We're back from vacation. A really short one. We rented a cottage up in Idyllwild for the memorial day long weekend. There were two things I was worried about regarding the trip:
1) How the Smart car would handle the hills
2) How the dog would handle the trip and odd surroundings

I'm happy to say they both passed with flying colours. The dog settled down pretty quickly and was really good in the new place. It had bad 70's shag carpeting and he enjoyed his four paw traction. I made use of the 'flappy paddle gear box' as the guys on Top Gear like to call it. That made the annoying shift choices of the car a thing of the past and it took the hills with no problem.

The fact that the windy route caused me to drive up the hill like a go-cart was both fun and amusing, since it sent the dog tumbling on every tight corner. I take my amusement where I can find it.

Like many places that have wilderness and are still close to L.A., it was touristy. We went for a few small hikes but ran in to a lot of people. There wasn't a lot of hiking done because the urban dog was overheated and tired quickly. We found a good local coffee shop (important) where I was outed as a Canadian, I have to stop saying the word 'out'. Of course the coffee person had been to Canada and loved it up there (Victoria and Whistler). Who doesn't love Canada?

Sadly I didn't manage to get far enough away from cell towers so work found me on Friday night and I spent a couple hours trying to trouble shoot issues over the phone. Unpleasant.

The cottage was nice, the back porch was really, really nice. We spent a lot of time on the back porch reading (in my case) and doing yoga (in Kat's case). The dappled sunlight, the quiet and the fresh air. Sigh. There was a small parcel of land at the end of the street for sale that Kat and I spent time building our dream home on (that is the view on the right). You can tell from the two photos how much the dog appreciated my 'Lord of this domain' pose. I thought about putting a mouse-over in there but became bored quickly and gave up on it.

The whole 'Dream House' discussion brought up some question about how exactly does one go about achieving a dream home? I've always been a big fan of paying for things in cash, which obviously you cannot do with something as big as a dream.
Do people save up lots of money just in case the dream home shows up?
Do people buy the dream home after the standard one and hope like hell they don't lose their jobs?
Do people sell everything and live in limbo while the dream home is being built?
How do you know your dream home is in the right place? What happens if your location turns out to be not-so-dreamy?
Buying a dream-home anywhere essentially ties you down to that area, and is that a good idea?

It's a tough thing to figure out. Kat posited that we need to look around a variety of areas to see if any particular place grabs our interest, I'm good with that idea. Idyllwild was nice, but I wouldn't give up things to live there. We are heading back to Portland next month, so we'll have a second look at that area. I've always believed I wanted a place in the desert with views of desolation, that would be very cool. Of course a couple days without a walk to a coffee shop may turn me in to a unhappy person. I also wanted a cool place in town as well. Am I unsure, or am I flexible?

I'm fine. Really, I am. Had a little accident on the motorcycle on the way home tonight. Turns out the protection gear works just like it is supposed to. Some rips in my pants, but otherwise it all came through with flying colours. The guy swerved in to me as I was coming up on his right while getting on to the highway. I took out his wing mirror, but I think there is way more damage to the bike. I just started the insurance process (Gieco was very nice) so we'll see if my normal hatred of insurance companies is going to be validated. My poor bike has some damage now :( I'm going to have to take some pliers to my shifter to get it to stick out like it is supposed to.

In more positive news, Kathleen has received two different accolades at school; the first is a letter of recognition from the school for volunteering with them at the Earth Day fair. The second award is for two semesters of achieving a 4.0 grade point average. Woot!