Weekend Round-Up: Emily in Trees

Oh my, my! This was a wild weekend; I hope you won’t mind a long post. Rob and I packed up the Miata on Friday and drove a long 6 hours north to Weaverville in the rain.

We were visiting our newlywed friends. Molly is an ag teacher and grew up on a cattle ranch in the area. Rich is Rob’s best friend; an interesting character who comes from a fancy LA family and has completely transformed himself into a real country man. Lilly, their dog, is half wild boar and half muppet. Their new life in Weaverville couldn’t be much more different than ours in San Francisco. This is the view of the family that I had for most of the weekend:

Anyway, we arrived Friday night around 10 and woke up late the next morning. Molly had a cold and it was still pouring rain outside. Rich gave us a walking tour of Weaverville which has two bars, a handful of antique stores and a lot of county offices. Rob tried, unsuccessfully to get me to wear this poncho:

Rob bought a mug at the Olson Ceramic shop and we had a greasy breakfast at The Nugget dinner. We then packed up the truck and drove an hour south to Molly’s family ranch in Hayfork. Both of Molly’s brothers live nearby and help the family manage the ranch. For our visit, one of the brothers drove us all out to a pasture for some skeet shooting in the rain.

Molly taught me how to crochet while the boys played. Look, I made a lopsided hamster scarf:

Oops…I guess parking in the mud wasn’t a good idea. The truck got stuck and we had to walk back to the house. Molly’s mom threw some extra wood on the stove that they use to heat the house and made us snacks while we warmed up.

We got back to Weaverville around 7:30 and had a quiet dinner. The next morning, Rich made us a big breakfast of blueberry pancakes, grapefruit and home-raised bacon. Before we left, they drove us out to the high school to see where they work and gave us a tour of Weaverville.

What a fun visit! Many thanks to Rich and Molly for hosting us and teaching us all about country life.

Rob and I hit the road at 12:30 and made it back to the city by 5:30. We had just enough time to change and unpack before leaving for the Scissors for Lefty performance at the San Francisco Grammy party. Rob and I took the subway to the ferry building. When there was no F-train in sight, we hired a pedicab to bike us up to the Hard Rock Cafe. It was a perfect crisp San Francisco night for an open air ride! I wish I had taken my camera.

We met up with Jill at the party and snuck into the VIP section where they had free food and drinks. The band had a great show and it was fun to watch the award show with a bunch of fancy-pantsy music professionals. At 9:30, we walked to the parking garage to get a ride home with Jill and Peter. From the raised bridge, we had a gorgeous view of Coit tower and the city buildings surrounded by fog and stars. It was very good to be home!