Weekend Recap!

Good morning all,

So I thought this post would be dedicated to my weekend happenings w/ Ms. LLK, of whom I celebrated 3 years of unadulterated, unbridled, unmistakable schmoopiness! (We're still trying to make as many friends and well-wishers vomit. My goal is still seven.)

All establishments will be subsequently reviewed via Yelp.

Friday evening we began at the Carter House Inn, one of the swankiest establishments in the 'Boldt. The thought was originally to scam food from them for their happy hour and imbibe swanky beverages. Unfortunately, they did not have free food at the time. (Lame!) Still, despite this place's reputation as a high-end joint, we were still able to get a draft beer, and a well-crafted lemon drop for $7.50.

We then ventured north to Arcata for foodstuffs. Again, despite our best original intentions, we were forced to improvise. We had planned to consume Japenesey noodles at Japhy's, a place which has held a lot of promise to us, but for whatever reason has always been closed; Imagine our chagrin then, when we discovered that this place would be out of commish until 8/15/2010. To quote my travel-wearied companion, "le boo."

So we ventured next door to Stars, a appropriately hyped burger joint w/ locales in both Eureka and Arcata. I say appropriately hyped because Stars is reasonably priced, no-fuss, and very solid. I had the chili cheese burger and LLK enjoyed a guac/bacon adventure of which I vultured most, if not all the salted piggy meat.

Next it was The Humboldt Crabs season-ender. They were playing Folsom in a WCL tournie, and I felt it was needed to check out the locale sports flavor one last time. Unfortunately, due to miserable weather, and obnoxious patrons in front of us who were taking up too much space, it was really only enjoyable for about 5 innings. What I like about the Crabbies is the local flare, cheap beer, and casualness. What it lacks, however, are the accoutrement of "bigger" minor league ball, like w/ the SJ Giants. The Giants has a lot more creature comforts and I feel like it's a lot closer to MLB than the Crabs, which sadly is a closer kin to your local high school game. But you can't drink (openly) at your local HS game, though, so it will have to do until I am a season-ticket holder for the more-enjoyable Giants.

So that lands us to Saturday morning. We opted for Renaeta's in the morning, the local creperie in Arcata. Crepes are pretty much awesome, so it was a good call. We got a savory and sweet crepe. The savory one contained chevre, spinach, almonds, and ham. The sweet had figs, pears, strawberries, and freshly whipped cream. They were both awesome. LLK even got passed the syrupy nature of the strawberries, which is a huge testament. It is akin to me indulging in something w/ mayonnaise.

Then it was the zoo! I have a big soft-spot for zoos. We used to have season passes to the SD zoo and Wild Animal Park, and as a child, I thought zoologist would be the career for me. I still work with animals, but unfortunately they're called district attorneys and even though they no where to poop, they are by no means as cute or interesting. (Snap!) Anyway, the zoo here is indeed small, but what it lacks in size it makes up in heart and an overall well-thought out layout. There were gibbons, monkeys, a black bear w/ fox, flamingos, and red pandas! Red pandas incidentally are pretty rad and are the "I wish I could domesticate that" of the moment.

After zoo it was back to Arcata for some light bumming around and a visit to Heart Bead for the ever-crafty LLK. Granted, I don't know much about crafting, but this place seems pretty awesome, and its steady stream of crafty customers proves it. However, there was a "pet" peeve egregious error committed here during our stay. This is definitely one of LLK's biggest annoyances, and to be honest, it has now been adopted by me as well. While we were in store, a guy thought it wise to bring his gargantuan, albeit very friendly, dog in store. A dog w/ no orange vest that was kind of all over the place. Let me elaborate- this is a store w/ I'm guessing tens of thousands of beads, placed in tables, placed at waist's height. This situation had disaster all over it. And yes, yes I love dogs. And yes, yes I pet the goggie and scratched it's cute head. But still, I can't imagine what situation any responsible pet-owner thinks that's appropriate. I mean, this guy was clearly waiting out his wife and kid- You can't just fucking wait outside? Also, it was crowded as hell in there- God-forbid there's someone w/ allergies. Blah...

Ok, so then we ate at the afore-blogged Hole in the Wall. The Arcata one is as good as the Eureka one. Oh, sammiches....

The evening eventually rolled around and it was dinner and a show! Dinner at the Arcata-swanky "Follie Duce," where we got wood-fired pizzas. Enjoyable.

Then it was off to HSU's Van Duzer theatre for the local production of Gilbert and Sullivan's "The Pirates of Penzance." Lemme tell, that musical basically stole a bunch of Animaniacs' sketches. All blatant-plagiarism aside, it was a very good production, with one minor blemish, which happened to be.... major.

The "major" general- While I understand their casting in terms of appearance (the guy looked like an old stubborn, stodgy, general), he absolutely blew the marquis number. And by blew, I mean blew. At one point he had to look at the cast on stage for help. It was cringe-worthy at best.

Notwithstanding that "major" guffaw (sorry for the pun), the rest of the production was very, very enjoyable. Yes, I am more or less in the sticks. But it's very comforting to know that if I need to, I can get some certifiable culture amongst the meth and marijuana!

All in all, it was a very awesome weekend, and a reminder that even in places a bit (ok, a lot) removed from the "city-life," as long as you have great company (and I did), you can carve out an awesome time.

Finally, here are my blawg goals for this week:
1 culture opinion entry (TV, book, music or trio)
1 current event entry
1 more food entry

Enjoy your week, my handful of dedicated!