Wrap up for the year, starting just before Noah and Alicia’s wedding
and skipping the wedding and Alison’s trip to Bhutan.
We put Bear to sleep just before the wedding. It’s always hard to
know when it’s time, but Bear was losing control of his hind legs,
couldn’t stand up on tile, couldn’t get up and down the stairs, and
couldn’t even do the walk with the pups any more. That, and he was
getting more and more anxious every time we left. Given that it
was unreasonable to ask dog sitters to get a hundred pound dog up and
down the stairs each day so he could sleep in the bedroom and that he
seemed to be struggling and unhappy day to day, we made the call.
Bear was an incredibly loyal and laid back dog. He followed Alison
all over the house, every step of the way. Every time Dave opened
the inner garage door coming back from work, he knew it would be blocked
by Bear, waiting patiently at the door jamb to greet Dave and make sure
he didn’t miss out on the evening stroll. We miss him.
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One kind of random activity; there was a classic car auction at the fairgrounds next to the Harriman Cottage during the wedding. Our favorite (which we don’t have a picture of because we didn’t get the tour until it was dark) was the camper made from an old armored military vehicle, with three queen sized beds, polished wooden floors, a bathroom and shower, a full kitchen, and tires that were about as tall as Alison. Our guess was that it got maybe four miles to the gallon.
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The day after the wedding, we took the gondola up to the top of Bald Mountain with Pam, David, Paul, Carol and Sonja. Fantastic views of Ketchum and Sun Valley greeted us.
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We drove back from Sun Valley after the wedding, stopping at the Mammoth Cave and Shoshone Bird Museum in (wait for it) Shoshone, Idaho. The Mammoth Cave was indeed mammoth… and, as it turns out, is the largest volcanic cave in the world open to the public. That having been said, don’t expect stalactites or mites lit with floodlights replete with sparkling pools of water between them. It’s a huge lava tube that stretches for what feels like miles (but is probably more like ½ mile long), easy to walk through and interesting from a “wow, I’m in a cave” perspective but not very different from point to point.
The Shoshone bird museum, on the other hand, was different from an inch-to-inch perspective, crammed full of … I bet you think I’m going to say birds, but I’m not, and frankly the name is really misleading. It was full of freakishly awesome stuff. I do not use the word “stuff” lightly. “Treasures” seems too strong. “Junk” is definitely too weak. It’s the oddest collection of random collectables we’ve ever seen in one place. To be sure, there’s plenty of taxidermy, and the guy who collected the $10 / person (“that’s the price, take it or leave it”) said it was created by his father, who had become wealthy farming in Idaho (no one was willing to ask, “farming what?”) and decided to travel the world and shoot endangered species before personally taxidermying them (and yes, I get that taxidermying in not officially a word, but it should be). But along the way he collected masks, gems, dinosaur bones, fish, anything with two heads, fossils, arrow heads, and a variety of other random … ya, stuff. But fascinating stuff. It was like the best Victorian cabinet of curiosities in the world.
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The other interesting part of the 14 hour drive back into LA was where we drove by the “Tenaja” fire in Riverside.
Dave attended the “Ignobles,” a Harvard show where they give awards to the PhD theses that seem like they have to be out of the “Onion,” but are in fact real. For instance, the paper on “what paper currencies are best at transmitting dangerous bacteria,” and “the impact of holding a pen in one’s mouth on general happiness.”
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We did another No. 9 Cocktail class, this time with Rick and Elizabeth, “Drinking Through Boston History.” Fun fact: Paul Revere stopped for a brewski in the middle of his famous ride!
We did another weekend at Rick and Elizabeth’s camp in Maine with the puppies. It’s a great place to let them run around off the leash. We did a little hiking (where the dogs were on the leash, which turned out to be challenging when going down cliffs), saw poisonous caterpillars from outer space (you think I’m kidding but I’m not) (about the poisonous thing), did the boating around the lake jaunt, saw bald eagles for the first time in Maine, and collected two monstrous-sized “hen of the woods” mushrooms, which we sautéed and ate and were delicious and we are happy to report, not poisonous.
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In November, we did a special event at the MFA, where we learned a little more about the people who make the decisions around what to acquire and display. That was actually fascinating, mostly because we had the guy who put together the Kunstkammer room, and he was so totally into the subject you could see his eyes glowing. If you don’t know what a Kunstkammer is, you should google it!
