Small Town

 

Like many of my posts, I wrote this a while ago, but it sat in the 'to be edited’ folder for a long time. Well, if you are reading this, it is out.

We bought a home over a year ago, in the suburbs of San Diego. Most of my adult life I have spent in the suburbs of one place or another- San Diego, San Jose, Utah, etc. But I can’t help to wonder from time to time, what might it be like to live somewhere other than the suburbs. I sometimes think back to my time in Wyoming, or even the ranch we stayed at in San Jose (of all places [the other place in San Jose was an apartment]) and wonder what it would be like to live in a more rural area. Perhaps even at that cabin in the woods I always think about.

On the other extreme, I think about moving downtown, or to live in the downtown of a city. It could be fun to really experience a walkable living experience. I sometimes don’t love driving everywhere. In the suburbs it's the only option. If I lived in the city, I might experience something else. 

Or, what if I combined both of those? What if I stayed in the downtown of a very small town? I have passed through small towns over the years each with a downtown, or really, more like a main street. You know, the kind of place you would see older looking two story buildings with an aged storefront on the bottom floor. I have sometimes wondered what it would be like to stay in the apartment upstairs. 

Well, I’m finally living that experience right now (when I initially wrote this article that is). Now I know what it is like. Musty! Ok, maybe not every upstairs apartment in a small town’s main street smells musty, but the one I am in does. Which is a bit unfortunate, because otherwise the place is so quaint. You can open the windows to see a pretty quiet main street. I sometimes think things in the suburbs close early, but here things really do. Most of the shops are closed at 5 or 6, the restaurant below us at 8, the gas station at 10, and then I think that is everything. 

My one other complaint staying in Nauvoo, Illinois, by the Mississippi river, is the flies. There are a lot and they are annoying.  Otherwise, it is a lovely little town. The sites run by the LDS church are nice, lots of free stuff which is fun. 

Some other properties in the area aren’t run by the LDS church but rather the Community of Christ (well they were at the time, that has since changed!), which was once called the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I thought some of their recounting of history was interesting, maybe I will go into more detail on another blog of mine. I’ll add a link here if I ever get around to it. 

Ok now back to present day Ricky. The time in Nauvoo was very enjoyable. I should write about the experience overall, rather than just focusing on one aspect of the trip, the odd little apartment thing we stayed in. 

I guess there are really just a handful of things to do there, see historic sites related to the early Latter-day Saints and go to gift shops that cater to people that go to such sites. Still, both parts were enjoyable. I even bought something from one of the gift shops there and I was tempted to buy more, which isn’t very frugal of me. 

Anyways, it was a little funny how it all worked out. I had never gone to Illinois in my life, when suddenly I went twice in the space of a month. Once a personal trip, this trip to Nauvoo, and then again for a work trip, for a conference. And I haven’t been back since. Hopefully I will make another trip out that way at some point there. 

Bryce Canyon

 Brooke and I took a much needed vacation this week(well, quite a few weeks at this point) to Bryce Canyon. The last time we went on a vacation was August of last year. Although, at my current production schedule, this post will probably be out in August of next year!

 

I’ve been to quite a few national and state parks in Utah, but I don’t remember going to Bryce Canyon before. The main feature of Bryce is these interesting standing rock pillars called hoodoos, which are formed via water seeping into the ground and then freezing, causing gaps to expand between the rock. Eventually they form these stand alone pillars.

The park was fun, although, I will say, it is kind of just one thing. Like here are some hoodoos, travel a bit, now here at the same hoodoos from another view point. Then you hike through the hoodoos. This hoodoo looks like Queen Victoria. So the one experience is like a kind of one note. Granted there is a lot more variety than the St. Louis arch, which was truly one note (here is the arch, and that is it).

 

I thought the accommodations were kind of fun. We stayed at the “Ruby Inn”. For dinner, there was a buffet, the Cowboy Buffet and Steakroom. Which I thought was great. Granted, this wasn’t a fine dining establishment (think hometown buffet). But all the meat options were pretty good, there was meatloaf, smothered pork chops, ribs, pot roast, teriyaki chicken. There was also salmon, but I didn’t want to eat that at a buffet in Utah! The salad bar was good, something like you would have at a sizzler, or any other salad bar. I probably ate 4,000 calories.

 

I think the last time I went to a buffet was Hometown Buffet near Van Nuys after my grandfather’s funeral. It was fun to go to one again. I didn’t need to eat anything until breakfast the next day, and even then, I wasn’t starving. The breakfast buffet was also good, but it was mostly just the same fare any hotel breakfast place would offer, well, an upscale one at least. Eggs, potatoes, meat of the day, carb of the day (pancakes or french toast), yogurt, fruit, cereal, cottage cheese, oatmeat, toast, bagels, etc.  I guess one nice thing is the syrup and salsa were both in the hot food section and were warm, which was a nice touch.

All the Meat You Will Eat

 If case you haven't heard yet, I wrote a new book,  a children's picture book in fact! I had a little episode of my podcast Ricky Rambles where I talk about it.

Link to the book

San Fransico has a Beach

 As you probably know by now, Another Boring Life story Blog has some major content issues. Not that Brooke and I haven’t been doing fun stuff, we have, but we have some issues getting the content written and then published. This post was from our San Jose days, which seems like a lifetime ago. That said, I still remember this restaurant and now that I think about it I do want to go back. Ok, so let's travel back in time like 5 years to when I wrote this, maybe at little more.

