Sonora: Part Two

Posted by: Maggie

After checking into our hotel, we took a quick trip to the next town over, Columbia, another gold rush town with an historic section of town.

We picked up some ice cold Sarsaparillas at the Grocery.

They were delicious. I wish I had brought home a case.

After roaming the historic district, we went to find some family history. Nearby we found the remnants of the schoolhouse where my Great Grandmother went to school.

There was not a whole lot left of it. And it didn’t really look safe enough to venture much closer.

We headed back to Sonora for a walk through town and dinner.

Before dinner we stopped at this amazing little candy shop for a bag full of my favorite saltwater taffy.

The conclusion tomorrow…

Sonora: Part One

Posted by: Maggie

I wanted to start posting about our vacation, but I realized that I have been a bad blogger lately and am very behind in my posting. So, I’m going to take the rest of this week to catch up and I’ll tell you all about our vacation starting next week.

You may remember that my Grandfather (Papa) recently passed away and mid-June I took a trip to Northern California with my family for his funeral. My Grandmother passed away a few years earlier, so we were headed to Sonora, California where she was buried to bury my Grandfather along side her.

My Grandmother’s family is an old California gold-mining family. Her family has been in California since the 1840s and my Grandfather’s family has been here even longer, but mainly in the Santa Barbara area. His family is Mexican/Spanish and I believe have been in California since it was Mexico, and before that a part of Spain. I love history and tradition, and love that my family has been in this state that I love so much for so long.

Back to my Grandmother’s family, who are the reason we were in Sonora. Once upon a time Sonora was a gold-mining town, and is still filled with historic buildings. My Grandmother’s family lived in that area, and I think she did at some point as well. But I get a little confused about everyone’s history. A lot of her family is buried there and so she was buried there as well. We headed there on a Friday for the funeral. Josh and Eleanor stayed behind. She’s not a fan of long car rides, and I didn’t really feel the need to bring a 2-year-old to a funeral.

We stayed at the Gunn House Hotel, an historic home, turned Inn.

It’s generally a nice place to stay. The rooms are a little small, the televisions are old and tiny, but the beds are comfortable and the water pressure is excellent. My favorite part is the dining room. There’s no restaurant, but they serve an included breakfast of fresh waffles, quiches, a variety of baked goods, and cereals in the dining room every morning.

The owner of the place has a thing for teddy bears though. They’re everywhere. It’s just a little odd.

I’ve decided to start taking a photo of myself in hotel bathrooms (even when I look exhausted) so that I can remember that I was on the trip that I took all the pictures of, but no pictures of me were taken.

More tomorrow…

Eleanor is an Insult Comic

Posted by: Josh

One of the mind-wobbling things about being a parent is getting to watch your kids’ strange personalities (and they are ALL strange) unfurl. Bill Cosby was so RIGHT, kids say some crazy shit. I’d love to have ALL of it on video, but these days, the best we can do to keep up with all of the ridiculous things that come out of Eleanor’s mouth is to record the gems on the Twitters, but honestly they’re the tip of the iceberg. A mammoth, icy block of nonsense floating around in her head that regularly gouges holes in the cruise liner of our days.

As it turns out, my baby girl is an insult comic. Yup, we got little Don Rickles laying it on us every day now. How did it come to this?

For a long time now Eleanor has been aware of the power of comedy. This should not be a surprise. The wife and I probably value humor over all other traits (which may explain why we’re always broke). So naturally, Eleanor gets the best reactions from Mommy & Daddy when she does something funny.

Unfortunately, this has recently backfired on us, as Eleanor has discovered the bluer side of comedy.

Eleanor: “You’re a poopy!” (slow grin)
Me: “What?!”
Eleanor: (maniacal laughter) “You’re a poopy poop!”

That’s right. I’ve spent literally YEARS cleaning her dirty diapers, and I’M the poopy poop. So okay, I really don’t mind being a poopy poop. In fact, I think it’s pretty hilarious that we gave birth to Triumph the insult comic dog, but not everybody finds this dialogue as charming as we do. Visions of her adolescence are starting to concern me:

Eleanor’s first boyfriend: “I.. I just wanted you to know.. I love you.”
E: “Pansy. Wanna get some ice cream?”

God, that sounds eerily familiar.