Catching up in San Francisco

I've said it before, I was really lucky to have the chance to travel to Yosemite last week on business.  I was also lucky to be able to find time to visit some good friends along the way, including Brian McGowan, who was stationed in Berlin with me way back when.

Brian keeps a blog, which is in the blog roll column to the left, called Breakfast at Epiphany's (link:  http://breakfastatepiphany.blogspot.com/2010/07/dotties-true-blue-cafe.html) - he's already got a post up there about our trip to one of his favorites, Dottie's True Blue Cafe.  If you are planning a trip to SFO the blog is something you need to check in advance to make sure you start the day right with your most important meal.

Brian was a great sport and we had fun catching up on old times while sightseeing around the city - more to follow.  But first, let's get down to business. 

Brian referred me to the specials board for some choice breakfast selections - he picked the Portobello Frittata, and I had the black bean cakes with two eggs over easy.  I expect food to be good in San Francisco and have rarely been dissappointed there - and Dottie's delivered and then some.  Categorically, those were the best black bean cakes I have ever eaten!

Using his trademarked Glen Bacon scale, Brian gave his frittata a high rating of 7.5 - I gave my black bean cakes a 7.1.  It was truly a good breakfast and prepared us for the grueling trip to Sausalito and Tiberon to follow!

Yosemite Second Day - Post 3

We took a couple of detours going back to our hotel from the Valley on day 2.  I am going to start by posting on the second of those detours - a drive up to Glacier Point, which is as advertised:  some of the most awe inspiring views on the planet.

For the most part, I am going to let the photos do the talking.  Here is a link to the Glacier Point article on Wikipedia, if you want to read more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glacier_Point

In the first photo, the main landmarks visible are the Half Dome (click on the Half Dome label in the left column for the story of a hike Chris and I did in 2005), then Vernal Falls, the lower of the two waterfalls, and Nevada Falls, the upper falls visible here.  The valley they emerge from - by the way, they are both on the Merced River - is called the Giant Staircase, the result of glacial action approximately 20,000 years ago.

Below is a look to the west in the Valley.  The stone here is famous, it was featured in the Ken Burns films.  Also, another look at the Half Dome, washed in golden light.

The last two photos are taken looking down into the main part of Yosemite Valley.  In the first, the Ahwahnee Hotel is visible, in the second the Happy Isles parking lot is visible.  The trailhead to the cable route described in the Half Dome hike posts starts there.

A second point of interest in the Happy Isles photo is the light colored stone visible below.  This part of the mountain has had several significant rock falls over the last 10 years, including some fatalities.  Part of Curry Village, one of the larger lodging facilities in the Park, is closed due to the danger.

Glacier Point is approximately 7,400 feet above sea level, or about 3,000 feet above the Valley floor. 

I Know I Look Like A Tool

But for some reason you find that you are a little envious.

The reason?  Because this is what I drove by to get to work today.

We were working most of the day on parking lots and drive ways, so we had to wear the high visibility gear.

Here is an action photo of a pothole I had previous assessed.

Also you can seen that the new Vasques are working out...here's a shot out to the AOA gang! 

Yosemite Second Day - Post 2

Still waiting on some photos.  Here are a couple from the start of the day, as we first arrived at Yosemite Valley.  Eventually, when the remainder arrive, I will have a few more to put up.

These are of Bridal Veil Falls and El Cap. 

Also, while we were stopped, I caught site of this seasonal fall to the west of El Cap.  I'll have to look it up and see what its name is, and any other details I can find.

Yosemite Second Day - Post 1

There is a bit of a delay waiting for my photos to upload from my mobile phone to my email account, and the mobile blogger plan has crashed and burned.  All fingers point to AT&T.

In the meantime, at least one of my early photos made it through - this one of Yosemite Falls.  We spent the day working in the Yosemite Lodge area, and as it turns out, this view was right in front of us in the parking lot we chose.  I didn't even notice the Falls were straight ahead of us until we were unloading the trunk.  You may have to click on the image to see the Falls through the trees.