Brooke’s Mom came to visit, so we went to San Francisco for the day.  We went to the Golden Gate State Park and that was fun. This time, blackberries were in season, so I picked a few. Some of them were really good! We heard a band playing in a tunnel and they had really interesting acoustics. Listening to the jazz music bound off the tunnel walls, it was pretty enjoyable. After playing a while, I noticed them backing up and splitting the tip money between them. It reminded me of my childhood playing music in front of my house at Christmas time and splitting up the tip money. We made a lot less money than them! We also went inside to split it up, not out in the open.

We also visited the botanical garden, it was pretty interesting. There was a section on nice smelling plants. We smelled some sage that smelled like pineapple.

Later in the day, we went to the beach in San Francisco. It was cold, so we didn’t go in the water or anything. We went to Cliff House, a restaurant overlooking the ocean. It was like 30 bucks an entree, so a little expensive, but it was really nice. I had a braised lamb shank with shiitake mushroom. And the star of the dish was the mushrooms, they were sooo good. They were perfect umami explosions. Brooke got a pork chop with broccolini, which was pretty good. I thought to myself, surely the broccoli was made by one of my audit clients in Salinas.

 

We stopped by the beach in Half Moon Bay. On the way we drove through Pacifica, which is where Democracy Now is recorded. It is a quaint little town, reminiscent of earlier times. There also is a huge tunnel to pass through on the way to Half Moon Bay. When we got to the bay, even though it was approaching dusk, it was hard to find a place to park.  Apparently the beaches there close promptly at dusk. There were a lot of people there for some sort of pumpkin festival.  After a little bit, we drove back.

It's Hot

Note: I wrote this post not just near labor day of this year, no no, this post is from near labor day a year prior to that. So enjoy this 1.5 year old post that Brooke only now got around to editing!

It has been a long time since I have posted here. Frankly, life just escapes me sometimes. I’ve signed myself up for a lot of differing activities, which I don’t want to bore you with at this time. However, I will tell you a bit about what I am doing this very second. I am at the public library because it is well over 90 degrees outside. My little house, which we moved into just a year ago, has no AC, and it is a furnace. So instead I am here. 

On one side, I don’t really have a way to play video games or other distractions here, so that is good. It gives me some time to actually write. You may or may not know it, but I’m working on my first novel (depending on when you read this it may be free to read on Wattpad). So I probably should be writing that instead. I’ve found the best way for me to get writing down is by postponing or procrastinating something else. So I am being productive while I procrastinate! It is a win-win.

The library is mostly quiet, although I just heard a man lightly swearing from a table over. He must be losing a game or a bet of some kind. Actually, perhaps it is Sonic The Hedgehog based on the sounds I have heard. The cool air is refreshing but the plastic backed chair is not so relaxing. Still, better than being hot. 

On the way to the library, Brooke told me, that “San Diegains need to just admit that San Diego isn’t perfect year round and that sometimes the weather is awful.”  Given the current weather, I guess she has a point. It is hot.  Maybe we do need to just “admit it and get air conditioning.” 

I will get Monday off, Labor day off. While I always mean to post these things soon after I write them, I generally don’t. So maybe it will be Christmas time before you read this (Note from Ricky in the present, I was really on the nose here). Maybe that will be the next time I read it as well. And I will say to myself, “Oh, it wasn’t really that hot was it.” To which I say to my future self, “yes, it was really that hot.” In any case, I will have to try to figure out how to stay cool, as staying home isn’t really an option. 

Wherever you are, I hope you are staying cool, unless it really is Christmas when I get around to releasing this, in which case, stay warm. Or maybe if you are in the southern hemisphere where summer is winter and winter is summer, then… Ok, I have digressed. But then again, I think this whole post is a digression.  The rambling of a hot person in a cold library trying to write and not entirely succeeding. At the very least though, I can say I did this.

My trip to Woodland a long time ago

 I have an archive of posts I intended to post but I guess didn’t. Here is one of them, a very short summary of my trip to Woodland CA. During my time at EY I would sometimes do inventory counts, so I would show up to a warehouse, watch people count things and count along with them. During this time I traveled all over the bay area and saw a bunch of towns in CA. Anyways, here is the original post. Maybe I will start publishing content on here again at some point, but not promises. 

So I had to make a trip to Woodland, California for work. Sometimes I go to the strangest little towns. Well, I guess this one might just be a suburb of Sacramento or something. 

I also passed through an interesting in little town that had like a vacation town/small town feel, like a cute little main street. I didn’t capture a picture, for what I hope are obvious reasons. Also, during the drive, I saw a beautiful sunset. There were some foothills in the distance, and some grasslands, and a picturesque multicolor sunset.

I also had to pay a toll (hear the story on the podcast).

And like every time I go to a hotel, I watch a little television - this time Food Network. I had a relaxing morning the next day, I didn’t have to go to work until 10, so I enjoyed breakfast and took my time getting ready. I finished my work really quick, then made the trek home almost without incident. As I got close to home but still on the freeway, I narrowly avoided an accident. Someone merged into my lane without checking their blind spot. I avoided them by moving into the other lane. It was close, but I fortunately avoided an accident.

Another Podcast?

Well, as you probably know, Brooke and I haven't been keeping up with this blog. I'm not sure that will change anytime soon, but in the meantime, I do have another project that might interest you, yes, another podcast.  It is just a bit of meandering and nonsense not too dissimilar from what this blog was like.