Our B&B served a delicious cinnamon pear as a starter then a quiche bowl and a side of fresh fruit. Both were outstanding although I'm not sure I liked chicken in my quiche. It also had egg, cheese and bacon. A toast with tomato and cheese was also on the side. The coffee was a little weak. We could not get WiFi this morning so ended up driving down to Keystone to use the free public WiFi in the street which was amazing. It was quite good and allowed us to get our mail. NExt we took our stuff and went over to Mt Rushmore. Hiked the Presidential Trail and admired the sculpture, visited the sculptors studio and watched the movie in the visitors center. It was all interesting although I'm not sure I would return. Been there, done that. We attempted a drive into Custer PArk but turned around after 5 miles of twisty turns driving. Loved the tunnels that have views right out to Rushmore. Such a treat. I was tired so we bailed and drove into Hill City where we tasted wines by Praire City Winery. They were not worth the price so we ended up in the city at a food market where we bought Calif wine as well as crackers and cheese. It was a very nice day. When we got back the WiFi was working. We had the wine and cheese with crackers on the porch and then went out to dinner at the Himalayan indian Restaurant. When we went inside the smell was heavenly, we smelled curry or spices. I wanted Briyani but the waiter suggested chicken Tika Masala which was delicious. It's chunks of chicken with an Orange Curry sauce along with Basmati rice. We shared the entre which was more than enough food. We had water to accompany. Quite nice. We told our neighbors from England, Peter and Jane, about the restaurant. They were interested.

Joe was up early working in the kitchen. Christa came down to say goodby then we headed out the door at 6 AM. We were TSA Pre and had no trouble at all at John Waynce, we breezed through. The flight was full but I scored an exit row seat. Libbie was in the same row but across the aisle in a seat that was not in a wide row. We got in early in Denver but landed in Terminal C. Had to take the train all the way past A & B to get our baggage then the shuttle to the rental car lot. We got a Red Toyota Corolla with quite a few miles on it but it was fine. We had to wait since all they had ready was SUVs. IT took a while to get through Denver traffic, at one place the Interstate narrowed to 1 lane which was a long bottleneck. Eventually we hit the Open road and drove through Wyoming for the first time ever. Speed Limit was 80 which was unreal but not terribly different from 130 km/hr in Austria. Found our B&B in Keystone then went out to dinner in Hill City. We ended up in the Alpine Inn which has Filet Mignon for 9.95 which includes baked potato and salad. We had a 1/2 litre of very nice house Cabernet and enjoyed our dinner. The place was recommended by our hosts Lesley and Ron. The road to Hill City as well as the road to Keystone is covered with wandering deer.

Busy start to the day. I updated the MAAVS website with commercial vendors attending the convention, communicated with the LSAVC folks about adding the newsletter to their website then did the check in to Southwest at 7:45 for our Denver flight tomorrow morning. We got B20 and B21 but it was TSA Pre which was pretty cool.
We took a walk on the beach in Huntington Beach with Christa and Paige while Joe went off on his own to ride his bike, I got a pretty good sunburn, didn't expect it. We then went to Whittier for the Lapworth Labor Day picnic. It was almost 100 in Whittier which was surprising since it wasn't that hot in HB. Craig made Tortillas with chicken and beans, sour cream and lots of fixins. It was quite good. Packed up our suitcases when we came back ready for an early morning takeoff.

I finished the European trip blog today. Hope we go back soon, looking back it looked like so much fun. Joe's coffee maker failed this morning so we used the Keurig machine. It still tastes like instant to me. I have no more cold symptoms but am very lethargic. I vegetated most of the day. We had the leftover Pad Thai for lunch and then went to Central Park for the afternoon performance. We did a photo session under the trees while in the Park for a family portrait then participated in the swing lesson being offered. It was a little different, turn right, turn left then rock step. We danced a few numbers with the band throughout the evening. On the way home we stopped at La Capilla. I had a Blue Moon and a Shrimp Fajita which was way too much food. Later in the evening I helped Christa set up the new coffee maker she bought at Costco and ran a pot of hot water through it before bed.

