Birthday fun

It is almost my birthday, with covid concerns (and also the tough to predict baseball schedule - GO ASTROS!)  I did not try to put together any big plans, but very happily celebrated with my husband on Saturday.

The winery we are members of has built out a new location, including vines!  As part of our membership, we were able to enjoy a bottle of wine and a chef-created charcuterie tray in their outdoor area.  It was a great way to spend the afternoon and to show Kevin the winery (I've seen it a few times, both with curbside wine pick up and popping in once they allowed visitors inside, but it was his first trip and my longest).

the item that looks like raisins are tart cherries - and they are delicious, as are the spanish almonds and the other meats and cheeses we forgot to ask about.  wine is a sauvignon blanc.

The winery has chickens to keep bugs off the vines, they are funny to watch.  They also look to keep the chef's well stocked with eggs!  We had a scary moment when a hawk seemed to be hunting them.  The chickens hid, and other members made sure the owners at least knew they need to keep an eye on it. 

We were also able to watch some demolition in process across the street - interesting reminder we are still in the city. I am not sure what the building was that they are demolishing but they have been busy (pretty sure it used to look like the one on the left).  We will have to see what it looks like next time we go.  If you find yourself in west Houston, go check out Nice Winery!

Vacation - eating

This post is still a work in progress, but trying to capture the places we ate (or considered)

Ouray, Colorado

Red Mountain Brewing -- we actually went here twice; sitting at the bar once and outside once.  try the red ale or everybody's ale; good menu

The Outlaw -- we also ate here twice; lunch menu is pretty small but dinner menu was really nice to have some options besides burger/sandwich/pizza (K and I each had salads and pasta)

Ouray Brewery -- only burgers, but again rooftop views

Imogene Bar - they have food, but we only got drinks here, the rooftop bar gives some nice views

Goldbelt

Mineshaft -- we did not eat here, though we planned to, but it seemed more like an eating area connected to a motel than a "restaurant" and "tiki bar"..it may be amazing, but we chose to go elsewhere

I wish we'd eaten at the Thai place, but it just seemed too hot - it was always busy!

Distillery - we did not get there, it was not open the days we had time to go - check the schedule and plan accordingly

Other towns

Brown Dog Pizza - Telluride, CO   - they are only open for takeout right now, which is a shame since we'd really liked this place the last time we were in town; still a good pizza - and we could get beer to go too.

Joe's Pasta House  - Albuquerque, NM  - one of our best meals of the trip; great Italian food

Bricktown Tap House & Kitchen -  Wichita Falls, TX -- we actually ate here twice, and had pizza both times.   We got the honey on the side the second time, but it came too late to try it ON the pizza, we had it with just remaining crust.  I need to try this 'honey on a pizza' craze and see if I like it.

We also had our share of fast food (Whataburger, etc), but tried to eat local when we could.

Vacation - offroading

We planned this trip to be able to offroad, and offroad we did!

I am very glad my brother decided to join us, as it is more fun (and safer) to offroad with another person (and another car), and we were happy to let him take the lead on many of the trails.

Kevin and I did Yankee Boy Basin on our own (my brother had not arrived), and then did 2 days of offroading together.   (my brother did YBB by himself after we left, and oops - we thought we told him we stopped before the top, but he went up to the top thinking we'd already done it with no problem.

We brought radios so we could communicate between the cars and I was working as navigator for both vehicles.

Our days of offroading with my brother:

1) Last Dollar Road  (to Telluride) and Imogene Pass back from Telluride to Ouray

2) Engineer Pass and part of the Alpine Loop (we'd wanted to do the whole thing, but thought better of it after seeing how long - time and concentration wise - the first day together took.)   

All the views were great, but i would NOT do the start of Engineer Pass again -- the first 5 miles were so torn up from ATVs it was just rocky and bumpy (and I thought several times we'd not be able to make it through...but slow and steady we did).

We saw some amazing sites, and even got to have lunch overlooking a ghost town (Animas Forks).

