King of the World on a Boat Like Leo

Pop Quiz:  What is the deepest lake in the U.S.and the 9th deepest in the world?  If you answered Lake Tahoe that would be incorrect.  But good guess.  Crater Lake in Oregon at 1,949 ft is the winner.  Tahoe is pretty weak at 1,644 ft deep, good for the silver medal in the U.S. but a loser-esque 16th place in the global rankings.  Despite its depth lameness, we decided to give it a whirl for Labor Day weekend at our friend Ali's place.  Turned out to be a pretty solid gamble.

The Host

The House

The Crew

The Bartender  

The Badass

Stay Tuned...

Hello faithful blog readers!  We have to apologize for our lack of writing lately, but we have been a bit busy.  I have found a contract position planning a fundraising event for the Bay Area office of KIPP charter schools, which has been very stressful, time consuming, and sometimes hilarious as I deal with lots of demanding personalities.  Here's an excerpt of a Monday morning email I received:

I mailed my invitations yesterday except for "Sally's." I told someone that she can't come but somehow her name was still on the list. Also, fyi, there were two sets of handwriting on the invitations, one was really nice the other looked like a child's, was that intentional? If not, you might want to check your staff/volunteers' handwriting before you have them address invitations. If it was intentional, that's another story.

Pretty standard stuff.

In addition to dealing with the random impulses of rich 70 year-olds, we have been doing quite a bit of traveling around our new home state.  While California is not as big as Texas (actual size comparison, pictured right), it is still quite a big state...  more posts to come on some of those travels in the very near future, I promise.

 

So, please stay tuned in as we work to post some new adventures of your two favorite traveling Texans!

 

Phantastic Voyage

Oh Yeah.  After all these years, all it took was moving to California to have Phish come out to visit.   Three shows at the Greek Theater in Berkeley and Lindsay was kind enough to invite me to all three nights!  What a catch.

So despite the fact that nobody is looking at the camera, these were our friends and concert companions over the three-day adventure.  You faithful blog-readers out there (assuming you still exist), may recognize Paul and Addie as our good pals from Cape Town.  For these two, 10,000 miles is not too far to travel for some good times.

Now I can't claim this guy, but I was impressed by his love for Quincy.

No my camera didn't improve mid-concert.  This comes compliments of some talented photographer that showed off some fine smuggling skills by sneaking in what must have been some truly fancy optical equipment.

What an awesome and action-packed three nights.  Most people would say that three nights is surely enough to get one's fill, but not the case.  Less than 24 hours after the third Greek show ended I was boarding this beautiful prop jet on my way out to Colorado for two more nights of music in Telluride.

Unable to afford a $1,000+ ticket to fly directly into Telluride's legendary and horrifically scary mountain-top airport, I had to fly into nearby Durango and catch a ride the rest of the way.  Luckily, Steve was there to save the day. And not only did he get us to the Sunshine Campgrounds right outside of Telluride, but he treated us to a free display of his outdoorsmans skills and crafted a top flight Colorado campfire.
   

Meanwhile, Chad was camping out with all the Phishies littering Telluride High School after catching a seven hour ride from Denver.  Not to shabby of a place to pitch a tent, but Steve had hooked us all up with a place to stay for the next two nights that was a touch nicer.

We headed up the mountain via the local gondola commute to Mountain Villiage.

Steve cashed in on his local ties and hooked us up with this beautiful mountain sanctuary.

What a group and what a balcony view. 

Not too shabby .  A big thanks to our wonderful hosts and former Telluride residents, Ali and Kevin.

So as nice as it was, our mountain house wasn't where the action was.   Back down the gondola...

 ...and into downtown Telluride.

Free Karl Denson show to get things started.

Great show but soon enough it was time to call it quits with the free music.  In the words of one of my favorite redheads (who may or may not be pictured above): "why get something free when you can pay for it".  Yeah I know that doesn't normally make sense, but in this instance it was the right move. 

What a place to pre-game.  Yes Rocky is wearing a tie...but not just any tie, a limited release from one of America's top designers at Pearl Southern Couture.  If you haven't heard about it before, check it out.  Girl's got talent.

And yes that is a feather in Steve's hat.  In short, he lost a bet, but became a legend.

And finally the music...not a bad week in the life.

Crawl to Walk

This weekend, I held down the fort in SF while Jared continued his tour-de-Phish in Colorado and continued onto Dallas for his 10th high school reunion.  Although I am sure that I would have enjoyed the awkward moments that Jared certainly encountered reuniting with the Class of 2000, I had important work to do: drink and dress up in a ridiculous outfit- all for a great cause.  Last Halloween weekend, a friend from high school, Kendell Hall (pictured above, right), was in a terrible car accident that left her paralyzed from the chest down.  Since that time, she has made an amazing and incredibly inspirational recovery that has allowed her to regain full arm movement and progress toward walking again!  Her determination and hard work has led to features on CNN news and Anderson Cooper.  Learn more about Kendell and contribute to her recovery fund at www.help-a-fwend.com .

 

To help cover the costs of Kendell's rehab program, her family organized a pub crawl, "Crawl to Walk" in SF this weekend.  The pub crawl was jazzercise/workout themed as a tribute to her intense daily physical therapy sessions.  High school friends Whitney Ashley and Nicole Zaccanelli traveled up from LA for the weekend, happy to embarrass themselves and practice drinking endurance in support of Kendell. 

