While Chris was at home, trying to clean up all the camping gear, and recover from vacation, I was doing some fun things. I got to California early so I was able to rent a road bike in Solvang and ride the same route as a couple stages in the Tour of California – it was a lot of rolling hills but it made me realize how out of shape I am right now! Below are some pictures I took on the ride.
The rest of the week is a blur – long meetings during the day and huge steaks at night. We went to two different steak houses and we got the largest portion sizes I could ever imagine! Below is a picture of my co-worker’s pork chops – there were two of them on the plate (each about 2 ½ inches thick!). One of the steak houses had a really nice garden area out back of the restaurant.
On the way to and from work each day I had to pass through some farmland. The one farm grew all flowers – they were too pretty to not take a picture as I passed!
For those of you who have never flown into Santa Barbara, you’re missing out on an adventure. The airport is so tiny. I took a picture of the “Baggage Claim” area – I have never seen one so small (or outside). It is just these two covered pavilions with shelves that they put the luggage on – kind of crazy!
I arrived back in Maryland to 95°F temperatures with 80% humidity. It definitely made me miss the 68°F temperatures I had in California! Because it was so hot and humid this weekend, we stayed indoors for most of it.
On Saturday, we had a few errands to run and then we worked on prepping the walls and ceiling in the master bedroom. While I was away, Chris had started patching some of the spots on the wall. One particularly bad spot was where our contractor had replaced some of the drywall on the ceiling – it required about 4 or 5 coats of drywall compound to fix it.
We started priming in the closets because they had never been painted – it was the super smooth finish that you get from plaster walls. Since they had never seen a drop of paint, we ended up putting two coats of primer on just in case.
After church on Sunday, we primed the ceiling, walls, and trim in the master bedroom. The room looks so nice and clean now – not the ugly greenish color the previous owner had on one and a half of the walls (we’re still not quite sure why each room has only two walls painted).
We also got started on prepping the walls and ceiling in the medium bedroom. There were so many places that needed to be sanded down – paint drips, random paint over debris, etc. We never thought anyone could be that bad at painting – you have to try hard to make it this awful.
Hopefully, within the next couple weeks, we can have our first “finished” room. If you own a house, you know why I used the quotation marks!
You should fly into Santa Rosa next time. The airport is closer, and even smaller! They just drop all of the bags off on the outside front sidewalk for people to pick up! :)
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