Smoke-sino and waffles

The morning started out warm and sunny and what goes better with a wonderful morning than waffles. Well, so you would think. As Eme busily prepared the waffle batter I heated up the iron and anticipated the aroma of delicious crispy waffles wafting through the air any moment. Little did we know…

This is what we ended up with.

 

 They never did get crispy even after we left them in for 10 minutes. So instead of crisp golden waffles we had pale, pathetic Belgian waffle bricks.   

 

Today was a toss up between going to the lake and kayaking or to the casino to go bowling and spend gobs of money. Since Sharon’s shoulder was injured we opted for the casino in Tuolumne which is about a 30 minute drive from here (if the roads were straight, more like 15).

After only several wrong turns a several complaints from Eme that were weren’t there yet we made it to Black Oak Casino. It basically sits in the middle of nowhere on some land owned by one of the Indian tribes. Oh, sorry Megan that’s not politically correct is it…it sits on Native American land.

 First stop…gas! The new car is doing excellent so far, but it is time to fill up. Boy, what a deal!

 

 

We decided to try bowling and headed into the 80 lanes of crashing pins. But oh, wait, we are all wearing flip flops or sandals…did anyone bring socks???? Um, I guess we’re not bowling. Bowling shoes are bad enough, but piggies don’t go inside there unless they are covered. On to the Arcade!!!

We abandoned, I mean dropped off the kids at the arcade and went to the casino. They should really rename it Black Smoke Casino. It was small and smelly, but it did offer 1 & 5 & 25 cent machines. We tried our luck at a few, but the Native Americans must really need money. Oh, and don’t try to cash out at one machine and go to another. All you get is a receipt and then you need to go to the cage, wait in a line that is 3 to 4 people deep and takes 10 minutes to redeem your money, then go back and lose it at another machine.

 

We did make a few bucks on the roulette wheel, but we decided that the poor Native Americans needed it more than we. So we headed back down to the Arcade to see if the kids were still there. Upon our return we found that Cole had hit the jackpot and won like a gazillion tickets! Yea! Now we could redeem them for stick of gum! We were going to bring back a Wii as a gift for all the nice people watching the house, but it cost 96,000 tickets (true story.)

 

 Here are our winnings...Giant Pixie sticks.

 

Leaving all our winning behind, we headed into the town of Twain Harte. If you don’t know who this town is named after, please look it up, it is very educational.

 

 

Here we are at ‘The Rock’ where we enjoyed delicious food in a lovely outdoor venue.

 

 

 

After that we headed home to take a quick swim are ‘Ye Old Watering Hole’, but first let’s get lost a bit more on the drive back! It wasn’t too bad, just a really long detour, but we did get to see this. How cute!

 

Eme made sure to scream loud enough so that Sharon didn’t turn them into road kill. Which was good because we didn’t have enough rope to strap it to the front of the car.





That pretty much sums up day 2 of the trip. Please stay tuned for more exciting episodes!

 

And Mokki still awaits our return...

 

This blog was edited by Sharon, who loves pointing out all the mistakes. Thanks Sharon!

 

 

 

Photos

 



Eme wants hair like this.

 

We went to Wal-Mart to do a bit of shopping. A lady freaked out when she saw the Splenda.
She actually screamed when she saw it!

 

 

The double decker mini shopping cart!

 

Pizza!

 

 Eme riding skills put to good use.

 

No, we didn't get the 'Giant'

 

.

Panarama view of the local watering hole

On Golden Pond.

 

Eme and Sharon. Sharon is the splash.

 

Ladybug fight!

Moke awaits our return.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quick update

Some interesting things that happened during our trip so far…

The dog wanted to go home immediately…apparently she’s not one for adventure. Has only eaten once since we’ve been here; at least she’ll come back thinner.

Sharon seemed to have misread what came with the house. She did check for important features such as Wifi and the TV, but she overlooked linens. Hmmm…so no towels, sheets…interesting.

The ceiling in the upstairs bedroom is about 30 feet tall. I’m pretty sure there are bats roosting up there. It also contains a twin bed, a full size bed and a bunk bed. I guess next time we’ll have to bring more people.

The upstairs shower seems to have a leak which caused a small puddle that ended up forming on the dresser downstairs, but luckily Sharon’s clothes absorbed the majority of the mess.

Adventure begins

We departed the family castle at 5:50pm sharp. With the trunk of the car stuffed to the brim and the one eyes dogs head between the front seats we set off to places unknown. OK, well actually they were known, but as they say in the thrift store trade “It’s new to you.” 

 

This arrived just in time for the trip

 

We headed out 129, past the enchanting town of Hollister, past the House of Fruit, up and over past San Luis Reservoir

 

and headed into the valley. Before we began our 3 hour cruise, we stopped to refuel our bellies at a place we found called “Wendy’s”.

 

Eme wanted to eat here

  

Oh, and next door was this place.
 

 

I think the Eldredge’s own stock in it or something.

Our trip continued as we crossed the valley floor, crisscrossing through unknown towns in the middle of nowhere in 80 degree heat at 8 o’clock at night. We drove through the inky darkness, looking for obscure street names while avoiding wild animals darting into the road.  We finally made landfall at 10pm and eagerly departed the vehicle. Free at last…free at last…