I'm starting to feel the effects of a cold. It's too bad but I seem to be catching Libbie's cold and have a sore throat. I took some Vitamin C today and I will continue to take it all week. It's supposed to help shorten the after effects of a cold. We shall see. Once again I spent a lot of the day updating the European trip blog. I'm now down to the final day in the Wachau Valley where I will end it. Christa went out to get her hair done and wants a family picture, probably tomorrow. Paige is pretty busy today, we played with her all day. For dinner we ordered Thai from the little Gulf Thai place. I had Chicken Pad Thai as well as Joe and Libbie. Christa had Chicken Su sui or something like that. We had it accompanied by a beer.

I slept until 6:45 which is unusual. Paige woke up very happy this morning. Anne announced the DVD is now ready and was looking for suggestions for next year. Not sure what to do since DVDs are not mainstream anymore, however the conversation from the rest of the library group was entertaining. The amount of discussion was amazing and pretty educational. I think we should try to put some of the older videos on the YouTube pay channel. Libbie and I didn't do anything all day which was relaxing and amazing. For lunch we had ham and cheese sandwiches and for dinner Joe made delicious hamburgers and sausage hors d'oeuvres which we had with a beer. Joe uploaded several thousand images onto Picassa and configured his Chromecast device to show the pictures as a slide show.

I went back to updating the travel blog. It was great having this block of time to do all this writing. I'm still not sure why I'm doing it but it has been a lot of fun. For lunch we had the leftover tri-tip on bread. It is still as yummy as ever. I'll have to seek it out. I tried Pandora and found that the ads are blocked by Adbock Plus. It's pretty nice.
Sometime during the afternoon Paige got hurt. She got into the pantry and a large can of beans fell on her toe causing it to bleed. She screamed for quite some time while Libbie and Joe washed her toe and applied pressure to stop the bleeding. In less than half an hour she was back to her playful self.
We went to Debbie's house for a Lapworth family party. The menu was pizza and other things with beer, etc. It was a nice time with the Lapworths.

After breakfast we went to a Splash Park in Garden Grove. Admission was $2 each for adults. We met neighbor Shelly and daughter Charley there. Shelley is a tattooed lady but very nice. Paige doesn't like splashing water, just still water and puddles. On the way back we had Vietnamese sandwiches from a drive through. They were delicious. It was spiced pork and cucumber on a toasted baguette. In a bag there were pickled carrots and pickled Jalapenos to put ton the sandwich. It was delicious. Paige cried almost all afternoon. She's getting sick, a cold or sniffles. She finally settle down when Christa came home. Joe made Tritip steak on the grill on Hawaiian rolls with cheese. This was yummy. We accompanied it with beer. After dinner we took a walk to the school down the street and watched Paige while Joe and Christa played wall ball with tennis rackets. During the afternoon I set up the sub-domain ls.avsa.org for the license server and added an A record to the DNS so that when you access it, the request goes to 204.209.44.220

Paige was a little tired this morning after breakfast. We went to the beach at Corona Del Mar and walked along the cliffs then down the stairs to the rock formations on the beach. We spent a few hours walking and enjoying the sea breeze and sunshine. Came back and had ham and cheese sandwiches for lunch. I then continued working on the travel blog, Travels by Tom.
When Christa came home we went out to the downtown festival night where Main Street is closed off and a Framers Market is running. We took a short walk out onto the pier then went to the HB Brewery for dinner. We all ordered the do it yourself Tacos which is 3 Tacos. I had pork carnita, carni asata and fish as the base for mine. Put some lettuce, cheese, sour cream and jalapenos on it. I drank a brown beer along with the dinner. They were featuring two beers: brown and blonde along with a host of others. We walked up Main after dinner and listened to some of the musicians along the way. Libbie bought a tied dye skirt for dancing that a vendor had on his racks.
This afternoon Craig stopped by to visit. He had his brother Gary and Gary's Son Kevin with them. Gary lives outside of Seattle and came down for a visit.

Spent more of today catching up on the travel blog. it's slow going but I'm determined to finish. We went to the Long Beach Aquarium today which was a lot of fun. Didn't bring lunch so we had the leftover subs from yesterday for lunch. This made me pretty tired. I posted a pic of Libbie reading to Paige as well as some pics from the aquarium. Over 40 people like the pic on Facebook. We bought $48 worth of groceries in Albertsons which gave us a nice chicken dinner grilled which Joe did. It was chicken, black beans and beer for dinner. Appetizer was sausage and some veggies with ranch dressing or hickory BBQ.