Yosemite Falls is one of the iconic sites of the Valley.  I have been here before, in 2002 with Mary and again in 2005 when Chris and I hiked the Half Dome - but both of those were late summer visits, and there was no water coming over the Falls, as they often go dry after all the snow melts.  This is early enough that they still are flowing strongly.

The height of the Falls is over 2,400 feet, and there are three stages.  At the top, you have the first stage, which is about 1,400 feet, then the second stage which is actually a series of cataracts, amost 700 feet, and the third stgage for the balance.  There is a great accessible trail leading up to the base, and you can hike a good way up, to the top of the second stage.

I have more photos coming, in fact my phone is almost out of memory.  Hope to get these up soon!

A few more Farmers' Market Photos

Well, my AT&T account must be logjammed, or the aol account where I send the photos is.  So I am waiting for a few more Yosemite photos.  In the meantime I received three more of the farmers' market photos from the other day I will go ahead and post now...

First, everybody seemed to have a lot of these squash and/or cucmbers the other day.  There were two or three kinds that were spiny or ribbed.  Looked pretty interesting.

Also, here is a Tofu stand.  We don't see those around much on the east coast.

The last shot is the sign on the booth from one of the family farms.  I think these are probably pretty big operations at the end of the day.

Yosemite First Day - Part 2

Here are some more photos from the first day, ending with the same shot in the late afternoon that I started with in the morning.  We had a long midday ride over to White Wolf as part of the days work load.  I have some shots of that campground I'll post later in the week.  The wide out view of the Valley is from the overlook on the highway to White Wolf, the other is from the "Tunnel View" parking area.

Yosemite First Day - Part 1

My colleagues are trying to roust the old guy out onto the road by 6:15.  Actually, that's important, as there is construction between here and there - and if we get on the way earlier we miss delays from it.  Still, I am lobbying for a Starbucks stop this morning.

I'll just post photos today without much text as a result.  In roughly chronological order - with the first Valley View from our arrival and the last Valley View as we were leaving the Park.  We're keeping pretty busy and I am finding the perspective of having all these icons everywhere you look when you pause from taking notes to be a pretty interesting experience.

Cheese Please

Today, a last post about the farmers' market in Mountain View, following up on my last post yesterday.

One of the booths featured some small herd cheese cooperative group - photo of the booth here, and link to the group and farms below. 

Now, I brought brochures for two of the groups home with me, so I will summarize from the first, which was Bravo Farms.  Their offerings include:  premium white cheddar, western sage cheddar, chipotle cheddar, jalapeno cheddar, creamy pepper jack, silver mountain (aged raw milk cheddar with olive oil rub), gouda reserve, tulare cannoball (aged edam), and swiss racelett.  They write that these are all natural cheeses, made frow raw milk, vegetarian approve...and get this - "lactose intolerant safe."  Not to mention, 100% hand made.

No further details on that lactose intolerant safe item.

Now the second farm I have materials from, Pedroxo, has more of a personal story so I am just going to repeat the whole thing here as a quote:

"Tim's passion for having a small herd of cows grazing on permanent pasture is our inspiration for making farmstead cheeses that let the quality of the milk and variety of grasses in the pasture permeate every bite. Tim is a third generation dairy farmer. In 1996 he and his wife, Jill, bought their own small herd of Jersey and Holstein cows. Two years later they made a life altering decision and moved their cows and family to the small northern sacramento Valley town of Orland to purchase their own dairy and cheese making facility. They both learned how to make a Gouda-style cheese from the former owners, and their first two cheeses were born-Northern Gold, and Black Butte Reseve. Their education in cheese was just beginning! Over the years they have had the opportunity to glean tips and techniques from some of the best in the industry. The newest addition to their cheese family is Blondie's Best (named for the family's favorite show cow.) Our cows are the reason we make cheese. They love living on the pasture and spend all day every day out on green grass. Our mild winters mean grasses grow year round, but the particular types of grasses growing each season make the flavor of our cheeses vary from season to season. Spring grasses are celebrated in our premier cheese, Black Butte Reserve.

