Monday, October 19, 2009

Get away

The Saint That I Am Married To started a new job in October of last year. She works in the criminal justice system (on the good guy side) and has been on probation for the past year. As a result, she has not been able to take any vacation time or any extra days off during for the last year. Her job also requires her to handle things occasionally on her off days, taking and making phone calls etc. She missed the Nebraska Disasta, our Sierra pilgrimage and a few other things.

As her year is almost up and it looks like her employer is happy with her performance, we decided to saw the ankle bracelet off and get away for a few days. I must say, it was overdue.

It is not without some anxiety however. Two teen-aged kids(17 and 18) and three dependent wiener dogs left unsupervised at home might be considered a high risk situation. Sometimes you just gotta live on the edge.

We decided to head south and start by driving through the San Jacinto Mountains.


A tranquil morning at Lake Fulmor




A view of the mountains, with a little fall color mixed in. Not many deciduous trees up here!

If you stay on the highway long enough, you will start to descend into the Palm Desert / Palm springs area of  southern California. The highway is called the Palms to Pines highway and is worth the drive if you get the chance. The next few photos were taken in the transition between pines and palms.



 I don't remember what these are called, but they are really tough on wiener dogs. We spent the better part of two hours picking spines out of Molly's lip one night several years ago. Between the spines and the teeth, no one had a good time with that one.


Cauhilla Canyon


Schmoe - a self portrait


The Saint I Am Married To, walking like an Egyptian.

 
Thanks Joker, you shithead, for driving all of the way up here and sharing your thug culture with us. Is there a hispanic gang that doesn't have a member named Joker? Or is Joker just omnipresent? 


A vista of the Palms to Pines Highway winding down to Palm desert. A great drive to be sure.


I'm not gloating, really I'm not. This was taken on our hotel room balcony with my phone at 07:30 on Sunday. Seventy something degrees. After seeing the Angels on TV freezing in New York and hearing about the chilly temps in Philadelphia, I couldn't resist. Sorry about the feet, I was too lazy to move them.

A great weekend away,  a long drive home and back to reality. We are going to try this again the spring, maybe to San Diego or San Fransisco. I hope your weekend was as good as mine. Except for you Joker, I hope got caned.

Thanks for reading,

Schmoe

7 comments:

  1. Beautiful photos! I've not made it out to California yet in my travels--it's not just LA, is it?

    By the way, nice toes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Its good to get away and I bet the dogs kept the kids in line.

    But I can remember like yesterday the parties my brothers had when my parents went away...think Sixteen Candles.

    Beautiful pics Capt. Thanks for sharing!

    ReplyDelete
  3. What a wonderful getaway, great pics! Nice silhouettes of the Schmoes duo.... The teens and weins must have behaved or you would have posted that, right? and I once lived in San Jose and San Rafael, those mountains look familiar! Oh and now I feel the need to get away again!
    Gia

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well Observer, California is an amazing place with really diverse geography. It just has too many people. Thanks for the compliment BTW, I hope to be a foot model for a callous / bunion removal company when I retire. Oh, be glad this isn't a scratch and sniff blog.

    Peedee - Hopefully, my kids have more of The Saint's genes as opposed to mine. The fact that the house is still here proves that they do. The dogs? They are all me. Destructive, stubborn, untrainanble and spoiled. I am a wiener dog trapped in a Schmoes body, with less teeth.

    Gia - Glad you liked the pics. I tried to get my best side in the self portrait. My beer was still there when we got home, all three dogs were present and accounted for, so they must have been fairly well behaved. I was ready to leave again as soon as we walked in the door!!

    Thanks Y'all

    ReplyDelete
  5. So if your beer bottles were all there, that points to a kegger. Nice pictures, but you'll understand my tempation to call your Fred Flinstone, right? remember his byootifo feets?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Well actually, I kinda thought about the Flintstone feet angle when I contacted the agent about the foot model thing. He's going to get back to me.

    Normally, we buy a couple cases of Lucky Lager Light and bring 'em back to the hotel where we guzzle 'em down before going out to Burger King and the drive in.

    This trip we went first class. Pabst in cans at the Pizzeria while watching the Yankees beat up on our Angels. That was after the sit-down movie. Only the best for the Schmoes.

    ReplyDelete
  7. TRUE STORY:
    I had a waitress job in Brazil Indiana when I was in high school. It's not like I didn't know cheap beer, I knew PBR but I didn't know what it stood for. The farmer man at my table said "gimmie a ribbon", and I said "why whadja win"? which he thought was a funny joke, but I guess this is where blonde jokes come from.
    It really all tastes pretty good if its cold enough, so enjoy, it should get you through and Angels game.

    ReplyDelete