The offroading community can be a lot of fun, we would talk to people about what roads they'd taken or mods they'd made, and even asked a woman we'd seen on the trail (we saw her again  in town) if they ever found her brother (they did, but not the day we saw them).    We also had some 'cautionary tales' -- a kid staying at our motel broke his axle on a trail, he had a good attitude about it, but knowing how far from home we were we were sure not to take that trail (we never would, its for "experts" and mentions only take it if you are expecting damage - Poughkeepsie Gulch if you are interested).

My photos don't do any of scenery justice, and I did make sure to stop and just take in the view (and the drier air).

We also visited Box Canyon falls, and even found a used book sale in town -- we found some great finds, I even found a 4WD book we put to immediate use.

Vacation 2021

We had a great summer vacation -- part of me wishes I could do the "what I did on my summer vacation" presentation now (that I hated as a kid!).

We went back to Colorado to enjoy the mountains and do a good amount of off-roading, and while it was warmer than we wanted it to be, we had a great trip.

I had intended to take notes about what we did each day, but only managed to do it our first full day in Ouray.  

I will try to fill in what we did (and where we ate - as that is what I look at to share with others).  I will break it into several posts.

The first couple of days of the trip were mostly just *lots of driving* - we decided to break it into more days this time - we left late morning after we'd boarded the dogs, and had 2 nights on the road (Wichita Falls, Albuquerque) rather than trying to have only one night on the road.

After arriving in Ouray, Colorado, we needed a break from driving, so for our first full day we took in some of the sites in town.

We hiked up to see Cascade Falls....the elevation is no joke. We did learn our lesson from last time - we parked in the parking lot and then hiked up to the falls (years ago, we tried to walk there from our hotel  - our sea level lungs were not having it). It is a great waterfall, and a short hike. A family who had hiked up there was having a picnic, and their dog ate the dad's sandwich while he was handing out the others....poor puppy, and poor dad who had no lunch.  We also visited the Ouray County Historical Museum -- if you go, take my advice and start in the basement (the mining exhibits are really interesting and unique to the area), I went to the basement last (first floor, then second, then basement) and wish I'd started at the bottom to have more time in that area. I thought it was an old house, turns out it was built as a hospital (and ran as one until the law said it had to have an elevator to continue).

We had really good Italian food that night, at a place called Bon Ton, we were lucky to have read that reservations were recommended.  We saw many people turned away since they were booked that night.  I am not sure how much of that is that they are always booked vs staffing challenges coming out of COVID (we saw several examples of that throughout our trip).  

I love that the town is small enough that we could walk up to Main street from our hotel to eat/shop/just see the town.  We did that nearly every evening.

This blog has already come in handy as I was able to search back and find when our last trip to Ouray was and the name of the first off-road trail we took (in a rental car), so we could find and do it again - Last Dollar Road.

COVID one year later

I keep finding myself wondering how have we been living in COVID reality for a year AND how has it only been one year?   It seems so much longer in many ways.

This week March 12 makes it one year since COVID became very real (and close to home) for me in ways that the Houston Rodeo closure, NBA games stopping, and all the national headlines can't match....

It was Thursday of Spring Break for my university, and all staff had Friday off.

We had a last minute 4pm meeting to discuss what it would mean to extend spring break a week and shift all classes online, they needed input from all perspectives. It was a surreal meeting to be having, and I remember that a few top level folks were out or off-campus that day and had to try to call/video call in (if you had told me that was how all my meetings were to be conducted for the next year...I don't know if I'd have believed it). 

The meeting went late, and I met my hubby (on his spring break) for dinner, and just remember trying to make sense of it all. After dinner I went to try to buy some extra food before everything closed. I went to a Target right next door and was not expecting to already have hurricane-prep level bare shelves.

One year later, I am really fortunate to be able to say that my family is still safe and well, and definitely missing time together.    Video calls help, but they are not the same.    

I also know how fortunate I am to be able to have kept my job, and found some good things about working from home -- though I do hope to one day make my dining room a dining room again....

We are not at the end of it, but knowing that we have hit 100 million vaccine shots given gives me hope.