David and Kris's Blog

Friday, October 20, 2017

The Los Angeles Foothills

With Audible playing, the trip to LA on Thursday 12 October was a snap. Our Airbnb was located just blocks from Brig and Michelle's house in one direction, and Descanso Gardens, the wedding venue, in the other direction. I always forget how beautiful California is, but it is wonderful. That's likely why everyone moved there. After getting settled, we headed down the foothills to Pasadena to meet the Colvers and Reeses for a bit of play at Central Park followed by dinner. Old Pasadena is great with vintage architecture, wonderful mature trees, and an excellent array of good food to choose from. We chose ramen and finished the evening with some excellent pastries from Taiwanese bakers at 85°C Bakery Cafe. It was good to see Alison, Gorden, et al.

Our Airbnb was located on Crescent Avenue

This Craftsman beauty stands at the top of the street

This Monterey-style Beaux-Arts house was our next-door neighbor

Our place was more modest, but very comfortable

Cozy Acorn Airbnb

This was an unexpected surprise as we arrived

The patio was for the use of lodgers

Kris in the kitchen

Comfortable bed

Evelyn is a climber

Fine old building on the corner of Green and Fair Oaks

Lots of food choices in Old Pasadena

Alison and Sir Thomas Tom

Whole crew

Green street after dark

85°C Bakery Cafe: delicious Asian/French pastries

This was a nice start to Olivia and Ricky's wedding weekend. More to come, but this is all for now.

OXO

Friday, October 13, 2017

Back to Mesa

On Monday 9 October we returned to Mesa for a few more days with Grandmother Boynton. She suggested that I might enjoy walking at the Riparian Preserve, so on Tuesday before sunrise, I headed south to Gilbert. The preserve consists of a number of large ponds that are filled with clean (post waste treatment) effluent. Gilberts water supply is a deep underground lake and these ponds allow the water to filter down through the earth and replenish the supply. The ponds are rotated so the algae can't build up and stop the filtration, so not all the ponds have water at once. The place is quite wild and natural and at the early morning hour was cool and beautiful. It actually put me in mind of the London Wetland Centre. The name, Riparian Preserve, makes me smile a little because of Hyacinth Bucket's riparian entertainments. Tuesday night Kim arranged for the extended family to meet for a final summer picnic. It was dark by 6:00 PM, but very pleasant. Wednesday evening we took Grandmother to the Angry Crab for a bucket of shrimp and crab legs.

Riparian Preserve

Ditto

The Superstitions at sunrise

This is the view from the Gilbert Library

Desert-scape

The sun touched the prickly pear cactus

The color looks quite different without the sun

A wonderful tunnel of trees

Heron? Crane? Someone knows, just not I

Connor with Kyle and his fiancee, Ashlyn Nichols

Shrimp and crab's legs

We left Mesa on Thursday 12 October and are now enjoying California. There will be more, but this is all for now.

OXO

Peoria Weekend

We drove to Peoria on Friday 6 October to spend the weekend with the Youngs as they began their fall break. Since traffic was abominable, we met in Glendale for supper at La Piazza Al Forno. On Saturday, Gavin had a work-related dinner, so the rest of us had dinner at The Cornish Pasty Company in Scottsdale. We arrived early enough to do some serious browsing at the Poison Pen Bookstore nearby. Since it was an English dinner, I made a sticky toffee pudding for dessert. I am still tweaking my recipe and am close to getting it where I want it. Sunday we went to Westgate for some retail therapy and then grilled burgers for supper.

Italian food in Old Downtown Glendale

I officially added palo verde to my narrow list of passions on

a morning walk on the arroyo

Murder mysteries are their specialty

Al fresco supper at The Cornish Pasty Company

Dickie's sticky...

Carmel sauce and custard

Taste of England

Westgate

Committed shoppers

Goodbye for now -- see you during the holidays

We went back to Mesa, the Youngs bought a new car and headed to the mountains for their fall break.

That's all for now.

OXO

Monday, October 9, 2017

October in Mesa

After a couple of days at home, we packed up again and headed south to Henderson, Nevada for the night of 30 September, on our way to Mesa. We arrived Sunday in time for dinner with the family at Grandmother's. Monday we had lunch with the Marlpit-Hill Boyntons. We shopped for food, tried baked goods from The Great Gadsby, walked downtown Mesa and the canal, shopped for wedding presents in Scottsdale, and tried some very good empanadas from República Empanada. I sampled the chiles rellenos from Si Señor (good, but no cigar), Matt and Kim took me to Adrian's, a Mexican hole in the wall, for breakfast, and we had a delicious German dinner with Chip and Sandy at the Bavarian Point very near Grandmother's. Friday we went to Victoria and Abdul with Ray, Lynna, and Bonnie in Gilbert. Friday afternoon we left Grandmother in Mesa and drove though heavy, rush-hour traffic to Glendale where we met the Youngs.