calherewecome

So here we are at December 31. I am not particularly good at writing prayers and the like. But my good friend, Reb Katherine, is. I received the following from her this morning. I couldn’t agree more. Rev. Katherine is the pastor of the First Congregational Church of Billerica.
 
 

 
 
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The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,300 times in 2013. If it were a cable car, it would take about 38 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

In our family, Tuesday is generally family dinner night. Last night was no different. Our grandson Jonathan brought his parents over for dinner.

The main course was shrimp scampi over fettuccine. Here’s the recipe.

Alas, Jonathan didn’t care for it so much. Not surprised. He preferred the appetizer of pretzel goldfish and peanuts. We thought it was pretty good though.

So we eventually let him down from his high chair to play. Of course he came back when we got out the dessert. He enjoyed the ice cream (Cherry Garcia) and Girl Scout cookies. He got mad at us when we wouldn’t give him any more cookies.

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I’m enjoying my life in California, don’t get me wrong. But there are some things that are not to be found.

Here’s my current list.

1. Cape Cod potato chips. There are some decent substitutes of “kettle cooked” chips. I believe that one can buy them online. I believe that the minimum order is six bags. Of course, shipping not included.

2. Pepperidge Farms Bread. One of my favorite breads is PF’s deli swirl rye. It’s a swirl combination of dark and light ryes. No substitute found out here yet.

3. Dunkin Donuts. One can buy ground DD coffee in the grocery store (but not decaf) and no DD restaurants. Closest substitute is Starbuck’s. I just read today that DD is expanding into SoCal again. WooHoo! STarbucks doesn’t have decaf. One of the local grocery stores has a Starbuck’s in the store and the grocery carts have a place for your cup. Cool.

4. Drive-up windows. Well they do have drive thru’s for MacDonalds, In’n’Out, etc. But not for Starbucks or any other coffee shop. You’d think that in LA where the car is king there’d be a drive thru window for coffee. Go figure.

Here are things that associate with New England that one can get in LA.

Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream

Sam Adams Beer

One more thing. We are looking for a place to buy baclava. Anyone know of a Greek bakery in the San Pedro area?

Later…

I started this Blog back in May. I’ve done 104 posts with most of them happening over the summer.

For the complete report, see https://calherewecome.com/2012/annual-report/

Jor

Autumn has finally arrived. Temperatures are going down. Night time averages in the low 60’s. This morning at 11AM it is 64F. Time to put away the shorts and flip-flops.

You might ask, what about leaves turning color? Not so much. The maple trees outside our condo are turning an ugly shade of brown. Pine trees and palm trees just stay the same. Here’s what I see.

Nothing like the foliage in New England. Not even close. I can still sit outside and enjoy breeze and listen to our artificial stream that runs through the common areas. Just means I need to put on a long sleeve shirt.

So this morning, i have the place all to myself. Paula is off to Zumba class and Mary K is off to the YMCA. I sit, blog and read my Kindle books. Life is good.

Tonight turn your clocks back. I get an extra hour of sleep before we go off to church.

No football this weekend. Patriots are on their bye week.

TTFN

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Location:San Pedro, CA

Another 425 mile day. We left Longmont at about 0900 heading north on I25 to Cheyenne, WY. Still very smoggy. Visibility improved a little bit but still under 7-10 miles. We made good time across the state. No traffic to speak of.

We stopped at a rest stop at Laramie WY. Nice museum and view. Here are a couple of pics.

More pics later.

Stopped for lunch at a truck stop mid state. Tried to check in from FB. Got location not found. You are nowhere. decent burger.

Wyoming is pretty much very barren. Landscape is all sagebrush and sand. Lots of rock formations. Couldn’t get a good view because of the smog. We think that the smog is partially due to wild fires up in Idaho.

We arrived around 6pm in Evanston. Found signs for Best Western with restaurant with bar. Deal. Then we found room with king size bed, love seat, real glasses and coffee mugs for $100 per nite. Very nice.

Tomorrow we have relatively short drive to West Jordan. Only about 175 miles. We will stay 4 days in Utah to visit with Neil. Leave on Monday for Vegas then CA.

I will say this again later. Some time in your life you should take a trip across this country BY car not by airplane. This has been such a great experience for us. We have met so many nice people and seen great landscapes.

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Location:Evanston, WY

Not much planned for today (that I know of). I just need to find the local CVS to pick up Rx and then buy gas.

Tomorrow we head for Memphis, TN. It’s a bit over 400 miles. This is the longest leg of the trip. Our next destination is Salt Lake City, UT to visit Neil and the family. This will probably take 4 or 5 days.

It turns out you can’t take the diagonal northwest to Utah. One either must go west to Dallas and then north through Oklahoma and Kansas, then west to Denver.

So we will head north to Memphis on I55 then on to St Louis. The we turn west on I70. Short visit in Lawrence KS to see one of Paula’s relatives.

So I70 to Denver, then I25 to Cheyenne, WY, then I80 through Wyoming to Utah.

Without further ado here is a youtube clip of Paul Simon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7KL8qf2qG6c&feature=youtube_gdata_player

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Location:Houma, LA

We will be leaving shortly. Stop for gas and then return house key to Janice at CPA. Then stop at Dunkin Donuts for last iced coffee.

Goal for today is to get to Wilmington DE. About 350 miles.

Here’s Willie Nelson video:

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Location:Chelmsford MA