Vacations

I went to the 13th annual Russian River Beer Revival and BBQ Cookoff.

None of the pictures here are mine, since I wasn’t about to take a phone or camera to this event.

On the way there Nick and Fred came to pick me up. Fred is the Box intern from last summer that is now full time at Box. The drive there was longer than expected and Nick and Fred were mainly talking about Box and SF Living. I dozed off for a bit, but joined in the conversation when it went back to other things. We got to the campsite right at sunset. I set my tent up wrong at first and had to get Brian and Andy to help so that I could get it set up. We then ran by the grocery store to get food and beer. We had a nice sit around the fire. Andrew and Adam showed up later and they got the tent set up quickly. I went to bed decently early, and had a really restful sleep due to the 4 beer.

The owner of Camp Outback in all his glory. He does fire dancing at night for anyone who wants to watch.

Saturday morning we went into town for some coffee, and I just walked around the town a bit. It is a nice little place. There were a good number of real estate places in the town, and the surrounding area seems incredibly inexpensive when compared to SF or the Bay Area. Shortly after the coffee run we started walking to the main event. I had with me the holder for the small glass, and a cloth for wiping my hands on. Nick, Brian, Candice, and I were VIP, so we got in a little earlier. There was maybe a 5 minute lag between the VIP getting in and everyone else getting in, which wasn’t even close to the 1 hour that was promised. I wasn’t too bothered by it but it was strange how quickly they let in the rest of the crowd. I was a little upset at the first few places giving me so much of the beer, since I wanted to try a little bit of a lot of different beers. The only bad part about the VIP is the larger cup that doesn’t fit the holder, and is far to much when filled up. There was a really amazing ginger beer that I would like to find more of. I’ll have to try some ginger beers to find something as tasty as this was. At the ginger beer booth, one of the hosts offered me a towel and the small glass for the VIP cup. I gladly took it. Nick then went over and got a T-shirt and a small glass for his VIP cup.

I had soooo much BBQ of beef, pork, and chicken. I didn’t even taste the sides this time. All of it was tasty, and most of it was absolutely delicious.

After a little while I decided to get in the river. It was trying to get down the slope to the river while as drunk as we were, but not too bad. The water was colder than I would have liked, but incredibly refreshing for being as cool as it was. I snuck off for a bit after that to take a nap behind the stage. It was incredibly relaxing and I had such a good time.

As the festival was winding down we all started making our way to the upper deck. We set out from there for the pizza place in Guerneville. We got a good bit of pizza and I ate a ton of it. It is quite surprising how much pizza one can eat after an all you can eat and drink beer and bbq festival. It was really tasty pizza.

After the pizza place we went back to camp, and decided to play some open faced chinese poker. It is an interesting game with all sorts of subtlety. I think it would be fun to have poker at my place every so often and play this variant. It has a lot more strategy to the game itself, whereas other forms of poker have more strategy to the meta game. I took a bit of a nap once the light was too dim to continue poker.

Nick and I decided to leave that night, and Andrew decided to join us. We watched the fire dancing, which was pretty good that night, then we left. On the way back we ran into some crazy construction on 880 that took the highway down to 1 lane. It took us around 45 minutes to clear that section, but that was the only delay. I was dropped off first, since I’m just on the other side of the Dumbarton Bridge.

I really enjoyed the festival, but I don’t think I’ll be going again. The over-drinking and over-eating are things that I will be doing without as much of. I think Nick was feeling the same way about it. I love the atmosphere and the festival, but it has run its course for me.

The Trip Back

We got up early and Carlos and his mother drove us to the airport. We got on the first flight, and I forgot my water bottle in the airport there. We got to Miami and had a really long layover. Customs wasn’t bad, so Steph and I walked along the terminal a few times. Steph also got a massage. On the flight from the Dominican to Miami I sat next to a baby in the lap of a woman, the baby was grabbing in touching everything, and smelled a lot like poo. The flight from Miami to SF was uneventful. I was sooooo ready to get home. Steph’s parents came to pick us up and we got back to her place. We started the day at 5:30, but with the time change that was equivalent to 2:30. I watched the new Venture Brothers with Nick, Robert, Candice, and Robert’s Coworker.

July 1, 2013 0

A Final Dominican Saturday

We got going late in the day and took Jack and Stephanie to the airport. We also dropped off the rental car while there. Carlos then took us to a nice little bakery and we ran some errands. The bakery was the wooden spoon and the place that made the oreo cheesecake. We headed to old town to visit the amber museum, chocolate museum, and columbus house. The chocolate museum had a tasty chocolate tea that Steph and I got a lot of. We got back to the house in time to party a good bit with carlos family, although Steph didn’t join in.