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November also marked the death of our grill, included as a topic here only because the pictures were entertaining. Dave got to throw it off the deck and it made a satisfying crash when it hit the ground. It’s been replaced with an even LARGER grill that Rick Morris came over to help put together, since he’s the grill master. He started by saying “Weber’s the best” (Weber being a brand that was literally four times more expensive for a smaller grill) and ended with what can only be described as grill envy.
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That worked out well, because a tree fell in our driveway (which Dave discovered when he tried to back out of the garage). Seems like a non sequitur, but we ended up having to get a log splitter because Rick’s was DOA, so Rick ended up with log-splitter-envy too. Having said that, he does have a more powerful chainsaw (although Dave’s is electric and therefore environmentally friendlier). Rick and Elizabeth got the upper hand, however, by hiding homicidal garden gnomes around our yard.
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We did another No. 9 Park cocktail class with Rick and Elizabeth where we learned about specialty cocktails from hotel bars around the world. At this point, though, we’ve run the gamut of standard classes. If we do another one, it will have to be a custom class where we get a bunch of people to sign up for it.
We’ve taken to walking the dogs in a nearby conservation area, which they love. It’s nice walk for everyone.
Dave’s Aunt Elaine was in rehab from a fall where she broke her hip. We went down to spend some time with her – she’s doing great!
While Alison was in Bhutan, Will and his new girlfriend Carley came and visited, and Carley was kind enough to play a board game with Dave. Dave also went to the new casino in Boston, the Encore, with Brie and Aidan.
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Brie had her engagement party at Aidan’s parents, and it was a fun event. Brie dressed up as Marilyn Monroe and looked terrific. Dave made mass-produced Aviations, while Alison did a big batch of hot buttered rum
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The next week was Thanksgiving. We originally thought it would be a relatively small affair, but it turned into the traditional large gathering, with Brie, Noah, Alicia, Pan, Meredith, Charlotte, the Haines family (along with Ryan’s girlfriend), and Eli and his girlfriend Liz attending.
We had dinner with Brie and Aidan at Taranta in the North End, an Italian-Peruvian hybrid restaurant that has replaced Bricco as our favorite in the area. One last dinner with them before they headed to Ireland for Christmas.
At the beginning of December, we flew out to San Diego for Paul’s 85th birthday on December 7th. Our big adventure for the weekend was to hike to and around nearby Discovery Lake, which is by Paul and Carol’s house and is surrounded by hiking trails.
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We had one weekend to get stuff done between the visit for Paul’s birthday and leaving for the Hanukkah/Christmas week. Then we were off to ski in Sun Valley, Idaho for Christmas, staying with Noah, Alicia, Alicia’s parents Randy and Ellen, and Alicia’s sister Christine in a four bedroom condo. Sun Valley has been a Beatty family Christmas tradition for nineteen years, and we could understand why. The mountain is beautiful, the snow was great, and the lines were non-existent. So non-existent it’s hard to understand how the upscale lodges (which featured things like Italian Marble finished restrooms and multiple wood burning fireplaces) were economically feasible.
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It snowed the last two days we were at Sun Valley, and we had actually flown into Salt Lake City and drove the 200 plus miles from there to the lodge, but we rented a Audi from "Silvercar" for that reason (the Audi has AWD with ESP ... we don't actually know what that is but it's supposed to be even better for snow ... plus the winter tire package, and I have to say it did an awesome job even on unplowed streets). The drive back was very picturesque as a result, and there was some truly weird weather conditions, like a blanket of white-out-fog despite the temp being in the teens.
 Picturesque downtown Ketchum |
 Mountain peeking out of the blanket of fog |
 Audi A4 |
 Strange cloud formations |
We flew from Sun Valley to LA to visit with Maddy, Alison’s folks, Lisa, Bruce, Anne, Nick and Heidi. The journey to (and from) Alison’s folks in San Marcos included Dave, Alison, Maddy, and two screaming cats, who yowled constantly for the entire two plus hour trip down and two plus hour trip back. Super fun.
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We returned home on the 29th to enjoy our Christmas tree and drinks in front of the fire.
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And we’ll close out the year with shots of Dobie, Luna and Poppy, who continue to amuse, entertain, and eat hearing aids.
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