Our Forth of July Weekend Adventure
aelfie is in Sacramento for her final session of Waldorf teacher training (before graduating, anyway, it never stops). Her uncle's annual family pool party was Friday, so the kids and I, after spending the week with just them and me, set off for the party Friday morning. The trip was pretty smooth.
The pool party was awesome. The injuries were minor this year -- no concussion candidates. Grey is the only one requiring supervision, and he's responsible about leaving his floatation vest on. He did spend some closely-watched time without it, and he's getting better. One or two more swim classes, and he should be fine.
For the evening, we went to a hotel right across the highway from Cal Expo. Upon arrival, Ike announced that he'd left his shoes at Jen's uncle's house. Urg. I tried to call Jen, who I thought was finished with class at 7:30, to see if she could get them. No response until 8:30, because her class didn't end until 8:45. I was unjustifiably grumpy at her, then packed up the kids to return to her uncle's house 12 minutes away.
Ike grabbed his shoes, and we rushed back to Cal Expo for the free fireworks. We'd originally thought we could walk from the hotel, but it turns out there is no sidewalk to cross over the freeway. Bah. We parked in what turned out to be the farthest parking lot due to my unfamiliarity, then hiked 15 minutes to the grandstand. The fireworks started about a minute before we reached it. We entered the grandstand to find that everyone who'd arrived earlier had filled the available external seating. I braced for unpleasantness, but we found a place to sit at the back which allowed us to see about 2/3 of the display. (The very highest fireworks went above where the grandstand ceiling's overhang blocked our view.)
It was a very nice 15 minute display, and the kids enjoyed it. They've never been to a big-time fireworks display before. (Hmm, at least not on Independence Day. The girls mentioned that they saw something at the base with my parents when they visited them a few years ago.) The soundtrack of July 4th is Toby Keith, of course, with The Angry American as the climactic song. Maybe they had Lee Greenwood while we were hiking.
Then there were 15 minutes of hiking back to the car, with the requisite complaints and exhaustion. Whee. When we did make it back to the hotel room, Jen had arrived some time before. She'd watched the same fireworks display out the room window. Ah, well, good to know for next time. She'd set up the CPAPs, brought me tacos, and then touched my butt; I apologized for being a grouch earlier.
Saturday we tried taking slowly. The hotel breakfast had nothing Ike was willing to eat, so it was a rough start to the day. We decided to head into Old Sac and play tourist for a while. We found a fruit & nut shop that had fruit smoothies, so Ike had a smoothie while everyone had a snack. A fellow tried to recruit me as a deputy for the sheriff because the suffragettes were inbound. Those women arrived shortly thereafter and chatted with us. We went for a horse-drawn carriage ride around the area, then encountered a member of the Ballet Rus which Jen and I recognized from Dickens Faire last year.
uaskeeve and his daughter caught up with us (coordinated by Jen earlier), and we looked around for lunch. A fellow handed me a flyer for Smokin' Joe's BBQ, which is across the street from the train museum, so we went there. Very tasty! Sadly, 3 of the 4 Dadek kids were poorly behaved during lunch. *sigh*
We spent the afternoon at the train museum. Highlights:
- The Gold Coast. Jen was looking over the plans of this personal car of two dudes and said, "Hey, there's only one master bedroom. This was a couple!" I know better than to doubt Jen on these things, but I pulled out my phone anyway: "By the standards of the era, the homosexual relationship Beebe and Clegg shared was relatively open and well-known." - Wikipedia. And then we all noticed the stained-glass tops to the train windows. OK, then. Rock-on, mid-century fellows!
- "Evidence of a Dream", the California train history short subject. I just now IMDB'd this, and it says 1990. Wow, I would have put it 8-10 years earlier. I wonder if they could have made the Big Four any skeevier.
- The Gov. Stanford engine, named after the governor/head of the railway. Heh, what kind of backwards, corrupt, third-rate polity has the CEO of the biggest business as the head of government? *cough* Cheney *cough* [And for equal time, Bloomberg and Berlusconi.]
- An enormous wooden playset area with various Thomas items. Toy-etic!
After the museum, we headed back to David's place to see if mollygm was feeling better. The kids watched a couple of episodes of Darkwing Duck while I helped Jen with the handstrength portion of her electric motor for physics class. Mmm-hmm, experimental science! Yeah, that went about as well as you think.
We all went to Jimboy's for dinner, but Ike had a fit about vegetables on his burger, and the rest of my kids were picky, so Jen and I declared the evening over since we were unwilling to inflict our brood on our friends any further. We went back to the hotel and recovered from the day.
This morning went better because Jen had acquired breakfast supplies last night. The one miscalculation was watching The Spongebob Squarepants Movie, which I had hitherto dodged in my life. No longer. I foolishly eagerly awaited the arrival of The Hoff, due to Cracked's recent documenting of the 12-foot statue constructed for filming this epic. If you've seen this movie, you must know the dread I experienced. If not, I refuse to darken your existence with the horrific speculations that will haunt my night-terrors forever. All I will say is, "Eppur si muove."
I'd packed up our stuff so that we could leave when the movie ended. We piled into the two cars and hit Mcdonald's for lunch. Then I set off with the kids for SJ while Jen went about the errands she has to prep for another week of school. The trip back took about 3.5 hours due to a few spots of traffic and a couple of rest stops.
