Tuesday morning

The adults are up - the Lesinas have gone to work and I've had breakfast and showered. Jo has taken it upon herself to go for a walk - she got a bit stir crazy staying at home all day yesterday. I hope she can find her way back. No sense of direction and no phone either - what are the odds?

We're under instructions to ensure that the boys get out of the house today - even if just to take the dogs for a walk. It won't be much because Cade's football season started last night - two sessions - 5-6 pm then 7-8pm - and he's got that every day this week, so he's going to be pretty tired come the weekend.

I went for a longish bike ride yesterday morning (see http://bvetscycling.blogspot.co.uk/) so I had enough exercise for one day and spent most of the rest of the day reading my book (over 600 pages so far - just 200 to go), although I did spend a bit of time in the pool - and Braeden joined me. I made the mistake of applying the wrong sun protection, however. It was a spray-on water-resistant, lotion and it ran in to my eyes and I just couldn't get rid of it. Eventually I had to resort to using some of Cade's eye drops.

We watched Gordon Ramsay's Hell Hotel last night - it featured a local lodge - http://www.applegateriverlodge.com/. It was filmed last year and the family that own it didn't come out too well. The old man was a stoner and didn't give a damn. We weren't sure Gordon solved all the underlying issues there - and we certainly won't be rushing off to stay there, despite its beautiful setting.

Temperatures forecast to be a bit lower today - low 90's. There's still a bit of smoke in the sky but it seems to be staying higher in the atmosphere this year as we can neither taste nor smell it - it looks just like a bit of haziness so far.

Cade 14!

The day guests have gone now - Grandparents Bill & Karen, Aunt Laramie & cousins Davis & Lincoln, plus 2 slightly later guests - Scott's cousin Dusty and her partner Cody.

Nice afternoon - and a tad cooler too, with a hint of smoke in the upper atmosphere. We had chilli hot dogs, followed, of course, by cake and ice cream. Lucy presented the cake and Cade had to blow out his candles - a little sheepishly as everyone watched, but cousin Lincoln was more forthcoming:

Lucy took the cake away for cutting up, watched carefully by Chris, Cody & Dusty:

Eve of Cade's birthday

It's still Saturday night here on the West Coast. We've already had 2 of Lucy's G & T's - with cucumber - and Scott has fired up the barbie - tri-tip steaks tonight.

So Jo and I did get up and climb up Upper Table Rock this morning - and very nice it was too. There's some details and photos - mostly of me - on my hill-walking blog (http://bvhill-walkers.blogspot.com/) and some on Facebook too, but here's another couple of Jo:

We then had lunch at Kobe's Sushi Buffet - an all you can eat affair. The sushi comes round in little boats but there's also separate places for cooked foods, salads and desserts. Here's Cade, his pal Chris and Braeden in action:

But what about yesterday's photos at Galesville Reservoir?:

Getting ready to drop the boat in the water

Boys in the water

Jo's hair getting buffeted by the wind as Scott accelerates

and then Scott stopped the boat

All done - loading up again for the return journey

Check out the videos of the boys kneeboarding - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIWtSjrT0vY and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGV5yRvZjmU

Friday night

It's Friday night - we've been boating at Galesville Reservoir and we got back and had an Asian takeaway for tea. I've not been at my brightest - a bit too much sun yesterday was followed by some strong beer, so today has been a day of abstinence for me.

The temperature at Galesville was "only" in the high 80's, but here in Grants Pass, we've just had our 5th consecutive triple digit temperature day. We haven't seen any sign of any lightning strikes or fires anywhere near here, despite news warnings about them the last few days. On Wednesday, it was reported that there were 2,500 separate lightning strikes in Southern Oregon - can you believe it?

Tomorrow morning (Saturday) we're planning to get up fairly early and head for Table Rock before the heat gets up too much. Photos of that - and today's at Galesville - will be posted next time around.

Oh - and we got Scott's bike back - all gears working now.

The stats on this blog are showing we are fast approaching 200,000 reads now!

The weekend starts here

Scott and Lucy are both off work today so we're planning to go boating. We've got Cade's birthday on Sunday as well, so plenty to look forward to.

I took Scott's bike to the bike shop yesterday to get them to fix the gears, so hopefully on my next ride, it'll make things a little easier.

Last evening, Jo and I went to the Oregon Pour Authority - a new pub - who had a promotion on with the Southern Oregon Brewery, whose tap room in Medford we've been to a few times on previous holidays. We walked in the door, bought a couple of pints and put our names in the raffle and a few seconds later, my name was first out of the hat - I won the t-shirt you see me modelling here:

'Scuse the untidy trailer!

The beers were, as usual, nice, but a bit too strong for our liking, so we're not quite on top of the world this morning.

