giggles, great soup, Salt Flats, Casinos, and our Destination!

Since we are here for a long time, we won't be blogging everyday, but will consolidate this on-line diary.

How many of you guessed why the eggs weren't hard boiled? You have to guess, I won't answer it yet!

Anyway, we had a great last night in Salt Lake City, on Saturday night. We babysat for Isaac while Matt and Rachel worked, and had so much fun with him! The picture is of Rachel coloring with Isaac He is sitting on a Pampers Box, since he doesn't have a chair yet, and was having so much fun with his mommy.

We then let her get some work done. We got him giggling, which made us giggle and love him so much. He came over to both of us for special attention, but he has his own subtle way of doing it, just sort of positions himself in front of us to be tickled or picked up, and smiles happily.

Matt made us dinner later on, a really great squash soup with cheese croutons. It was truly excellent. We bought the wine and the dessert.

We left very early sunday, and made sure we had gas in our car for the drive across the dreaded "Bonneville Salt Flats." The last time we drove this 77 miles of nothingness, we were practically on empty, as the last gas station beforehand was out of power. I included a picture of this land, as it is unique. Although there are foothills in the distance, it is just flat, flat land. This time of year we noticed it was sort of brownish, with some flat lake beds along the way, but other times, it's been miles of white nothingness. yes, it IS salt, and there are salt processing plants, I guess you'd call them, along the way.

We then got into Reno, made great time. We stayed at The Grand Sierra Casino. It's a new place, and really, really beautiful. The room rate was $49! (plus $20 for the dog, but they take dogs, which is great). It was really fun, as we watched the Super Bowl down in the sports bar room with many others, who were quite loud in their cheering. A fun place to watch it!

The next day, we drove into Ca., and to our condo in Novato. We spent the day unpacking and organizing, and shopping for food, etc. Today is Tuesday, Feb. 3rd, and we are still getting settled. We had to wait for our golf clubs most of the day, but we continued to organize. I went to Jazzerize tonight, which felt good and familiar, seeing some of the gals I remembered.

I walked Gus to get the paper this morning, and again, it was good and familiar. It feels oddly familiar and homelike. Dan is settling in, I will let him talk for himself. He really likes the condo, as this is up on a hill with the Pacheco Open Space Preserve out the back. We saw deer today, in our yard. No turkeys yet, though, I miss them! Pat.

Last night I woke up at my regular time 3 am, to go to the bath room and noticed the outside lights go on (motion detector), and there was a large buck deer in the back of the condo. It was eerie but very cool. They are mule deer, and their racks are different than white tails, but he was at least a six pointer. Tbe good part about this location, is the location. We are close to San Francisco, Napa and Sonoma. The condo is bordered by open space. I sat on the deck and smoked a cigar tonight and did enjoy the setting. There is sprawl around here, and some of it is pretty bad sprawl, but there are also some good things. We found a very good Chinese restaurant and we are near all the things that seem necessary these days such as Costco, Petco, Bevmo, and other stores that end in O. No mo for tonight.

Dan