July 1, 2013 0

A Dominican Tuesday

We had a really nice tuesday in the Dominican Republic. We got up early to get to the dive shop but once we got there we realized it cost more than we had thought and I ran by an atm to get the extra. The dives were great as we went to Catalina Island to a place called the wall and the aquarium. We got 4 lionfish on the dives and 2 of then were big enough to eat. The lionfish was pretty tasty as it wasn’t fishy and was very light. I would love to get some more lionfish fillet. We played some volleyball and had lunch on the island as the dive master Igor told us how he ended up being in the Dominican Republic. He wad s really relaxed guy as was the whole staff. During the dives we saw some rays some eels lots of corals and sponges and fish of all kinds. When boating back to shore we had a fun ride with a few flying fish jumping out of our way. When we got back to shore the others were just driving up and we went to a restaurant for a apetizer that carlos liked which was starch stuffed with meat and fried. We went back to the house and relaxed had dinner and played Settlers.

June 28, 2013 0

Monday in the Dominican

We were hoping to go to the caves today but they are closed on Mondays. We also couldn’t go to the private beach because there was construction. It seems that Monday is a great day to be closed in the Dominican Republic. We went back to the gated houses and hung out at the pool. We got drinks at the swim up bar even though the actual swim up bar area wasn’t functional the wait staff brought it out to us at the swim up bar.

We played 500 which was fun. The pina coladas were delicious. We stopped by a truck stop for lunch and got some of the local food. It gave all of us a sleepy attitude and we went back to the house and got a couple hours of sleep. When we woke up we brought out the chips and played a game of Settlers. Since scuba was the next morning we decided to call it early.

June 28, 2013 0

Sunday in the Dominican.

we left early for the city. At the city we had a great breakfast at a little diner. I got a delicious orange juice and eggs. With breakfast I had mashed plantains which were goos and tasted like mashed potatoes with a little more sweet. The mashed plantain was called Mangu. I didn’t think plantains could be that savory. we then headed to the mall to go to a bank. Steph took out a good bit of money for the both of us. After that we went to a butchers shop to pick up some tasty meat. We then stopped by carlos house and met with his parents and 3 dogs. Amber was so much bigger than I remember. his parents gave us each a mango from their tree which were very sweet and messy. If mangos were always that good I’d get them more often. We stopped by the grocery store and picked up a ton of food and drink. Then we stopped by a place that served ham pulled pork and cheese sandwiches.
We went back to the house and hung out in the pool for a bit. Steph was really tired and couldn’t get to sleep so we switched rooms with Brian and Brittany. We had an underwater swimming competition and I almost got to four lengths of the pool. We then played a card game called Oh Hell.

Carlos started making burgers and brittany made some baked potatoes. After dinner everyone was ready to crash so we went to sleep decently early. I slept mostly well but tonight I’m going to have a glass of water ready amd ill leave the ac on all night.

June 28, 2013 0

Dominican Wednesday

We slept in today and got going close to 10. We went to the Cave of Wonders this morning and it was certainly wonderous. No pictures were allowed in the cave to preserve the cave paintings, but I took a picture of the front of the pamphlet.

The cave itself was huge and we only saw about a third of it. The cave was at least 40 feet high and the caverns were 100 feet across or so. There were a group of tree roots coming in from outside. the roots combined with the cave formations to make fantastic patterns.

After exiting the caves through an elevator we hung out with some iguanas. They got to be rather large and we were able to get into the pen with them. Only steph Brittany and myself got into the pen.

We went into the city and got lunch at a great cafeteria style restaurant. We let steph do her women in engineering thing and went to old town afterwards. In old town we went to the cathedral, the fort, and the hiuse owned by Christopher Columbus.

When we got home and settled down we played some poker. I was the first out and I was kind of glad about that.

June 28, 2013 0

A Relaxing Thursday

We didn’t do much this morning. Around noon we went to the beach and everyone else had lunch there.

I took a good long walk and got to talk to Derick about a good many things. I really liked the walk because I’ve been feeling restless from inactivity. A quick rain storm came up and we all ran under the big roof. Carlos ordered lunch then so we waited around. Steph took a coconut from a l ocal for free and then took another for me that he later said was not free. I thought it was tricky but he didn’t get the 100 he wanted just the 65 I had. We went back to the house and played a game of settlers. I did terribly and even failed in king making to get Brittany to win.
We had a good dinner of mangu and kabobs. The kabobs were really good and brittanys mangu was also fantastic. The mangu is something that I might want to try making at some point.
After diner we had a bit of hookah and played dominican dominoes. Jack and angel won the first game but steph and I got the second.

June 28, 2013 0

Dominican Friday

We slept in that morning and had a good swim in the pool behind the house. After the swim Steph and I went on a walk and saw all the really nice houses in the area. For lunch we went to a really nice beachside restaurant and got to sit on a nice couch. It was a supremely relaxing lunch.

We went into the city to see the tres ojos caves. They were more like giant open holes but impressive. There was a fourth thay had completeky caved in and was still impressive as it was the largest. We got to take a small raft across one of the lakes and it was exciting to ride it into the darkness.

Stephanie got sick on the way to the cigar store so we stopped by carlos aunts house for something for stephanie. She and jack went to carlos house to wait for us. She still wasn’t feeling good after we got done with the cigar store.

We then went to the old square near the Columbus house at a place called the Wooden Leg. It was a really nice dinner and a great way to end the vacation. We were there a lot later than expected, but it was still really nice.