Bye for now

Still no storms

Despite all the fears, we still haven't had any storms, but we're sitting outside just now after dinner and we've noticed a couple of helicopters with water buckets flying past so there must be some fires breaking out nearby.

It's been hot again however - three triple digit temperature days in a row. I went out for a cycle again this morning (check http://www.strava.com/activities/173102175 and my cycling blog) but otherwise nobody has done much around Delsie Drive today - at least not until Lucy and Scott came home from work and provided Tequila Sunrise and BBQ'd chicken respectively for Jo and I.

We had lunch at Cartwright's Deli (http://cartwrightsmarket.com/) - nice place and a great selection of beers to refill my growler.

Yesterday, I accidentally "busted" Cade & Braeden. Cade's pal Jacob was staying over and they spent some time in the pool - mostly jumping off the roof of the shed. This was something that was strictly taboo last year, but the brazen way they did it this year - even posing for the camera - suggested to me that it was now an approved practice. I was wrong - but here they are in action anyway:

Braeden's a bit more subdued than Cade.

I forgot to show you the welcome we receive every year:

That's all for now.

Tuesday - lightning forecast

It was 106F yesterday and we're going to be in triple digits again today - and they're forecasting dry lightning storms this afternoon - the very type that usually starts off the wildfires on the mountains.

No cycling for me today - day of rest. I'm hoping to go a hike up Table Rock (http://southernoregon.com/tablerock/) some time, however - not today, but sometime soon.

Yesterday (Monday) we took the boys down to Medford and we all bought new books in Barnes & Noble, followed by lunch at Kaleidoscope. Here's the boys waiting for their meals:

We went to the Rogue Valley Mall afterwards, at Cade's request. We were not allowed to join them, but were told to go and look at other shops, or wait for them, which we did:

Had to pop in to the Pharmacy on the way back to get some antihistamine pills for Jo - her bites are spreading alarmingly and the cream isn't making them retreat at all.

The last pit stop was at Frank n Stene's Monster Growlers to fill mine up again - and that was the day just about done. Tea was leftover ribs from the previous night - and last night's Lucy cocktail was Sangria. I was also given a taste of "Moonshine" to try. Thanks, but no thanks.

Lucy's cocktails - the story so far

It was Rum Punch on Saturday and Margaritas tonight - two of each - very nice. Here's the creator, enjoying hers:

Cade got the chance of a ride in one of the Classic cars in the Back to the 50's parade last night so we went along to watch - and, in some cases, embarrass him in front of his pals:

Braeden had gone to the cinema with one of his pals and was staying overnight with him. Cade had a pre-birthday celebration with some of his pals today (Sunday), including a meal at one of the local Mexicans.

Scott was back at work but the rest of us had a fairly easy day at Delsie Drive, although I managed a quick cycle this morning (details on that blog).

The ribs tonight were excellent and we had Creme Brulee and a Pavlova to follow!

The Lesinas vegetable garden is coming along great as well - check out these zucchinis picked tonight:

Oregon

Our drive from NJ to JFK in Friday morning's rush hour traffic went remarkably well, with no mistakes. We were flying across the continent with United, business class, but weren't seated together - we both had window seats - mine was next to a man with legs that went on forever, and when he went to sleep as soon as the flight took off, I felt a bit stranded. Eventually, I had to visit the loo, which meant stepping over his outstretched legs. As I did so, I knocked his laptop off the shelf and it fell on him, waking him up. He was not best pleased.

No decent films to watch, but a large Bombay Sapphire and a couple of glasses - three in Jo's case - of Pinot Noir helped to send me to sleep. The flight is over 6 hours - nearly as long as it took to get from Heathrow to JFK last week - but it went very smoothly and soon we were waiting in SFO for our connection up to Medford.

It's a little prop plane up from there and there seemed to be some problems with the AC, but they didn't affect us too much. The Lesinas were all there at the airport to meet us, having only just seen off Lorna and her family that very morning.

Kaleidoscope, our favourite pizza bar, was queued out the door so we went to Wild River in Medford for our Friday tea-time meal.

Although Jo and I had by now been travelling for about 16 hours, we'd "gained" 3 hours by travelling west, so we felt semi-obliged to stay up until a respectable bedtime. Lucy poured us large G & T's and that did the trick.

Slow start to Saturday, but Lucy made waffles for breakfast and that was nice. Scott and Cade had some hardware shopping to do, but the rest of us drove in to town and checked out the Saturday market and a few of the shops - including the new bike store, where Jo was smitten by this model:

I also got a chance to fill up my Growler at the new Oregon Pour Authority, using the voucher Lucy got me for Father's Day.

We've had lunch, a quick snooze and a dip in the pool, but I'm still too hot, so blogging in the comfort of the air conditioning in the trailer is a bit of an escape.

