The purpose for this site is to be a web home base for Steve and Marsha's next big adventure. Since that hasn't started yet, I'm just using it as a place to put stuff. Feel free to explore.
12/30/2009: The year is almost over, wasn't that fun!! The picture below is from the Barnhill Marina Association web site. In it you will notice I've drawn arrows pointing to Spirit and Harvey, this is where we've been living for the past few years. I walked over to run Harvey's engine last weekend, and to put his 2010 registration sticker on the license plate. I discovered someone had siphoned all of the gasoline, and scraped off the sticker. Damm, I'm going to have to report this to the police. The last time I had to worry about criminal activity effecting Harvey was documented in my last post in the blog I started in 1996, our first big adventure. I had a big black dog named Cindy back then. So, I just got the quarterly bill from the diver that cleans Spirit's hull, he reported the paint condition as fair - which translates as you need new paint soon or you need a new diver soon. So, Spirit has to leave the dock to get a paint job soon. So, if we're going to have to gear up to leave the dock, why don't we just go back to Mexico? We know for a fact health care is not a problem like it is here. What do you think, summers at Breezy and the rest of the year, have another beer in Mexico? I better have the oil changed - now where did I put our FM3s?...
12/27/2009: It was a merry Christmas, with lots of good food. Here's a few pics of Spirit, plus here's a link to a photo slide show from Gate 11's progressive dinner holiday party 2 weeks ago.
12/8/2009:Breezy update. Plus I had to work at a conference in Vienna last week. I went with an engineer from work. We stayed at the Hotel Am Schubertring the first 2 nights, then moved to the hotel the conference was in, Le Méridien Vienna. We had to track down a computer store the first day, which had us walking all over Vienna, here are some pictures. Staying in the room at Le Meridien was kind of like being in an art studio, here is a brief video tour:
11/26/2009: Happy Thanksgiving! Steve has to leave Saturday night on a business trip, so we stayed home and went out to a restaurant on the island. We're really full right now. Here's some photos of our meal:
We started out with some Italian champaign, and took our own Chianti I had in storage.
They started us with warm bread and an olive oil with mustard.
We started with Antipasto. Thinly sliced cured beef on greens with mustard & parmigiano shavings, and Spring greens, finely chopped vegetables & herbs tossed with olives and parmesan balsamic vinaigrette.
This next course, Primo Piatto rocked. Gnocchi served in a delicious creamy white truffle sauce - with shaved truffle on top, and Ravioli filled with butternut squash in a sage & butter cream sauce.
The main course, Contorni. Roasted Turkey, Rosemary Roasted Lamb, Garlic Mashed Potatoes, Bread Stuffing with Sage, Eggplant & vegetables in tangy tomato sauce with raisins, and string beans.
Here's a close up.
Dessert was Delicate ice cream bon bon "truffle" with a lemon center, and pumpkin Cognac Cheesecake.
11/17/2009: We enjoyed the Left Handed Sagittarian Wives Birthday Party last Saturday. A great catered dinner based around Lamb and Salmon, accompanied with a Pinot vertical tasting, +. Yummm...
10/6/2009: The 3rd annual Marina Village Gate 11 flea market took place last Saturday, here are some pics.
10/4/2009: Over the summer I added pictures of Breezy's progress and George Weber suggested I add a comments section to the site so he could leave comments about some of them. That's a database application that you can get when using blogging applications like blogger. I'm still building this site manually, but I found a way to do it. I'm not copying the blog style of have a comments link after every post. I've added a comments section for this main page, Breezy's page, and the recipes page, only one comments link per page at the top. If you think any other page needs a comments section, leave me a comment here.
9/30/2009: On our trip driving back from Michigan, we took the northern route staying in Escanaba, MI, then Sioux Falls, SD before getting to the National Parks area. Then we went through the Badlands, saw Mt. Rushmore, went through Yellowstone, then through the Grand Tetons. Here are a few pics and a video of Old Faithful erupting:
9/29/2009: The weather was great last weekend. We hung out with Rick and Pam on Hotel California. Saturday, Rick lost one too many grill parts overboard, so we decided to try diving for it. Rick borrowed Marsha's spring suit. No luck, we only found a lost clamp. Sunday we flew the new spinnaker in the Oakland Estuary. Neighbors Ray and Diane took a picture of us. Great sail!
9/18/2009: We're back!
6/19/2009: We start packing the truck tonight, estimated departure 6/26 in the AM.
Log entries for the rest of the summer, until we return to Spirit in September will be on Breezy's page.
It's static, so you have to refresh your browser (F5) to get the latest data.
6/13/2009: Some of you have asked ;-) , where did you find that Sailor Moon anime with Alison Krauss' "Get Me Through December" from her "A Hundred Miles or More" album. I stumbled across this young Alison Krauss fan while looking for a video of her "Never Got Off The Ground" song from her "Forget About It" album. There wasn't one, but I found prosperia's version, then looked at some of her other videos. Here is her "Never Got Off The Ground":
5/30/2009: Between www.youtube.com and www.hulu.com, I'm wondering why I pay for cable TV. Happy Birthday Mom!