It was a good weekend.
The pool party was awesome. The injuries were minor this year -- no concussion candidates. Grey is the only one requiring supervision, and he's responsible about leaving his floatation vest on. He did spend some closely-watched time without it, and he's getting better. One or two more swim classes, and he should be fine.
For the evening, we went to a hotel right across the highway from Cal Expo. Upon arrival, Ike announced that he'd left his shoes at Jen's uncle's house. Urg. I tried to call Jen, who I thought was finished with class at 7:30, to see if she could get them. No response until 8:30, because her class didn't end until 8:45. I was unjustifiably grumpy at her, then packed up the kids to return to her uncle's house 12 minutes away.
Ike grabbed his shoes, and we rushed back to Cal Expo for the free fireworks. We'd originally thought we could walk from the hotel, but it turns out there is no sidewalk to cross over the freeway. Bah. We parked in what turned out to be the farthest parking lot due to my unfamiliarity, then hiked 15 minutes to the grandstand. The fireworks started about a minute before we reached it. We entered the grandstand to find that everyone who'd arrived earlier had filled the available external seating. I braced for unpleasantness, but we found a place to sit at the back which allowed us to see about 2/3 of the display. (The very highest fireworks went above where the grandstand ceiling's overhang blocked our view.)
It was a very nice 15 minute display, and the kids enjoyed it. They've never been to a big-time fireworks display before. (Hmm, at least not on Independence Day. The girls mentioned that they saw something at the base with my parents when they visited them a few years ago.) The soundtrack of July 4th is Toby Keith, of course, with The Angry American as the climactic song. Maybe they had Lee Greenwood while we were hiking.
Then there were 15 minutes of hiking back to the car, with the requisite complaints and exhaustion. Whee. When we did make it back to the hotel room, Jen had arrived some time before. She'd watched the same fireworks display out the room window. Ah, well, good to know for next time. She'd set up the CPAPs, brought me tacos, and then touched my butt; I apologized for being a grouch earlier.
Saturday we tried taking slowly. The hotel breakfast had nothing Ike was willing to eat, so it was a rough start to the day. We decided to head into Old Sac and play tourist for a while. We found a fruit & nut shop that had fruit smoothies, so Ike had a smoothie while everyone had a snack. A fellow tried to recruit me as a deputy for the sheriff because the suffragettes were inbound. Those women arrived shortly thereafter and chatted with us. We went for a horse-drawn carriage ride around the area, then encountered a member of the Ballet Rus which Jen and I recognized from Dickens Faire last year.
uaskeeve and his daughter caught up with us (coordinated by Jen earlier), and we looked around for lunch. A fellow handed me a flyer for Smokin' Joe's BBQ, which is across the street from the train museum, so we went there. Very tasty! Sadly, 3 of the 4 Dadek kids were poorly behaved during lunch. *sigh*
We spent the afternoon at the train museum. Highlights:
- The Gold Coast. Jen was looking over the plans of this personal car of two dudes and said, "Hey, there's only one master bedroom. This was a couple!" I know better than to doubt Jen on these things, but I pulled out my phone anyway: "By the standards of the era, the homosexual relationship Beebe and Clegg shared was relatively open and well-known." - Wikipedia. And then we all noticed the stained-glass tops to the train windows. OK, then. Rock-on, mid-century fellows!
- "Evidence of a Dream", the California train history short subject. I just now IMDB'd this, and it says 1990. Wow, I would have put it 8-10 years earlier. I wonder if they could have made the Big Four any skeevier.
- The Gov. Stanford engine, named after the governor/head of the railway. Heh, what kind of backwards, corrupt, third-rate polity has the CEO of the biggest business as the head of government? *cough* Cheney *cough* [And for equal time, Bloomberg and Berlusconi.]
- An enormous wooden playset area with various Thomas items. Toy-etic!
After the museum, we headed back to David's place to see if mollygm was feeling better. The kids watched a couple of episodes of Darkwing Duck while I helped Jen with the handstrength portion of her electric motor for physics class. Mmm-hmm, experimental science! Yeah, that went about as well as you think.
We all went to Jimboy's for dinner, but Ike had a fit about vegetables on his burger, and the rest of my kids were picky, so Jen and I declared the evening over since we were unwilling to inflict our brood on our friends any further. We went back to the hotel and recovered from the day.
This morning went better because Jen had acquired breakfast supplies last night. The one miscalculation was watching The Spongebob Squarepants Movie, which I had hitherto dodged in my life. No longer. I foolishly eagerly awaited the arrival of The Hoff, due to Cracked's recent documenting of the 12-foot statue constructed for filming this epic. If you've seen this movie, you must know the dread I experienced. If not, I refuse to darken your existence with the horrific speculations that will haunt my night-terrors forever. All I will say is, "Eppur si muove."
I'd packed up our stuff so that we could leave when the movie ended. We piled into the two cars and hit Mcdonald's for lunch. Then I set off with the kids for SJ while Jen went about the errands she has to prep for another week of school. The trip back took about 3.5 hours due to a few spots of traffic and a couple of rest stops.
It was a good weekend.