Vance’s California Adventure

We are back from visiting my parents in California. Wow, what a busy trip. It was a great week with the family and we got to do lots, but of course it’s always nice to be back in the comfort of your own home.

So I’m sure curious minds want to know, what did we do? Well let me tell you.

First Mary went to The Pulse in San Francisco on Saturday and Sunday. She of course picked up some new stuff for her dance classes, but also got to enjoy the city a little bit in her down time. During this time the girls and I did nothing :-) with my parents.

The next few days we just hung out with my Mom while Dad slaved away at work. Did a little shopping at a local mall, watched some movies, etc…

Wednesday was when the pace started to really pick up. Our tour guide (Mom) has mapped out the most complete tours possible :-). We went to Alcatraz and Muir Woods (my 3rd visit to both). The Rock is always neat to see, and the girls enjoyed the boat ride over. I think the real winner of the day was Muir Woods, it’s so peaceful and awesome to see those huge trees – everybody enjoyed it a lot. We ended the day by watching “Australia” which is a very long and thus very boring movie; I don’t really recommend it.

On Thursday we went south and hit up Carmel then did the 17 mile drive. It’s pretty but was a bit too much car time for the girls.

Friday was the wildcard day (Moms work was done). It started with Dad and I trying to find a frisbee golf course (that we had played at before). The failure led to a pretty cool adventure/hike at Coyote Lake. After that Mary and I went out for some wine tasting at Solis Winery which was cool, minus the pack of cougars there. Then on a whim we went down the road to Sarah’s Vineyard to pick up a particular bottle that we cannot get here in North Carolina. This little whim quickly turned awesome, since we were the only people there THE wine maker took us on a private guided tour of the winery and gave us a barrel tasting – my highest complement, freak’n awesome.

So all in all it was a great trip (minus the anal probe that is flying); but it is good to be home and now time to get back into the grind.

Chuck-tackular

Chuck this week was awesome.

I have been waiting for the writers to pull a Battlestar Galactica season 2-3 jump. I was imagining that they would “kill” Chuck, then flash forward a year in the future where he was now a trained CIA agent. That would open the show up for lots of new plots, which was the only reason I thought there would be a need for such a plot device. After almost 2 seasons of the current story it didn’t seem like there was much else they could do.

This weeks episode opened up lots of new doors that I simply was not expecting. It’s great to see that they’ve written the character to be proactive, I just hope that they continue to grow his character in that direction.