Tim continues to milk and manage his herd of Jerseys and Holsteins, and is passionate about growing the best pasture possible for the family’s cows. The “kids,” Tom and Laura, are in high school, but each plays a special part in the family business. They help outside with farm chores, and they also take some of the cows to fairs and have won champion many times.

We Pedrozos strive to live and grow sustainably. It is important to us to be able to remain family-owned and continue to produce high-quality, great-tasting cheeses without compromise. It is with these beliefs and goals that we are proud to offer you our family of farmstead cheeses."

I don't know boo about making cheese or keeping cows.  But I kind of like the idea.


http://www.gorealmilk.com/About.html

Visiting Friends in Mountain View

First stop on the road trip this week, I was able to stop by and visit Cathy and Amelie in Mountain View.  Or Sunnyvale.  Or Cupertino.  (The towns blurred together a little on me).

Besides a nice visit and meeting Amelie for the first time, we also made time to visit the Farmers' Market - a big Sunday morning one near the Mountain View train station.  Amelie had a great time (as did the adults) sampling all the in season fruits, such as peaches, plums, nectarines...she even tried some dried apricots (one of my two purchases - I picked the sulphur free variety - also got some fresh pickles).

Here are a bunch of photo highlights from walking around the market and enjoying the incredible sunny day.  What a great idea, Cathy!

Afterwards, we stopped for a bite at a little cafe near the market.  Besides some great falafel and baklava, we met the nicest homeless man I think I have ever encountered.  He offered quite a bit of advice - for a casual meeting and considering he was a homeless man - on childrearing.  I forget, did we thank him?

In any case, a nice opening day for the road trip, and thanks again, Cathy, for the hospitality!

"High" from Gilroy

If I haven't mentioned it, I >heart< California.  We have so many good friends out here up and down the coast.

On Sunday, I visited Cathy and Amelie in Mountain View - posts to follow, and I visited an old friend Dave in Gilroy. 

When I first called Dave, I suggested we stop for coffee.  He gave me an address...turns out, it was the shopping center with the medical pot store. 

Well, the coffee shop was at the other end of the strip mall. 

They wouldn't let us in to get tee-shirts - I guess Dave forgot his scrips or something - so we settled for this sun-streaked photo outside. 

Good times!

Mobile blogging

During the trip this week, I am going to try and post from my phone a few times.  This will probably mean single picture messages without a lot of text.  The old Moto Razr is showing some wear and tear.

Incidentally, the outbound itinerary is BWI/DEN/OAK, then Sunnyvale, Gilroy, and ultimately, Yosemite.

Will keep you posted best I can.

Gearing up for Yosemite

When I first got news of the pending assignment to Yosemite, I decided first thing was to get some new hiking shoes, since I knew I would need them for what promised to be a lot of walking around, and standing, while we fill out reports. So I talked to Howard at AOA and we decided on some Vasques…which have to be special ordered in my size.

These are actually VST trail running shoes. Very functional and stylish.

Finally picked them up last week and have broken them in with about 10 miles of walking, including the Storybook Trail in Massanutten and a couple of round trips to the office.

Turns out, I’ll need some heavy duty shoes in some cases, and they recommend steel toes, according to the project safety plan. And a safety vest, a hard hat, and some protective eyewear. The team is providing most of this equipment, along with GPS and some other special items, which I will post about later. I am still looking for the shoes.

I know I haven’t said yet what I will be doing on the trip, but we’ll get to that.

I’m a consultant, you know – most of the time it is about the knife and fork, but sometimes, it’s about the gear. They don’t send the big guy out for this stuff as much as they used to, so this is a real treat for me. The important thing is, I’ll be able to wear the new Vasques for most of the time, and I am looking forward to it.