Woke up pretty early this morning because we're in Calif but our body is still on East Coast rhythms. I had a bowl of raisin bran crunch for breakfast which was good but I found out afterwards it was laden with sugar, 19 grams compared to shredded wheat which is 0.
Had a nice relaxing day catching up on my travel blog from Europe. In the late afternoon we picked up some subs for a picnic at the library where there was a big band playing Gershwin, Sousa, Bernstein, etc. We sat in the shade with Christa's cousin Pam and her grandchild. Libbie and I split a Turkey, Bacon and Avocodo sub. The sub shop was closing but we got our order in after closing and they filled it. The bill was $31.

After breakfast we loaded the car and drove to the airport parking. All went well, we took the park and ride shuttle and had TSA Pre which should have been easy for check in but my digital SLR tripped up the x-ray person and I had to get a hand inspection which took a while. We had a very nice attractive lady from Cisco between us on the flight. She was going to Las Vegas for a conference. She talked about her her kids, married early and then divorced and married again. She was pretty but Libbie said she talked too much. We had an Einstein bagel with cream cheese at the Denver airport then boarded the flight to Orange County. We scored with the exit row, yes! I started reading the Harper Lee book, Go Set a Watchmen, and am really enjoying it. Strangely I finished Part 1 and started Part 2. The strange part is what is Part 1, Part 2, etc all about? The story doesn't seem to change course or era or shift in any discernible way. Anyway, I'm enjoying it. Joe and Paige picked us up at the airport. We arrived 30 minutes early and then stopped at Cafe Rio on the way home and picked up $40 worth of pork salads which were a tortilla, beans, cheese and lettuce with a salad dressing topping. We had it much later for dinner and it was yummy. Would love to eat more beans and lettuce like this. I was really tired after dinner and laid down eventually passing out sound asleep.

After breakfast I started rubbing the ribs at 8:30 and then into the smoker at 10:30. I'm doing both a rack of baby backs and 7 of the country ribs. I smoked the ribs for 3 hours then wrapped the baby backs and put the country ribs into 2 pans, one with KC Classic sauce and the second with the XXX adults only sauce. The baby backs came out a little drier than I wanted and the country ribs were perfect but not as hot as the first time which was last week. We went over to the studio at 6:45 PM for the 7 PM party. I had to enter the ballroom kitchen wearing my Rib University apron. Unfortunately we did not win the cook off. It was a fun night anyway but we left early after the drawings because we leave in the morning for California.

Smoked some chicken today for dinner. Everything was running behind schedule but it came out OK anyway. I spent a total of 3.5 hours cooking time, 2 hours in smoke and the rest in a pan of sauce. Did not use the hot sauce this time but I will for the studio cooking tomorrow. Robert said he likes hot ribs. After the chicken we went out to Brewsters for ice cream. There were a few customers outside at a table a beautiful Porsche Red Targa convertible in front of the place. It sure looked nice. The pole dancers were live again. I showed them to Libbie. Their Mom was even in the broadcast and said a few words.

Took the cart out this morning and picked up sticks around the front yard and got a few full cart fulls of branches. it's mostly just a cursory pickup getting the biggest and most obvious stuff. We had a good dance lesson with Robert concentrating on parts of our Foxtrot routine and adding a pivot turn to the mix. I discovered an interesting family on YouNow. Three teenage girls and their mom with a fitness pole in their house. It was fun watching the girls and then Mom on the pole. There were lots of comments about that being inappropriate but it's alll in the mind of the viewer. The Mom even explained her girls are not doing anything sexual, it's just fun and good exercise. Libbie made pasta and tuna aka tuna noodle casserole for dinner.

Trimmed the bushes next to the front sidewalk and also down at the beginning of the driveway. Now I want to take the cart around and do a stick pickup but not today. I got all hot and sweaty so I did inside stuff today. I got the new computer, the Dell, compiling for the iPad. This took a bit since certificates needed to be set up. Did a grocery run and wanted Country ribs in Kroger but they didn't have any I could find. Will try Walmart next. Dinner was spaghetti with cheese sprinkled on top.

The market opened down 1000 this morning and finished the day down 600. Wow, what a bloodbath. I'm too afraid to look at my accounts to see what happened. I'll leave it alone for a while. I spent a lot of time doing MAAVS stuff today from finding pics for Brenda to loading the new logo onto the website and adding the March Memo to the website, scanned the booklet covers then also uploaded the registration form for the convention. I also made the hotel reservations and filled out the online registration form. For dinner we had the leftover ribs from Saturday night. They are as yummy as ever.