Final 2 days in NJ

The last 2 days have been slightly boozy ones - a wine tour yesterday, then a beer tasting this afternoon. Yesterday was a 2-parter - the first was at a specialist restaurant where the owner - a local sommelier/wine expert talked us through some different varieties. The tastings were, however, minimal, to say the least. The spit bowl was entirely unneccessary. Here's Paul in full flow as some of our fellow travellers look on:

The chef then came out and gave us a talk - and some samples (miniscule again!) - of different cheeses. I noted, however, that they were also a bit of a specialist beer supplier as well.

Next stop was a proper winery - Renault. Set up initially by a French family, they are apparently the only non-Champagne area producer still to be able to call their sparkling wine champagne - so long as they continue to do things the traditional way and also limit their production to 2,000 bottles a year.

It was nice set-up at Renault and the talks were interesting - and the samples much more generous. Here's Jo alighting from our bus and approaching the winery:

We walked round the Nature Trail last night - and again this evening, after our beer sampling. The rest of today has been a slow, relaxing one, with the morning by the quiet, adult pool, followed by an attempted lunch at the highly recommended local Oyster Creek Inn (http://oystercreekinnnj.com/), only to find it shut at lunchtime on Thursdays.

So that's NJ and Pennsylvania ticked off. Tomorrow morning, it's the drive north east across Staten Island to JFK for our flights out west. Yes, we've upgraded again.

AC/Philly

Our last 2 days have been excursions - Monday to nearby Atlantic City and Tuesday to Philadephia. We were taken on the Marriott shuttle for the first, so no maps required or parking problems.

AC has suffered from the recession and competition. Quite a few of the large, Las Vegas style casinos have had to shut down - although there's also new ones being built.

Jo and I were thrilled to be able to walk along the famous boardwalk - we're big fans of Boardwalk Empire, so Jo just had to pose here:

From the Boardwalk, there's little wooden walkways across the protected dunes to the beaches, which were pretty busy on a beautiful day:

The less mobile can use this form of transport to go up and down the 4-mile long boardwalk:

There's scores of these 3-wheeled vehicles being pushed along the boardwalk.

The other local delight is, apparently the Salt Water Taffy:

We think "Taffy" may be a corruption of the word toffee.

Here's one for Braeden:

We didn't go Under the Boardwalk but we explored under the pier:

We walked from our drop-off point at Bally's to the end of the boardwalk and back again, paddling in the ocean for a bit, and with a little detour to the end of the pier for a beer. There were helicopter rides taking off right next to us - $40 for a quick trip up and down the boardwalk or $75 for a city view:

There was also a sand sculpture competition starting:

So that was AC. The journey to Philadelphia was a bit more troublesome - it's about 50 miles away and it meant we had to drive and park. Inevitably there were some wrong turnings and the return journey was a bit stressful too, but it's all part of the rich tapestry etc.

It was the full historical experience, helping to top up our fairly limited knowledge of American history. Most of the focus is on what happened in 1776 of course, but Benjamin Franklin is the name you can't escape from:

We decided to take the bus tour first of all, followed by a walking tour. The first took us out to the greener part of the city and the Museum of Modern Arts where the famous Rocky steps are:

There's nothing to them really but everyone feels they have to run up and down the steps. Rocky's statue is now located at the foot - to the right of the steps:

There's funky stuff too - lots of murals, including on this bar called Frank's - the external walls have images of lots of famous Franks:

We were the only ones on our walking tour. Our guide was dressed historically and was a local, born and bred. Jo suspected he was a Quaker too:

This was taken at the start of Elfreth's Alley, apparently the oldest inhabited street in North America - not far from Betsy Ross' house. Google them if you want to know more.

We did the Independence Hall tour and I took a selfie inside one of the rooms:

We didn't join the queue/line for the Liberty Bell, but I took a photo from outside:

Today is a lazy day, but we're going on a wine tour this afternoon.

NY/NJ

So here we are at our Marriott timeshare in Galloway, New Jersey - finally. The journey over to JFK went smoothly - we even managed to bypass the extra security at Heathrow. All the talk was about how you had to have all your electronic devices charged beforehand and, if they couldn't start them up, you would be kicked off the flight - we were even asked if we had done it before they checked us in at Aberdeen airport, and we were also told at Heathrow that there were extra security checks at the gates on all USA flights. It transpired, however, that the checks were random and we were just waved through. We obviously didn't look clever enough.

Short flight from Heathrow - just 7 hours or so - barely enough to enjoy the comforts of Club Class - although I thought the food was terrific - especially the Sea Bass. A can of London Pride, plus a large Tanqueray G & T, followed by 2 huge glasses of a lovely Pinot Noir may have skewed my judgment a little, however. The same - minus the LP - was enough to send Jo unconscious for a couple of hours, whilst I watched the Wolf of Wall Street.