The Tech 4-0 Trailheader - a Tech-Watch Geek guest post

Today, I'm re-posting from Gary's gear blog (  http://runtechinthevalley.blogspot.com/ ) - he's been using a Tech 4-0 watch on his adventures and recently put up a review post.  With his permission, I edited it slightly to fit my blog.

Gary's blog is a companion blog to Howard's Adventures in the Valley blog, which is  here:   http://adventuresinthevalley.blogspot.com/

Although they have the watch in the store in Luray, for reference, I have an Amazon link at the end of the post.

"I am going to blog about the gear that I personally use for running and cycling here in the Shenandoah Valley, what I like, don't like and why. These are just my personal opinions. I am a triathlete (for a number of years with two ironman races under my belt) and have recently started trail running and now adventure racing. I hope this blog can be helpful to anyone who is looking at gear and equipment for being outdoors.

The first piece of equipment I will talk about is the Tech 40 Traileader Pro watch. I had been using the Freestyle Nomad and the first thing that I noticed about the Traileader was that it is noticeably lighter on the wrist than the Nomad. As with all of these multi-function high tech watches the learning curve is a little steep, for me anyway. It took me about 3 hours to get the watch set up and using it in a basic way. The pictures in the directions do not match the watch face so it is a little confusing.

The Traileader has two menus, a time menu and a trail menu. Once you get the hang of it you can switch back and forth fairly easily. On the time menu you can run through the altitude, barometric pressure, and temperature quickly without having to go into the trail menu. It also has a running distance/running time mode which I really like. No more pedometers! The watch face is large which I like also because I can read it without having to need my reading glasses.

All in all I prefer the Traileader over the Nomad and it is now my Adventure watch.

"Thrive Outside"
 

Upcoming Adventures

The gang at AOA have a couple of blogs that I have been enjoying quite a bit lately - one is adventure oriented and the other gear oriented.  Both are in my blog roll to the left.

I'm going to borrow one of Gary's posts about his Tech 4-0 watch later this week for the Tech-watch Geek series.  And Howard posted about a training ride they did the other night in preparation for a twenty-four hour adventure race coming up...

http://adventuresinthevalley.blogspot.com/2010/07/adventure-race-gear-shake-down.html

Looks like I have a couple of adventures coming up myself.  First, next week I have a work assignment in Yosemite.  I won't get to do the famous cable route, shown here from Chris's and my hike in 2005 (click to enlarge-those are people), but I count myself lucky on this one and will work above and beyond to get the deliverable right - there could be some downstream projects at other National Parks.  Way cool.

And my hiking group - we've done Signal Knob and Duncan Knob in Massanutten, as well as a hike in Shenandoah National Park - is trying to put together a wilderness overnighter in Dolly Sods (link is  http://fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5090664.pdf ), an adventure that is going to test the limits of what I've experienced on our hikes and adventures.

But I'm looking forward to these...as they say at AOA:  "Thrive Outside."

Eggplant recipe #3 - a la Jandy

For the third in this emerging series of eggplant recipes, I’m sharing one from my friend Jandy, one of my USC classmates in Southern California. On Facebook the other day she told me she’d tried this one a few weeks ago and the family enjoyed it – she is also trying additional ingredients to make it her own.


I used a photo from the following link – many readers will recognize this dish from the Disney Pixar movie “Ratatouille.” Apparently the origin of the dish is Turkey, where it is known at Confit Byaldi.

http://www.inuyaki.com/archives/101

The article there references a previous publication of the eggplant recipe in the New York Times.

“For ‘piperade’ I also roasted tomatoes with bell peppers, and I added a lot more garlic (we are garlic lovers) and minced carrots into it. And three in more kinds of herbs: coriander, tumeric, etc., something I have in my panty. And a little bit of white wine.

Steve and I like it very much! But I still can’t make my daughter eat it…she at all kinds of vegetables when she was younger; now she’s picky.”