Finished up the roundup in the sprayer by walking around the front yard zapping grapevines and poison ivy. Went to repair the generator thinking it was battery related. It turns out to be the Solenoid which I ordered from Amazon for Tuesday delivery. Spent $11 extra for the expedited shipping. Did some more scanning of the early Tom album, my early years from birth to 6 years old. Some of these I didn't know existed. Dinner was Libbie's good pizza.

Went outside with roundup and did all the weeds along the creek and around the stumps in the back. Earlier in the morning I rubbed down some ribs and left them out soaking up the rub. Put them into the smoker around 11. I did the 3-2-1 cooking which is 3 hours of smoke, 2 hours of wrapped cooking and 1 hour in BBQ sauce. they really came out good. Had them with Shiraz and lima beans. I have mastered ribs!

Spent the day scanning old albums. I'm color correcting as i go and using high resolution scanning. They're really coming out good, seeing detail not easily seen with the naked eye. Good stuff. We had soup for dinner then went dancing. We won a bottle of wine in the drawings then went out to the Cary Pub after dance. It was toga night but we didn't participate although quite a few people did.

I exchanged a few eMails with Joe about smoking meat then got busy scanning a few of Mom's albums and one of Libbies. The scans are coming out well. One album is Joe at 1 year old, the other is my Mother's and is mostly 1977, 1978 which was fun. The wireless Maverick temperature probe arrived today in the mail. It's not bad for the price and easily works into the house. I went to Kroger looking for chicken wings and ended up buying one package of thighs and one package of drumsticks. I used the Dadgum good rub recipe and also bought a bottle of Famous Daves BBQ sauce, XXX rated adults only. I mixed this 2:1 with honey, 2 parts honey to 1 part sauce. The wings were incredibly tender and good although a little too spicy for Libbie. We went out to Brewsters Ice cream next to Kroger after dinner to make up for some of the spice. I spent some time watching people on You Now. Some of these girls are pretty sophisticated.

We had a good dance lesson with Robert. He liked our costume proposal for the Pacman ghosts and a big yellow pacman running around. I tried again with the country style ribs. Picked up another package in Walmart but this time I went light on the rub and finished the ribs in a container of BBQ sauce, the KC Classic BBQ sauce. They came out a lot nicer. We made Lima beans to accompany the meal.

I rubbed down some country ribs from Walmart with the Smoking Gun rub and fired up the smoker for 5 hours. The thing has a meat probe which I plugged into the meat and used it to monitor the meat temperature. The smoker worked smoothly but the meat was way too salty. I was very disappointed. The BBQ sauce though was excellent. Something is very wrong. We had the meat with green beans and a bottle of shiraz which we probably should not have had. Went to the new Brewsters Ice Cream next to Kroger. The owner was outside and gave us some 75 cent off coupons. We went over to Kroger after dinner to get some ribs because Baby backs are on sale for 2.99 a pound then did the ice cream store. The waffles are made in store daily and are quite good. I had Mint chip ice cream.

I did the second application of Miracle Grow outside, this time I concentrated on the Irises and geraniums. In the morning I finally had a chance to work on my blog and finished up the Glarus and Mt Pilatus sections. Now it's to do Lauterbrunnen and then Austria. Much more to do. I really enjoy doing this. Received a call from Anne Nicholas in the evening that the DVD came and everything is OK, this will be the final copy. Dinner was spaghetti wth sauce and cheese. I went shopping today looking at ribs and selected some country ribs in Walmart as an experiment on the smoker. I also rounded out some needed spices by purchasing a few. Walmart pricing on Spices is better than Kroger.

Started wiring the new outlet I mounted on the deck yesterday. I tried to tie it into the existing outlet above the crawl space opening but the outlet screws were rusted and ended up breaking in the box. A quick trip to Home Depot and I had a new box as well as a concrete hammer drill bit for the tool that is scheduled for delivery tomorrow. Once I got the new box the wiring went well. I even cleaned up the rats nest of TV cables in the doorway, removing the old ones and tying up the existing ones which are still in use. I finished the job by sealing the hole with hydraulic cement. The smoker plugs into the outlet which now has an in-use outlet cover, allowing the plugged in smoker to withstand weather. Libbie made a delicious pizza for dinner. On my half once again I chopped up some sweet pepper and onions but Libbie didn't cut it exact so I ended up with one slice plain and she got the one with the good stuff which she doesn't care for.