Ideal Wild – Saturday 7/12/2008

Yeah, not that wild. I admit it.

We started the day as we love to start a day, lying abed for a while reading and eventually writing.

Dodger’s happy to sit on my shoulder as I read in bed. But he’s not comfortable with the way I cradle a pen in my hand. Too much competition.

Also, he needed to check out that side of the bed.

The view from “our” upstairs window. Dodger likes it too!

It’s really lovely to be amongst tall trees.

After a lovely breakfast of waffles and sausage whipped up by GuitarDaddy, we visited their favorite thrift shops around town.

Ooh, we found some good stuff. Like a medicine cabinet with a wonderful beveled glass mirror that I discovered leaning against a fence behind a cork board. For five dollars! It has a nice pair of geometric lines etched in it. I’m hoping to remove the mirror and frame.

We liked this giant wooden squirrel, but no one took it home. This was being sold at a restaurant that was going out of business. GD and MM had eaten there and knew the owners. We picked up some DVDs and some other good stuff here.

Sad to see someone going out of business though.

The view from downtown Idyllwild. We had lunch there and walked around a little. There were a bunch of very tame Harley riders there.

Really had a terrific day hanging out with MandolinMama and GuitarDaddy. She made a lovely dish of pasta with rolled stuffed flank steak for dinner and we talked into the night again. Never quite got to playing music, but it we were enjoying the conversation.

Into the Woods! – Friday 7/11/2008

GuitarDaddy and MandolinMama (friends from Songmakers) invited us up to their cabin in the Idyllwild area for the weekend. Isn’t it adorable?

We had a nice 2 1/2 hour or so drive up here. The road up is much more gracefully curving than the way up to Big Bear & Lake Arrowhead.

Ours is the window in the peak.

Love the sheet music on the stand in the living room.

The way up to our quarters illustrates that this cabin is knotty pine heaven. Being surrounded by so much wood is truly relaxing.

But we need to go back down and join in the conversation. It’s going to be good!

And there will be cake. I made this vanilla almond cake to take with us. Brought dinner of Tuscan sausage soup, salad, Asiago cheese bread and dessert to start the weekend off with.

It was good that our hosts had told us they wouldn’t stress if we were delayed. We were about 45 minutes late. We didn’t stress either. I seem to finally be learning that my stressing out about being late will only make the situation worse.

We’re probably going to do more long weekend trips this year rather than a week or two of vacation at a stretch. I love that we have plans for the next few months!