The other day, I mentioned getting interested in eggplant again after a chat in Chuck’s kitchen in Luray, as he peeled and sliced one for some dish. I’ve been experimenting with a stewed version of ratatouille, and the reader Purple Lady shared a refreshing version made with olive tapenade and yogurt sauce the other day. Mary also has a recipe I’ll have to look up if I continue the series, and I might refer to “Simply in Season” or the Mennonite Recipes of the Shenandoah Valley to round this out.

Maybe it’s too early to say “love the eggplant” but it is definitely growing on me.

Clicking on the “eggplant” label below will take you to the other posts with recipes.

Update on the GWNF's Storybook Trail

My theme quote for breakfast at New Market's Southern Kitchen is now, "I'm not in it for the bread.  I'm in it for the gravy."  This is because they will substitute the toast that normally comes with the western omelet for biscuits.  Then you can get the side order of sausage gravy to go with it...

That's how we started off our Sunday morning this weekend.  The Southern Kitchen is a favorite I have written about before, and even though they are in New Market, the posts are filed under the "Page County Restaurants" label.

But the real story of this post is that we stopped off on the way back to take a short hike along the Story Book Trail - a little day hike to an overlook just off Crissman Hollow Road in GWNF.  We had a couple of nice treats there:  the view was clear, and the path has had some upgrades done to it recently.  It was a very pleasant short walk.

Mary spotted this little black rat snake - well, a four feet it was little in terms of only being half the size of the one she kept finding in the laundry room two years ago - you can just see its head on the rock near the center of the photo.  No dry heaves for her this time, as she found that she is comfortable encountering snakes in their habitat, but prefers not to find them in the house.

http://hawksbillcabin.blogspot.com/2008/04/snake-in-laundry.html

I actually wanted to make the stop and get out for a walk on Sunday because I have some new Vasque VST trail runners from AOA I wanted to break in - more about those later in the week.

Eggplant recipe #2

Here's another eggplant recipe from "Purple Lady" - thanks for sharing!  Mary and I are going to try this soonl.

I do a slightly different style, you may like. Chop the veggies, saute in sesame seed oil,add fresh basil and a little oregano,at the last minute. In a separate bowl, mix olive tamponade with Greek style yogurt. Then drizzle the veggies with the yogurt mixture.


Also, she tells me that the Sustainable Shenandoah group (I have a link to their blog in the left hand column) will have heirloom tomatoes coming in soon. 
 
Other recipes are welcome here.  I haven't been much of an eggplant fan in the past (I had a bad experience with eggplant parmesian in Paris in 1984 and kind of gave up on them), but this spring I was talking with Chuck at Main Street in Luray and watched him put together a dish - I got interested, so now we're eating eggplant. 
 
That's life baby, you know?

Parting Shot

With last weekend being the first we could use the pool, as we did our put-away tasks on Sunday evening I found my eyes wandering back to the hole in the ground we poor money into.  It looks fabulous and I can't hardly take my eyes off of it.

But the outside lifestyle that we'll be enjoying now that the summer is in full swing means we have a lot of accessories out on the brick terrace and down by the pool.  Mainly they are stowable camp chairs and floaty things, but also there's the grill, and if the temps happen to get into the 60's at night I might bring out the firepit.

On Saturday mornings the weekend begins with a big pool cleanup, I've written about it before.  We run Dude, the 'bot, take the pool brush around the sides and bottom, clean the traps, put in any additional needed chemicals, etc.

On the back side, Sunday nights, we also close out by running the 'bot, and repeating those cleaning steps.  Generally it means the pool is ready to enjoy just about anytime with only a few minutes of prep.

A Farmers Market Dinner

By the time July comes around, there's a lot to offer at the Luray Farmers Market.  Here's a sampling of the take from last weekend - for vegetables, three kinds of eggplants, two kinds of squash, new potatoes; an apple pie; and not shown, a 2.5 brisket that I will learn to use my new smoker with.  We stopped by Main Street Bakery afterwards for the oatmeal loaf shown here.

We invited our friends Steve and Noelle over for dinner - we had some New York strips that I had been saving and we paired those up with the produce.  We were able to enjoy a North Mountain white and the Wisteria Norton - both local vineyards - for libations.  Here's what I did with the eggplant and squash...

