We were finally able to take some time for ourselves in the past couple of days. Thursday afternoon we planted our little vegetable and herb garden, and by we, I mean, Joel dug up and turned over the rock hard clay soil, and I came in after all the hard work was done to plop the plants into their holes. Here's hoping we get success!
Yesterday we puttered around the house cleaning a bit and Joel installed the smoke detectors. And anyone who knows Joel well enough will know that he measured precisely the location of each detector so that each would be perfectly centered and perfectly straight. Let's call it meticulousness....
In the afternoon we drove up Mount Diablo, the ~1200m (3800 foot) peak that dominates the skyline here and that we aim to ride up with our bikes by the end of the season. The grade is not too steep, but relentlessly goes up for nearly 20km (10-12 miles). We have high hopes that it's doable and we saw several cyclists going up yesterday (who are these people and why are they not at work?).
On our way back down from Diablo we took a wrong turn in a town called Danville and ended up in the most incredible, extravagant, superfluous,... etc. neighbourhood we had ever seen. That's the California you see on tv. Very house had a beat-up pickup truck in front with rakes and mowers sticking out the back. Yeah, these guys don't live there, they're the gardeners! The only reason we fit in with our '98 Ford Ranger was that people probably thought we were gardeners too!
We had our first guests yesterday: Kathryn and Garrett came by yesterday evening and brought us some house warming beers. We only have two chairs so two sat in chairs and two sat on the floor, but it was nice to have friends over in our new place!
Today we're heading out early to San Jose to the flea market to:
- see if we can at least partially furnish our house in a wallet and environmentally friendly way by reusing someone else's furniture.
- try out some of the international fare that is supposed to be very popular at the market
- find fresh local vegetables at the farmer's market section
- see what other interesting things we can find (spanish tiles for our 'stolen' table!)
This will be the farthest south we've driven, should be exciting!
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3 comments:
I want pictures (house AND grill)! And, next time you two are in San Jo' - Barefoot Coffee Roasters is truly the best of the bestest. I am jealous of your year round growing season... find a friend with an avocado tree. I used to snag oranges and apricots on my walk into town off the neighbors trees.
j
oh yeah - I'm a big fan of barefoot's coffee too! but their prep in the cafe is nothing compared with blue bottle...
Oh dear. It's a coffee battle.
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