I am not sure how much we raised from our cut of the bar tabs, but from the amount of silliness going on, I would guess it was pretty substantial.  So here's a big cheers to Kendell, the Hall family, and to the purple stretchy pants that are now a part of my wardrobe!

The Finer Things in Life

A recent excursion to the De Young fine arts museum allowed me to showcase the impressive cultural offerings of our new city and the importance that fine arts play in our lives here.  

OK, I can't continue any longer with this charade.... it was free day at the museum and I thought it would be more fun to view the impressive collections with others that were sure to be as equally clueless as I.  In actuality, with our artistic knowledge combined (my "mastery" of Latin America + Addie's obsession with colonial America + 2 kids with cultural parents + Michael's eclectic college coursework), we could follow along fairly well.

The actual structure of the de Young is equally impressive as its collections and we braved the crowds to check out the viewing tower, which overlooks Golden Gate park and part of city.  If I had to describe the structure, I might say that it is, "Constructed of warm, natural materials including copper, stone, wood and glass, the new de Young blends with and complements its natural surroundings. Ribbons of windows erase the boundary between the museum interior and the lush natural environment outside, and four public entrances segue naturally from the park’s pathways, welcoming visitors from all directions."  What is really crazy is that the museum's website describes it in exactly the same way!

Never ones to rush the finer things in life, we took the opportunity to stroll the rose gardens after leaving the museum and were moderately impressed with the array of varietals and some of the clever hybrids the gardeners had engineered.

After a tranquil day viewing lovely specimens of natural and human creation, we looked forward in anticipation to the beer, fast food, and jam band music fueled weekend that was to come.

Southern Visitors

Look who's here!

Two of our favorite zany characters from Cape Town, Paul and Addie, are visiting the Bay Area on "business."  Between lectures at Ivy League schools and making human DNA a less mysterious world, Paul has managed to squeeze in no fewer than five Phish shows out here on the West coast.  Good thing Jared requested a week off from work for musical reasons.  In the meantime, Addie and I will be filling our time with Cape Town non-profit gossip, comparing SA and CA wines, and losing at Pictionary.  Stay tuned for post-concert pictures and adventures....

Primero Aniversario

That's right, one year ago, your favorite traveling Texan team officially tied the knot. And what a year it has been... we have lived in 3 cities, crossed the equator 6 times, visited one of the 7 natural wonders of the world, eaten about a hundred tacos (including one with cow brains yesterday on our actual anniversary.... don't ask.) and shared memories with new and old friends alike.  Thanks for helping make it such a great year and here's to many, many more!

Cuttin Loose in Fog City

Well fortunately the 'Ol City by the Bay treated our second visitor to some beautiful summer weather, a supposed rarity in these parts.  Kelly Galvin, who in an alternate universe is also known as America Galvin jumped on a plane to join her sister and new brother-in-law for some California shenanigans.  We took her out and treated her to the works.  Some of the classic city sites, including:

Neighborhood graffiti in the Mission

Some weekday tight-wearing hipsters kickin it in Dolores Park

After seeing the sites we decided to get involved in the action.

Boozin out with friends

Point Break Live (a live performance of the Keanu Reeves classic where on this particular night the audience voted a Korean born attendee to play Johnny Utah and pure awesomeness ensued...)

Finally, we thought that Kelly may be interested in meeting a man and taking a chance on love.

1st try was a complete flop.  Turns out this stud from the Annual Peru Street Festival wasn't her type.

Well where man boobs failed, a strapping man of the law succeeded.  Faithful readers, meet Kelly's new dreamboat.  The one, the only, Mr. Paul Blart.

What a weekend.  And the romantic in me was reassured that true love is always possible and sometimes when you least expect it.  On this weekend, Cupid's arrow treated one special Kindergarten teacher to the Mall Cop of her dreams.

Frisky Fourth

4th of July weekend: A celebration of America's birthday and... our first visitors!  Conor and Natalie, who usually only travel for the 35+ weddings that they have attended this year, made the trip out west to see what all of the hubbub is about. 

Between the 20-30 bars that we absolutely had to to take them to, a Jazz festival, a disastrous road trip to the beach, and many a dance party, we managed to show them a good time.

We were even able to arrange for Conor to try his namesake burger: the McCarthy burger (verdict: a little saucy, much like its namesake).

Despite Jared's personal form of torture via Huey Lewis and the News on repeat, I think there is a chance that they just might visit us again.

Tex-Mex Patriots

And the madness goes on… we continue to brave the 9 hour time difference for World Cup games with many an early wake up call, lots of secretive cubicle game-viewing, and a heavy dose of jealousy toward our friends still in South Africa. Saturday morning, Jared worked on solidifying some new friendships through exaggerated patriotism and lots of beer chugging the Mad Dog in the Fog sports bar. Apparently ranked among the top 10 World Cup bars in the world, the Mad Dog was the perfect place to watch the final American match of 2010.

Meanwhile, I recalled my temporary Mexican citizenship by keeping the faith alive despite the imminent Mexican elimination by the Argentine powerhouse and their fancy-footed star, Lionel Messi. Over the next two weeks, the quest for greatness for 8 lucky teams continues, as does the quest for the perfect bar side breakfast and beer pairing for two dedicated fans.