Holy hiking and wine drinking weekend, Batman

The title of this entry sums up our weekend pretty well, but I'll go into more detail anyway. Let me first say it was a good weekend, very Californian. Maybe the novelty will eventually wear off, but right now our excitement over our new location is going strong. We are definitely enjoying being here.

We joined the Sierra Club for a Friday night hike that started at the Hot Springs trail head and took us up to a lookout, where we saw the pictured sunset, and back down on a path that pretty much crossed through Jeff Bridges front yard. There certainly are some characters in the club: a guy who played the harmonica throughout the hike, two guys who talked about some rather wild times in Thailand for anybody to hear, the occasional Hash House Harrier, text book writers, and a few others who are difficult to explain. In our limited experience, Cali appears to have no shortage of characters like this. But maybe they think the same thing about us... the crazy Minnesotans.

On Saturday we got up and moving to the local coffee shop and then to the biggest and best farmer's market we've ever seen. The produce around here is amazing -- watermelon, peaches, avocados, lettuce, strawberries -- all so fresh, so good. We loaded up.

Next we were off to a wine festival happening along the beach. R's bike revealed a flat tire so we took the trolley down instead and proceeded to drink/eat all the wine and hors d'oeuvres we could for the next 3 hours. It is yet to be determined if living here will turn us into wine experts or wine snobs. We tasted so much wine that we have no idea any more what was good and bad, but overall I'd give the event a thumbs up.

When we got back from the fest, we took an hour nap in a swirling world before getting on our feet again to hoof it down to a showing of The Dark Knight. The Arlington theater reminded me of the farmer's market; it too was the biggest and best I've seen. It's a Spanish mission style, single-screen theater that seats 2,000 people, in this case, 2,000 people excited to see Batman done right. I loved the movie. Its director, Christopher Nolan, is one of my favorites working today. He's done Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige -- all great, highly recommended movies.

On Sunday we went out for breakfast at a neighborhood joint and attended a few open houses. We've seen most of what is available in our price range, and it's nice to know we have some options. The market is certainly in our favor for buying (we need to make up for our poor selling performance in Delaware). Every place we look at seems to have some positives (maybe an amazing view of the mountains, hardwood floors, or lots of space) and some negatives (usually work that is needed, a higher price, or a lack of space), so it's a tough decision. If we could get a really good deal on any of our top choices, however, I think we'd be happy.

That's the news from the weekend. Talk to you again soon.