Bikes, Blues, and BBQ

Spent a great few days in Clear Lake. I took Wednesday afternoon off to drive up, and spent Thursday and Friday "testing" my remote connection for work. Still don't have my work phone set up, but I was able to put in two full days of work, so things are looking good for going remote full time next week.

This weekend was the Bikes, Blues, and BBQ Festival in Clear Lake. There was also the Regatta Sailboat Race, but we didn't see any of that.

The festival was really fun. Friday night we walked the 5 blocks from our house to the central park, got some cheap and great pulled pork sandwiches, and drank free beer from the sponsor's tent (Caleb's company was a sponsor), and spent the evening enjoying blues and talking with some of Caleb's coworkers. I got one lady's card so I could email - we're already buddies because we love yoga, shopping, designer purses.... :) She's probably our parents' age, but she gave some great advice about the area, and will be a great resource for things like good doctors, eye clinics, restaurants, etc.

Saturday my parents and sister came up and delivered some furniture and helped us put our new grill together. I'm so glad Dad and Caleb decided to tackle that one. Caleb and I could have done it, but Dad's got that fatherly patience for assembling things that Caleb doesn't possess yet and I maybe never will. While they sweat and did some manly bonding, Mom, Kim and I sat on lawn chairs in the sun. Good arrangement.

That night we went to the festival again, and had some amazing ribs... I wish we had known about those the first night! Must have been a professional BBQ place - they had lots of different sauces and knew how to do ribs right. Yum. Then we walked around the little downtown area, walked along the beach and docks, and stopped for a drink at a little bar near our place.

My parents stayed at this cute little hotel right across the street from us, the Hilltop Inn. It didn't look like much from our side of the street, but it was homey, clean, and had a lot of personality. A nice couple lives there and runs it. They will be nice neighbors. They had a pool and a hot tub, so after stopping at the store for some beer and snacks, we headed to the hot tub for a relaxing night. It was fun to see my family in my new town.

I'm getting closer to having our house arranged the way we want it, we did some more exploring of the town, and I got a taste of how working from home will be. I anticipate a little loneliness at the beginning as I adjust to being alone all day and work on making friends, but I think I'll like it up there.