5/18/2009:Recipes update, added a tasty home made rendition of pasta with a creamy prosciutto based sauce I named Espiritu Carbonara. Yesterday, I crewed on Gerry Brown's Mintaka for day 2 of the Stone Cup Regatta. We were in IRC division 2, and came in 3rd in the 2 races, which made Gerry 3rd overall for the 2 day series.
5/11/2009: After having some leaks in the floor repaired at Sal's, I cleaned and sealed our 10' Zodiac inflatable. It's now packed in the truck ready to go be our water machine on Higgins Lake this summer. The 6 hp Johnson outboard is running great, but the shifter has gotten hard to shift. I plan to drop it off at Old Point Comfort Marine for service once we get there.
4/22/2009: We went to the Strictly Sail Expo at Jack London Square last weekend with Rick and Pam. Just about everybody from Gate 11 was there as well. Eric Stone was providing the entertainment both in the afternoon, sponsored by Catalina Yachts, as they introduced a new model sailboat, and in the evening with free pizza and beer in the food court. Here's Steve hanging out with the Eric and his great lead guitarist Kyle Rife.
4/12/09: We went to the Fox Theater in Oakland on Friday the 3rd to see the Moody Blues. The theater opened recently after being closed 23 years, then a 75 million dollar retrofit. Everyone in the audience was really old.
We joined Rick and Pam from the sailing vessel Hotel California for the rest of the weekend. We went to the Tonga Room at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco to celebrate Pam's birthday.
4/10/2009:Recipes update, added this fun chicken curry recipe.
3/4/2009: I'll be posting a bunch of photos soon of fun weekends as the winter passes. Meanwhile, here's one George took last week of Breezy in the snow.
2/11/2009: With the addition of the camper shell and running boards, the truck is ready for us to start planning for the trip to Breezy this summer.
2/4/2009: This Las Vegas for New Year's Eve trip report is a bit tardy, but I've been busy sorting my music collection on the Terabyte disk drive I got for Christmas. These are some of the photos (same link as the 1/30 post).
So, 31 year old Harvey made it across the Mojave desert, and back. That's amazing. Our friend Rick renamed him Lucky. It had been rainy Christmas eve and Christmas, so we hadn't spent time preparing. But then the weather forecast turned to sunny for at least 10 days, so we just threw everything in the fridge into Harvey, put on our sweats, grabbed some clothes and took off. With just a small grocery run at the Safeway in Kingman, AZ, I was able to cook most of the time. We did have a great prime rib dinner at Circus Circus once in Vegas. Circus Circus has a large RV park in back, we stayed there 2 nights. The rest of the nights was spent in KOA campgrounds, or similar ones along the way. We made almost 300 miles on traveling days. From Seligman, AZ back to Kingman was a short day, we checked in early, kicked back and enjoyed Champaign, brie and pears. The trip up to Las Vegas from there on the 30th was a short day, but getting through the pass at Hoover Dam was a surreal time warp. It took an hour but you gained an hour in time zone, all the while going almost 0 miles an hour, staring at all of the people in cars coming and going.
There were an estimated 250,000 people visiting for New Years Eve. We got checked in the day before, then had the prime rib dinner. The next day we hung out on the strip all afternoon, and witnessed Evil Knievel's son Robbie jump a motorcycle over the volcano in front of the Mirage. That was around 9:00, in the center. Then we made our way back to the Circus Circus and adopted a couple of 2 cent slots. Marsha was on one that was a Pirate theme, I was on one 2 seats away that had a Lobster fisherman theme. They were pouring free drinks, then champagne at midnight, then everyone poured out into the streets to watch the fireworks. The fireworks were hard to see because they had to fire them off the ground this year, instead of off the building tops as in past years. One of the hotels caught on fire last year. Then after a while, everyone poured back into the casino. We got our machines back, and by about 1:30 am we were up over $30 profit and decided to cash out.
We left on New Year's day, listening to Cheryl Crow's CD on the way out. We had a late lunch at Peggy Sue's Diner just outside of Barstow, then made it to Bakersfield just before dark. The fog hit about 20 miles before we got there. The drive home the next day was foggy and a bit drizzly, but we made it back in time to spend the rainy weekend with our friends in the marina, and to put everything away before starting 09. It was a fun trip, way to go Harvey:-)
1/30/2009: It took a while to get these photos sorted, I'll explain later.
1/5/2009: Harvey the RV successfully got us to Seligman, AZ then up to Las Vegas for New Years Eve, then back to Alameda. We started this adventure on 12/27/08, and made it back on 1/3/09. The picture below is of Harvey where we stayed at the KOA campground in Seligman. I'll post a photo album from the trip shortly. Happy New Year!!
