Christmas 2011

12/23/2011 thru 12/26/2011 - Christmas

This being year number 3 in the rotation, ( 1.my parents, 2.her parents, 3.stay home) we had the oportunity to not travel over the holiday.  While we certainly missed seeing our families, it was very nice not to be stuck in an airport somewhere without our luggage trying to find a plane, train or car to get home to see our families for 2 days before we turn around and fly back to Reno.  Elizabeth and I did our Christmas thing a little early on 12/22 and drove to Alameda on Friday 12/23 to spend the weekend on the boat. 

I bought us tickets to see The Nutcracker in an attempt to be cultural and broaden our horizons.  Christmas Eve we drove to SF and went to the War Memorial Opera House to see the ballet.  I know it doesn't sound like a great time, and I had my doubts as well, but it only seemed fitting to do something X-massy, cultural and "one of those things your mom would have forced you into when you were little"  We had decided early on that we would be in trouble if this was a 4 hour ordeal.  We found reasurance from all the little kids in attendance.  Our thought was, there's no way this thing can go on for hours with all these little kids.  Thankfully we were right.  We arrived early and had a glass of wine while wandering around the building.  On the upside, the bartender asked us if we would like to pre-order our drinks for half time (I mean intermission).  You don't get that at a football game now do you!  It was actually a great show.  The sets were amazing and the orchestra was great.  I don't really have anything to compare the ballet part to, so I assume it was top notch as well.  It put us in the Christmas mood and was something new to experience.



Autumn Wind decked out for Christmas



Our neighbors out did us!



Apparently Santa didn't realize we had left Reno, because there were no presents waiting for us on Christmas morning.  It may have been beacuse we didn't have a chimney, I'm not sure.  Christmas morning we lounged in bed, waiting for the heaters to warm up the boat.  (it was about 40 deg. inside when we woke up, brrrr) went for a nice run and then I made some biscuits and sausage gravy to complete a healthy morning!  We finally made it out of the slip and had a great winter sail out of the estuary and out to the city front.  When we turned around it became apparent that the ripping ebb tide was not messing around at about 4kts and we had to motor most of the way back.  I figure if you can't be with your family, you might as well be sailing.



Christmas Sailing



The downside of the weekend was with some big negative tides, poor Dezzie had a hard time making it up the ramp off the dock.  As usual she was a trooper and did her best.





On a good note our Radar and chartplotter came in, yippe!  Now all I have to do is istall it.  Red to positive (I think) black to negative.  How hard can this be?  So for what some people spend for a 54" TV with surround sound we got a 7" (that's diagnogal by the way) screen, no TV or sound, music is a $700 add on, that hopefully will show us where we are in the world and what hard objects are around us.  You know...the things that most people take for granted every day.  I have a feeling this adventure has just started.



Is this how it works?



Thanksgiving '11

11/24/2011 – Thanksgiving

Today we had a big day of fun planned in Alameda and the surrounding areas.  There is no better way to start a day of glutinous eating off than with a nice run.  Elizabeth and I headed up to Point Pinole state park to run the Brazen Racing Nitro Turkey 10K trail run.  The weather was calling for rain on and off all day, so this promised to be a fun run.  Like they say “your 30% more hardcore when you run in the rain”.  I don’t know if that’s necessarily true, but I digress. 



Post race with our medals



The run was pretty small but a lot of fun.  The rain held off, mostly, until after the finish and It was fun to run a “trail” race.  The “trails” were really just gravel paths, so not too crazy.  It was fun to splash thru the mud puddles and run at sea level.  What really made the race stand out was 1.  The finisher medals were cool, 2. The shirts were cool (ie. You could actually wear them around without being embarrassed; like the opposite of the Bay to Breakers T’s) 3. They had ice cream sandwiches and pumpkin pie for post race snacks.  Now that’s awesome! 



It was a long day for Dezzie also



We drove back in the rain to Alameda to start our day of eating/drinking/drinking.  1^st up, a big bottle of champagne for mimosas.  Then some bacon wrapped scallops (who doesn’t eat like this on their boat?) and more apps while we watched some football, walked Dezzie and generally relaxed thinking abot how fortunate we were.  Eventually we made our way to making some green bean casserole (Elizabeth’s only real requirement for Thanksgiving) potatoes and some steaks in place of the turkey.  The oven’s not so big on the boat so we opted for grill food.  More doggie walks, and then we decided to walk off some of our food with a walk to McGee’s for a beer.  I figure by the end of the day we probably had 11 to 12 miles under our feet.  Autumn Wind hosted us nicely for our second Thanksgiving on her.  It was a great day of feeling fortunate for all that we have.



We even had flowers for the table

11/25/2011

The plan was to sail over to South Beach Harbor and make it to Union Square to see the Christmas tree lighting.  I started out by delaying us by playing around with our reefing system, that never seems to work quite right.  After losing the reefing line in the boom and getting a few looks for E. I decided it was time to go.  I tried to convince her that it was a safety issue, but she had no part of it. 

We had a small sail over to South Beach where we ran in to the Solstice crew leaving as we were pulling in.  We had met them on the Delta Doo Dah a few months ago and coincidently they moored their boat at the same marina as us.  Small world.  We got lucky this time and they put us in B8 (or something like that) I know Dezzie was excited that she wouldn’t have to walk very far to the bathroom.  For Dezzie the walk from the end of the dock to the gate may have done her in, so this was a good thing. 



Thirsty Bear Brewery



First things first, we went in search of a brewery.  The Thirsty Bear Brewery.  We found it, it was good.  I’d give it a 7.5 out of 10. A sampler and a beer into it it was time to push on to the main highlight of the day. Union Square and Black Friday shoppers!  Now I’m the kind of guy who usually refuses to leave the house on Black Friday, let alone go into the Devils lair of prime time shopping chaos.  But when in SF do as SFers do.  It was chaos, crazy, there were some occupiers stirring up more chaos, we saw a $750 pair of moccasins at Louis Vitton.  Macy’s was decked out and looked every bit the holiday destination.  The let down, I mean highlight, of the evening was the tree lighting.  The streets were packed with thousands of people.  We took our place and waiting until the time, and waited and waited and waited until 40 minutes latter; and then………….the tree lit up and 5 thousand people turned around and left.  I didn’t figure it would be the greatest thing ever, but it was sort of anti-climactic.  We can now say we saw a tree light up in Union Square.



Look at all those people





We left with the other 5 thousand or so people and walked back to South Beach.  Probably the highlight was our dinner at Paragon, a few blocks up the street from AT&T park.  It was great.  I definitely recommend it.  1 more doggie walk and bed time.

There's the tree we waited for