Thanksgiving

So many things to do, so little time to write about them all. After a night rockin’ out in CT’s sound room we spent another day driving around Lake Tahoe, seeing all the little towns around the lake and stopping to check out the scenery every now and then. There are some huge houses in an area called Incline Village, some are nice, and some are ugly as hell. We drove past one of Tiger Wood’s houses which was next door to one of Tommy Hilfiger’s houses but apparently nobody actually lives in their houses around here, they just like to own them. Go figure. We stopped at a place called Cave Rock which is apparently fairly well known. I don’t know much about it but it is made of rock and has lots of caves in it.

Its a rock, plus some caves

We stopped a little further around the lake and found a cool spot where we could climb down on some rocks and get really close to the water. The water in Lake Tahoe looks tropical, it is so clear. I got quite a few photos. In fact I got enough photos to make a 360 degree panorama, but the whole thing is so big I can’t upload it. Here is a small version.

CT is as small as he looks here

So I was pretty impressed with that. We also stopped at a few thrift stores to see if we could find any cool stuff which, as you might expect, we did. Thrift stores are so cool. In England people take the shit they don’t want to the charity shop (or the tip) and when you go in there you can see why they didn’t want it. Mostly the stuff you find in charity shops are ugly, broken, or look like it’s been pulled out of someone’s arse. Here in the US every thrift store you go into is like an Aladdin’s cave of magical artefacts. Pink fur Pimp hats, ‘Truckee Rodeo 2004’ T-shirts, Mesh caps that have likely been worn by real sweaty truckers, the list is endless. I managed to find a pair of shoes that I quite liked the look of. I tried them on and they were a little tight, plus I figured I’d end up never wearing them, but they were $8 so I figure if I really don’t want them I can just give them away. Oh shit I just ruined your Christmas present Chris, sorry.

After a long day driving around the lake and trawling for trinkets at the thrift stores, what better way to relax than going for sushi. CT took us to a cool little sushi place where they had a happy hour which meant lots of sushi for less. It was some damn good sushi, especially for the price and we topped it all off with a really chocolaty chocolate thing that was decorated with a design that looked suspiciously like a hemp leaf. Sushi.

We couldn't stop laughing, then we got really hungry,
then we got really paranoid

The next day we had to leave early to get back to Boonville, but not before taking some pictures of CT’s house. He has spent the last two summers decorating the front of his house and it had turned from some horrible baby blue birdhouse to a cool looking mountain cabin with granite and big belt sanded logs. It looks a hell of a lot better than some of the houses around Tahoe, and the fact that he has managed to do almost all the work himself (a friend painted the house for him) makes it even better.



So we left Tahoe and headed back to sleepy old Boonville. The next day wasn’t a big deal, back to work in the apple shed for the morning. I worked on strengthening the doorframe which was being pulled out by the heavy door. I knocked the whole thing back into place and then put a bunch of 6” screws in to hold the whole thing there. They were a bastard to get in though because they were so stiff. Then Peter turned up and suggested I use the oil I had been using to drill the heads off nails. Duh. Things went much faster after that. I made a time-lapse video of the whole thing which I thought would be interesting. It wasn’t.

Sometime after midday Wendy was ready to head to Ukiah to do some grocery shopping, and go to the bank. I needed to get some cash so I went along. I decided to see if I could get some boots for riding in since I have been using my work boots so far which is kind of dangerous, but then I always was a rebel. Wendy dropped me off at a shop in Ukiah which sold all kinds of farm supplies including clothes, so after spending ages looking for a good pair of boots I decided to check out the jeans. Jeans are so freaking cheap here, $30 for a pair of Levi’s that actually fit me. I almost bought the whole rack, but then I decided that would be stupid, so I just bought the one pair. I also looked at the cowboy hats there and Wendy, always the voice of reason, insisted I should buy one or at least try some on. I tried on quite a few of the cowboy hats but surprisingly, or unsurprisingly depending on how you look at it, almost none of them fit. Almost every hat I tried on was way too small for me. Eventually I found a hat that fit me, I took one look in the mirror, put it back on the rack, and walked away. I’m thinking a cowboy hat will make a nice souvenir but only to be displayed, not to be worn. To top the day off I made an awesome stew, even if I do say so myself. Chicken, sweet potato and leek stew. I would have thought that getting good at cooking would make me feel like Gordon Ramsey, but with all the stews and things I’m making I feel more like Delia Smith. Oh well.

And so we come to November 27th, the third Thursday of November, Thanksgiving. The plans for this were all over the place with people planning to be here and then not be here. Eventually it was decided that we would be going to have Thanksgiving at someone else’s house. The someone else was Lisa and Ed. These are the kind of people I came here to meet. Lisa is a bit of an expert in period weaponry and I got to hear all about how she won a competition which involved trekking, using black powder guns, knives and tomahawks. This is the kind of lady you don’t want to run into in the woods at night. Ed is an artist who has only just recently started trying to sell his stuff. He carves sculptures out of wood and they are all awesome. I would have taken a bunch of pictures but the battery died on my camera again. I really need to sort that out. After Peter, Wendy and I arrived the final guest was a woman called Christina, who by sheer coincidence happens to be the Manager of a shop called ‘The Lark in The Morning’ in Mendocino, which is the shop that the guy in Fort Bragg was raving about the other week. One of the things to really catch my eye was what the dinner was being cooked on.



I thought that was a cool looking range, and then Ed told me about it. It is well over a hundred years old. How awesome to have my first Thanksgiving dinner cooked in a range that probably cooked one of the earliest Thanksgiving dinners (it turns out that Thanksgiving as it is today didn’t really come about until the 1800s). Lisa had a button accordion which she played for us, adding a little bit of a French vibe to an already confusing situation. Lisa seemed to have plenty of funny stories and hearing her impression of some of the California stoner kids made me think that perhaps there was just a hint of firsthand experience in there. I had a great talk with Ed about his work and he was very happy to show me all the pieces in his living room. I could spend ages describing all the sculptures but that would be boring. It turns out, however, that Ed was friends with Ron Wilson who, for those who don’t know, was the drummer for The Surfaris’ and was the main contributor to their classic song Wipeout. Ron Wilson was also the cousin of the Wilsons of the Beach Boys. I was impressed anyway. After dinner we let the food go down and then we had to get back to Boonville, but I hope I get the chance to go back and take some pictures of Ed’s work, and to throw some tomahawks with Lisa.

There isn’t much else to say for now and this has been a long post so I’m just going to go now. I’ll leave you with a picture of Wendy doing her best Ron Wilson impression.