We got straight through Customs, although it took some time for our bags to arrive on the carousel, and then we had to suss out how to get from the terminal to the courtesy shuttle bus. The Air Train was the answer - it was a bit like a roller-coaster ride, but we got there in the end.

We checked in to the Marriott Courtyard at JFK, which, incidentally, is in the Jamaica area of NY, and managed a quick beer before hitting the sack.

Jo was up before me this morning but tried to stay quiet. I slept for about 9 hours, but was still up early, East Coast time. Nice light breakfast, then back on the shuttle bus to the airport to pick up our hire car. I now have to withdraw all my previous negative comments about car hire companies - including the rant on My Pet Hates blog. Not only was our car waiting for us - all nice and clean, with the keys in it - but we had no queue to wait in - all you had to do was read the electronic board and go to the bay against your name - wonderful. I guess it helps being a Hertz Gold member - even though I haven't used them for years, their association with Marriott must have increased our status with them.

Then, we had to face the traffic - without a map. It was fun - we got there in the end, despite a few mistakes. Across Staten Island and down the coast road, with the very last bit being the most difficult. We went round in circles before eventually stopping at the pretty "historic" little tourist trap of Smithville - simply to get a wi-fi signal to see where we were going. Here's Jo at the entrance:

So here we are now - we've shopped and are relaxing over some strong ales and a few nibbles. Alcohol shopping was a bit trickier than we thought - we had to go to a separate liquor store after we'd bought the groceries - even just for beer and wine.

Tomorrow it's Atlantic City - and the Boardwalk!

Poor Kanga!

My Christmas gifts from Down Under have suffered a terrible fate. One was lost on the golf course - you would have thought somebody would have handed it in! - and the other is currently in intensive care at Arbor Court after (literally) coming apart at the seams:

Pray for a speedy recovery for poor Kanga - and I hope its former companion has found a good home.

So I missed my Thursday morning cycle again - too much work to do before we go away on Saturday. It's been a while since I've had my bum in the saddle and when I return I'm going to be way behind the other guys in terms of saddle fitness.

I got tickets for the Aberdeen - Groningen Europa League tie tonight, so Ross is driving me in and we are picking up Colin Kilgour and Ken Black on the way in, then meeting Gary at the match.

That's about it. Next blog posting will be from USA.

Catching up

It's been a while since my last post, but, fear not, it's only because I've been too busy - not just enjoying myself, but working too. This squeezing of my job in to 3 days definitely isn't working for me. The only advantage I've been getting from the change is not having to drive in to Aberdeen or Fraserburgh on 2 days - but that doesn't mean I haven't been doing any work on Mondays and Fridays.

I've started to make financial plans for my retirement - I met up with our financial adviser last Tuesday and I'm going to start drawing down from my pension pot next April, all being well.

But I digress - here's what I've been up to recently. Our golf weekend at Slaley Hall went well, although my own golf is pretty naff just now - I seem to have lost the plot - hopefully temporarily. I have noticed that my left knee is now suffering after golf - is this an effect of my new right knee being stronger again? Look out Scott - may need some physiotherapy advice when we arrive in Oregon.

We had Luca with us last week - the first of the school holidays. His obsession with his football cards continues unabated. Maybe now that the World Cup is over, he may switch to something else, but, when he was here, he wanted to play it constantly - from the time he awoke in the morning until he went to bed. He even started drawing his own version of the player cards:

Note that this one's a "Limited Edition"! The numbers at the foot indicate the player's respective defensive, attacking etc scores, with the last one being the overall rating. This guy must have been a bit special - a combination of Messi and Ronaldo perhaps?

Luca did get outdoors a fair bit when he was here, however. His Grannie Jo would drag him to the supermarket, but he also got a chance to play with the other kids in the street - the weather was great last week.

I got a corporate invite to the Scottish Open at Royal Aberdeen on Thursday. It was a top quality field and it was great to be there. There was, however, a cock-up with the catering - they took 3 hours to serve our main course! They did ply us with wine to keep us from complaining, but, eventually, even the most drunk can see through that little trick.

Friday was our annual Football Group golf outing and, this year, we went to pretty little Auchenblae on what was probably the finest day of the summer so far, with temperatures in the mid 20's C. When we got back to Banchory, it was still too nice an evening to waste, so I phoned Jo and she came over and joined me for a couple of beers on the balcony at the golf club:

I don't know what to say about the shadow of the parasol!

It's back to the usual pattern this week, although I'm trying to get tickets for Aberdeen v Groningen in the Europa League on Thursday. I think the packing will have to wait until Friday.