cook another 10 minutes or so over medium heat on the stovetop. Then place skillet, uncovered, in 425 degree oven for 20 minutes. Lower temperature to 350 and cook for another 10 minutes.
Serve and savor!
Afterwards, Julie headed home to study up for the last final exam of Summer session (good luck!), and we packed for the lake.
We planned to raft-up with friends overnight to watch the Perseids meteor shower. We made it to the cove by about 5pm and set our first anchor on the new boat. It was a good set. We were soon joined by Joe on Prelude, Rory & Greg on Sapphire, Nick, Laurene & Morgan on Kalliopi, and Kurt & Kevin on Dancer. Everyone was tied up by the time the golden hour was upon us. The shot above is of the 5 boats, stern to the sunset. Nirvana is in the middle.
After dinner and stories from the day, everyone grabbed a cushion and laid on the bow of their boats to watch for meteors. It wasn’t a knock-out show, but we did get to see some good ones. The night was peppered with random shouts of “There’s one!” every 10 or 15 minutes.
This morning everyone floated for a while and then people started peeling off at about noon. I’m pleased to report that we got the anchor up with little problem. I am loving the electric windlass to bring up the chain and anchor!
Monte and I sailed ALL afternoon. The breezes started out sluggish but filled in to some great wind that we haven’t seen in a long time on the lake. At about 3:30 we dropped sail and picked up Devitt at Arky cove to take him out for a sail. He did great, taking the helm as Monte and I worked the lines. We dropped him off back at the park around 5:30 and headed back to the marina.
By the time we got home several hours later we were pleasantly exhausted.
I can’t wait to get out there again. Friday soon come!
Incoming.
Have you ever known of a parakeet that comes when you call it? Monte and I think it’s a pretty cool trick. Working from home today, I left Keeto in the kitchen on his perch in the window. My office is all the way on the other side of the house down a hall with several doors off of it. After a while I called Keeto… and aimed the camera at the door. It wasn’t too long that I heard him flapping down the hall and caught a few pics of him coming into my office… landing on my hand a couple seconds later.
The pictures aren’t too good. He repeated the trick a few times and I used a couple of different shutter speeds. This was the best sequence I captured.
It’s a bird… no, it’s a plane… no, it IS a bird. Pretty bird!
Been a long time.
It’s been thirteen days since my last post here. So, this has been my longest break in posting since I started this photoblog over 2 years ago. I’d better catch you all up.
The week before last was busy with work. Monte was working on a project in the woodshop. I had to travel to Raleigh for all of last week. A very long week, indeed. I brought my camera with me, but given my work schedule and meetings every day starting early and ending late, the only interesting subject matter to capture ended up being TV screen shots from the Olympics (especially the women’s gymnastics team gold). I decided to spare you and skip posting those.
While I was in Raleigh last week, Monte closed on the boat. I got home close to midnight Friday night, so Saturday morning I was anxious to get out to the marina.
We moved in Saturday afternoon and slept on the boat for the first time Saturday night. On Sunday morning we took Nirvana out for the first time together. The winds were very light to non-existent, but we had a blast. We raised both sails and ghosted along for a while. Getting Nirvana was a big step for us, but I am very excited about this next phase of our sailing-life journey together. This is a shot that monte took of Nirvana from the water.
At the end of the day we stopped by b-dock for a float. By the time we got home tonight we were both pretty exhausted but somehow found the energy to split up cooking duties to make lamb chops (monte) and risotto (me) for a delicious dinner.
G’nite all!
The old and the new.
The marine survey was scheduled for today. I took the day off work so that I could be there with Monte for it. The marine surveyor was fantastic. He spent about 10 hours on the boat with us, inspecting virtually everything on the boat while explaining how everything worked as he went along. He didn’t find much wrong, and no surprises. So, pending getting the final report from him, I think we will be upgrading from our beloved, homebuilt wooden catboat that we’ve been playing on for the last 8 years, to a big-kid, plastic boat that we will be enjoying for the next 15 or so years. 🙂
Come (rain) dance with me!
It rained again tonight. We got a good dousing this time. I would like more though, so please do a rain dance for Central Texas and the rest of the country that is in dire need of it.
If you don’t have a rain dance of your own, then just dance with Matt. It’s been 4 years since the last one, but he’s just released his latest Dancing video. Check it out on youtube here. I dare you not to smile. 🙂
Pizza night.
We made pizza for dinner tonight. 4 doughs. I didn’t get a picture of the first one – with homemade pesto, olives, and parmesan cheese. Delicious! Pizza 2 was a margherita with homemade sauce with tomatoes from the garden, homegrown basil, and mozzarella cheese. Pizza 3 was red sauce, proscuitto, black olives, onions and mozzarella, and pizza 4 was red sauce, artichoke hearts, red bell peppers, olives and mozzarella cheese.
The best part of pizza night are the leftovers.
Julie and I watched Wanderlust tonight. You guys will just have to watch it and judge for yourselves. 🙂
TGIF!!!!
Just yer average sunset.
We went to the marina to take the 320 out for a sea trial. It was a nice day. Greg & Steve & Kurt came along. It sailed beautifully. Nice boat! We found some issues with the rigging that made lowering the main difficult. We’ve got some homework to do now to see if it is easily addressed or not.
After the sail we floated off b-dock with joe, kurt and barbara. Then dinner at Los Pinos.
This is a shot of the sunset, taken from the marina parking lot. Even with the power lines and lights in the foreground it’s a beauty.
July 4th’s Eve raftup.
I’m off of work for the rest of the week (YAY!). We headed to the lake today for a raftup with friends in Arky south. We’ve got the coolers packed, and the kayak on the trailer, and we’re off!
This is a shot of one of the zinnias out back. They’re so pretty!
Viva la Roja!
We camped out at home today to recharge, and also to watch the Euro2012 championship. Spain vs. Italy. Marty came over to help us cheer on Spain. España did not disappoint, winning 4 – 0 over a strong Italian team.
They have now won 3 World / European championships in a row. It’s building up to be an exciting 2014 world cup in Brazil.
Moving on up?
We went to the lake today early, to finalize an offer we’ve made on a new boat. It’s not a done deal – we still have to take it out for a sea trial and have a marine surveyor inspect it, but if there are not problems found, this may be our new ride in a couple weeks.
We have infinitely enjoyed sailing and playing aboard our unique, homebuilt wooden catboat for eight years. We treasure the friends we have made at the marina in those 8 years, too. We are not ones to make big decisions lightly. But we recently decided to make a move up to a bigger boat, and this is the one that presented itself. If it doesn’t work out, no biggie, we’ll wait for the next one that feels right. If it does work out, I look forward to another 10-15 years of fun aboard this boat on our beautiful lake with our sailing friends.
I’ll keep you posted!
Sheila365 