Dinner with Bruce & Stacy

Last week, after work, Pat and I drove down to Oceanside (about 90 minutes or so south of Long Beach) to meet up with his college roommate Bruce. Bruce, as many of you may remember, was the best man at our wedding. Over the years, we've managed to meet up with Bruce a bit more than some other far-flung friends, and we always enjoy getting together with him. This time, we were excited to finally meet his 16 month-old son and catch up with his wife, Stacy, as well.

I couldn't resist posting a picture of Pat and Bruce back in their glory days at UGA. Pat is in the front row, second from the right. And, Bruce is the last on the right in the second row. Wow--they look so young! Babies...

And, here they are today!

Okay, back to the story:

After an uneventful (which is pretty much an event in itself here in Southern Cal) drive down to Oceanside, we arrived at Breakwater Brewing just in time to meet up with them. We then proceeded to chat, chat, chat for several hours. And their son was super cute and did a great job of amusing himself without many props. The visit was far too brief but we always appreciate friends making an effort to see us (some of you could take a lesson from Bruce and Stacy--you know who you are)!

After dinner, of course, we had to take some pictures. Apparently, Bruce and Stacy's last visit was right before I started this blog. So, Bruce, you finally made the blog. Congrats!

Mojave Misadventures

Pat and I like to kick off the camping season around Easter by heading somewhere new for our first trip of the year. This year, we decided on the Mojave Desert, a sprawling National Preserve about 200 miles northeast of Long Beach. The trip was highly anticipated after weeks of dreary weather and even more dreary work hours.

Our Friday afternoon departure was a lame attempt to avoid the holiday Friday rush hour traffic but we must have done something right: we only sat in traffic for about an hour (in Greater LA, that is pretty good). After a long and somewhat monotonous drive, we arrived in the Mojave just in time to see the sun set).

If you have AWD, you can camp back any number of gravel roads in the park without a fee or permit so that is what we did. Our camp had a nice vantage point and lots of big rocks (good for sitting on, cooking on and as a wind break).

Pat set up the tent while I cooked dinner (the "kitchen" is in the background of this photo with the lantern). It was pretty chilly but we sat up awhile looking at the stars and trying to spot satellites (a popular camp time activity for us).

Here is the campsite in the morning light. This may be the last picture taken of our tent. We bought it right after our honeymoon with some of our wedding $$. Our "new" tent (funny, we still think of it that way) is now almost ten years old and is ready for retirement. We hope to have a new one before our trip to Montana in July.

Our goal was to spent the day hiking but, as you can see, we weren't in a big hurry.

For breakfast, I made a delicious but not necessarily nutritious meal of bagels pan-fried with butter, sugar and cinnamon. Yummy! After breakfast, we donned our hiking clothes, jumped in the car and...

It wouldn't start! So, there were were, miles from the nearest paved road, with nothing more than a very loud "Click" when I tried to start to start the car. I had been having some similar issues at home but thought they had been previously resolved by the purchase of a new battery. In the past, the car would eventually start after several tries. Nope, not this time. Instead, each time I cranked the key, just that infuriating "click." So, of course, we decided to play mechanic (never a good sign for us). After about an hour or so of fiddling around and talking a lot about what makes an engine start, I finally turned the key and voila, the car roared to life. And then we drove straight home without turning off the car (and, yes, you CAN get gas while the engine is still running). So, as far as a camping trip: not very fulfilling. But, we felt thankful that the car started at all (Note: since we have been home, the car has started perfectly every time).