Jim's Evolving Market Ratatouille
1 traditional eggplant (the big purple one); three petit pan squashes; half an onion, garlic, olive oil, a cup of white wine, a 15 ounce can of diced tomatoes (or fresh if they're in), Herbs de Provence, and salt and pepper)

Simmer the onion in a pot with enough olive oil to cover the bottom.  Peel the eggplant (Mary says you have to press it with kosher salt to get the bitterness out - I follow this step, you may not), then slice into quarter-inch slices.  Slice the squash as well.  Once the onions have softened up, add the garlic and tomatoes. Once they are warmed up and mixed together, add the squash, white wine, and herb de provence (this is a savory blend of spices, so go carefully with it, I add a bit at a time).  Also add the salt and pepper, not much, and to your own taste.  Then cook until the vegetables soften, but still hold their shape.  You may want to add a little sugar and more salt and pepper to bring up the flavor.  The whole shebang takes about 15 minutes in the pot, serve it as a side dish.  This recipe is giving about 6 servings.

Now, as I mentioned, I am continuing to develop this recipe, which I originally put together on a whim.  I think I would like more tomatoes in the next batch, since they will be coming in soon enough.  And if I do that, probably can taper off a little on the h de p.  But it's coming along - I've made this three times and so far no complaints...the first time I did it, I used Busta Browne's spicy catsup sauce, lightly brushed on the eggplant...that left us hankering for more tomato so I moved up the the current amount, but we're hankering for more, and I want fresh from the garden tomatoes in the next batch.

Now, as far as the little purple eggplants go, here's what Mary did with them last night - she sliced them in half, rubbed some olive oil on the exposed flesh, spinked sea salt and fresh ground pepper, and grilled face down.  They came out fantastic - you eat them right from the skin.  They are small enough you'll need a couple, the four we had made about two servings.  This is definitely something we'll try again - thanks to David and Heather for the suggestion.

We asked Chuck at Main Street what he would do with them.  He thought for a minute, and came up with an idea for baba ghanoush...grill the eggplant whole. When they are done, cut off the end and squeeze it like a tube of toothpaste right onto toasted foccacia...now that sounds like a fresh summer treat, doesn't it?

Speaking of Farmers Market Dinners - Luray's Mimslyn Inn is also giving it a try on alternating Friday's this summer.  Here's the poster - more details on their website.  Many of our friends from the market provide the ingredients...we're looking forward to having a chance to check it out soon. 

Update on the Wranglers

Here we are already at the beginning of July, and I haven’t had a chance to catch a Luray Wranglers game – much less put up a post about the Valley Baseball League (VBL). I realized this last week as Mary and I sat in the Artisans Café in Luray and two players rushed in for a last minute burger before their game.


With travel and deadlines for the next three weeks, I’ll be hard pressed to be able to take in a game before the last weekend of the month – but I’m lucky in this regard, as this year’s 44 game schedule includes a couple late home games on July 29, 30, and August 2. It seems like I’ll have to target one of these.

Now, according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_Baseball_League ), the VBL was formed in 1923 and sanctioned by the NCAA in 1961. The NCAA is not involved directly in the league, but is a source of the rules, which include the use of wooden bats. It’s currently comprised of 11 teams, but it has had 12 teams in the past and expects to be at that level again next year.

Current standings (from http://www.valleyleaguebaseball.com/seasons/2010/standings ) show a three way tie for first place: Front Royal, Haymarket, and Luray. Of course, Luray is our “home” team, so we’ll be cheering for them. They’ve done very well over the last few years that we’ve been going out to Hawksbill Cabin.

A final note for now: in the June issue of The Mountain Courier, a monthly shoppers’ paper published in the North Branch valley, the Luray Wranglers’ Bulldog Field was highlighted:

…Bulldog Field, located at the intersection of US Highway 211 and US Highway 340 in Luray. The park is also home for the Luray High School athletic teams. Fans at Rebel Park in New Market look at the same mountains…except from the opposite side.

