Adam organized a kayak outing to Elkhorn Slough which has a lot of harbor seals and otters. It was the time of year that some young ones are about as well, so we got to see juvenile otters and harbor seals. The wind was pretty strong that day, and I couldn’t get close enough to the animals to get good pictures, but it was a great time.
Irene’s brother Philip was nice enough to let me show up and work a little on his tiny house. He’s been building it since 2016, and it is pretty far along. I had never met him before, so it was a big risk on his part. I got into Albuquerque Tuesday night at 1am, so I grabbed a hotel instead of trying to drive. I got my rental car in the morning, but they changed it on me. The other car wasn’t ready, and I got a black Dodge Charger instead. It was an ok car, but solid black wasn’t good in the desert sun.
I drove down to meet Philip, and he gave me a tour of the grounds. He is building it on the property of a friend of his, Ronnie, and his family. There was a ton of stuff around, mostly for spare parts.
We then got to work. I started off with a support bar on one wall of the tiny house. It came together decently well. I then did some metal work for the same support area for the loft. That evening we went to New Mexico Tech to use the showers at the gym. It was a nice campus, albeit small. I ended up staying at the Econo Lodge, as I wasn’t up for staying in the gymnastics gym on Ronnie’s property. I didn’t feel right using the gym without confirming it was ok with the woman who ran it (who I had never been introduced to).
Philip was nice enough to take me bouldering at the nearby ‘The Box’ canyon. It was a nice place, but I am way out of shape for that kind of bouldering. It was still a good time. At the end of the night we got the strange lights in the sky experience. A redish light would take a specific path that brightened and dimmed. The speed and path of the light was constant, but it came at somewhat random intervals. Turns out it was just cars driving along a nearby hill.
I stayed with one of Philips former coworkers, Kevin, the next few nights. Kevin’s brother, Joel, was visiting from San Jose. They were both a lot of fun to talk to. Philip took the four of us out to dinner at the fanciest restaurant in Socorro. They took us to San Lorenzo Canyon, a slot canyon nearby. We got there very late so the pictures didn’t turn out, but in person it was gorgeous. We watched the starts for a while, and I counted at least a dozen satellites. I’m pretty sure we got a perfect alignment with one of the satellites for it to reflect the sun back at us, as it had a bright flash and was opposite where the sun had just set. We also saw two shooting stars.
Philip then assigned me to install some trellises on the back of the tiny house, as well as cover up a few of the last holes in the siding. We got some jasmine, and started training them to go up the poles.
After that we finished by installing the second layer of insulation. I decided to head out to the Very Large Array, which was quite large, but in the middle of nowhere.
It was a good trip, and I got the first hand view of what it took to build a tiny house.
We read the two distopic classics and it was interesting to see the similarities and differences between the two. Both had the focus set on the overproduction of goods being used up in a way, either war or hyper-consumerism. Many of the concepts were still very applicable to today’s society, if not more applicable than they were at the time of publishing. It was one of the best discussions we’ve had.
Tina invited us to hang out for her Bday at Esthers. We had a good time and talked a ton about all manner of things. Amit brought a puzzle and I had a good time not solving it. After Esthers we went to Teaspoon across the street and continued the conversation.
Paul invited us to a dinner at Zanottos where Ridge Winery was doing a tasting of their wines. The wines were very good. We also got a six course dinner prepared by Zanottos, and that was tasty as well. I had a good time and the discussions were pretty interesting.
Our garden is coming along nicely. Some strawberries, lemons, garlic, and onions are ready for harvest. I can see the start of more lemons and strawberries. We also have some peppers and tomatoes starting. The orange tree in the front yard looks like it might be trying to fruit, but I won’t be able to tell for sure for another week.
Tina signed us up for an escape room at the Palace of Fine Arts in SF. I hadn’t been there before so I headed down early and worked from the garden there. It was a really nice day, and the gardens were gorgeous.
Everyone else showed up around 3:30pm and we went into the escape room. We ended up doing pretty well; escaping with 7 minutes remaining. I really enjoyed the puzzles, and some were pretty difficult. We missed a few obvious hints, but that happens.
Adam found a kayaking class in Redwood City, and I decided to join him for it. He had a new folding kayak, much like the one Steph had used for kayak camping several years ago. It was working out well for him until we got to the self righting exercises. Since it didn’t have bulkheads it would sink easily and become unrecoverable. He decided to look into the self recovery options later with the manufacturer, but we were able to pull off the assisted recovery without too much of a problem. It was harder than I had expected in my kayak, despite it being a normal kayak. I had a good time, and the people /instructors were pretty great.
Tina organized a hike on Thursday to El Corte De Madera. She was nice enough to drive, and it turned out to be a perfect day for the hike. The others were a little cold, but I was pretty comfortable. We were joined by Jeremy and Candice and two others I didn’t know well. The hike was about 5 miles and afterwards we went to Alice’s Cafe for lunch.
It's an Exciting World 