There’s one more resource for tracking the VBL – probably the most enthusiastic, passionate, and even complete coverage. It is the “All Things Valley League” blog at http://allthingsvalleyleague.typepad.com/ . You can spend hours at this site reading on the successes and stories of VBL players, staff and families. I recently spied a draft history that I want to go back and check out – Alex Wimmers, a 2008 member of the Luray Wranglers, was a first round draft pick this year.

We’ve got to make it to a game. So we’ll plan on that Friday night game at the end of August if not sooner – and I’ll keep you posted.

Had a great 4th

We celebrated the Fourth of July at Hawksbill Cabin this year.  For a small community, Page County offers a wealth of opportunities to celebrate, including the Town of Stanley "Homecoming" - which features a parade, carnival, and fireworks, the Coors-Miller company picnic at the Hawksbill Pool (a private event, but the fireworks are open to the public and walking distance from the house), and the Town of Luray's event along the Hawksbill Greenway.

Since we were having our neighbors over on the 3rd for a dinner, we missed the Town of Stanley event and went into Luray on the 4th.  We'd heard some friends were gathering at the Victorian Inn (link below), where you can watch the fireworks from the front porch - the photo highlights the view.

There is new management at the "Vic" as it's now being called.  Dave and Val and their family are running the show here and doing a great job.  We've been for dinner a couple of times - on some nights there is full-fare menu service, but so far on the nights we've been there it was buffet style.

On the Fourth, the buffet included BBQ ribs and chicken, cole slaw, potato salad, and corn on the cob.  Mary had the strawberry shortcake for desert (we took a walk down to the town festivities, where my desert was a small cone of butter pecan) - the shortcake was homemade by Val.  Dinner was awesome, as it was the previous time, and it's a great value too.

The big surprise at the Vic was all the friends and neighbors we ended up seeing there - of course there were Micky and Candy, who had told about seeing the fireworks from here, but also the Appalachian Outdoors Adventure gang was there, and Jay and Ryanne from the F-watt group.  We had a nice time visiting, and then when the fireworks began, everybody went out onto the porch and lawn to watch. 

Perfect weather and a wonderful time.  Hope yours was great too!

ADDED November 2010.  The Victorian, under Dave and Val's management, has a new website:  http://www.victorianinnluray.com/

Pool's Open for the 4th!

I posted this on FB earlier in the week...also, emailing between my phone cam and AOL accounts are slow today so I won't be able to get the full before and after effect in this post.  But the Uncle D's team came out earlier this week for the second part of our pool opening, and the results - shown here - are totally inviting!

As I've posted already, our pool opening was delayed due to tree work we wanted to have done.  We finally got under way last week, when the guys took the cover off, reinstalled the pool ladder, did some testing and purging, and got the shock efforts taken care of.

There was algae, and there was a bit of winter detritus in the tool, which we worked to scoop and vaccuum out.  The earlier chores helped make sure this wasn't as bad as last year.

Then on Tuesday, the gang came out to wrap up the effort.  They vaccuumed and brushed, and so the pool is open and ready to go.

We are really looking forward to this!

Luray's Main Street Bakery

For a while now, Mary and I have been adding Luray’s Main Street Bakery to our lunch circuit when we’re in town. You’ll always find something good to eat there, and the company is very pleasant, too, whether you’re visiting with the staff or your neighbors.

The fare always includes fresh baked goods, salads are typically available, and we’ve had some good quiches. A mushroom and shallot deal is coming to mind, but I’ve had the spinach one and a ham and cheese variety as well. There’s locally roasted coffee available, too.

Here are some photos of the daily fare card (note the egg count – since 2003, a lotta eggs! – above the menu) and the display cases inside the store. Also, earlier in the spring, we came by on a day when they had a bunch of fresh rhubarb – they were setting to prep in the kitchen getting it ready for pies and other dishes.