We've just been to San Francisco to see our son, Russell, who lives there. As part of the trip, we spent 8 days driving an RV up the Big Sur coast from LA to San Francisco, and after finishing with our RV, we were supposed to go with Russ to stay in a lodge in the Yosemite National park - but with the Federal shutdown it was all closed. Putting aside the curiously paradoxical concept that having the government provide healthcare is an attack on personal freedom, but stopping you walking on trails in the wilderness in "the Land of the Free" isn't, this was a happy accident. Russell was able to book us a waterside property on the Russian River - just north of Bodega Bay - about 80 miles north of San Francisco, and it was just lovely. Loads of walking in the redwoods, and along the coast, and the rental even included the use of 3 canoes to use on the river - it was fabulous. Lots of quality time together.
The property had WiFi so one eveing Russ and I sat down together and he showed me how to download films and TV programmes on to my tablet ready for the flight home, as whilst United Airways is cheap, their inflight entertainment is dire, so we set up 3 one hour programmes to download from BBC iPlayer, and as the connection was slow we left it to run overnight.
On the last night our hosts said they would like to meet us for a drink and a chat, so we invited them to join us for a barbeque. When food was approaching being ready, Russ popped over to our hosts accommodation but was gone sometime. He came back about 15 mins later and said that their son had phoned to say that they had used 90% of their monthly download allowance in just 3 days and that they should check that they hadn't left a window open. Did Russ know anything about computers? He flanneled his way round it but thought that they would probably put 2 and 2 together and link it to our visit.
Anyway, having avoided the problem at least for the time being, our hosts arrived for the bbq, and with this we were on home turf - we DO bbqs! Cooking facilities were a bit sparse - coffee machine, microwave and a gas bbq was all we had - but ever willing to improvise we thought of a good way to hardboil eggs for the salad without a kettle or hob. Now we all know that a raw egg in a microwave is bad news, but reasoned that if you boil water in a plastic bowl first, then place the egg in the boiling water, there would be no problem. This seemed to work fine whilst we chatted away to our hosts outside, telling them what a beautifully appointed property it was, and they told us proudly about how it had only just been opened for letting following the completion of a comprehensive makeover, because it took at least 10 minutes before there was a dull "whoooommmpppphhh" from the kitchenette and we rushed in to see a cloud of steam rolling across the ceiling like a "flash-over" in a house fire.
If there is one thing worse that putting a raw egg in a microwave, it's putting in two. Even worse is when you put in 3, so you can imagine the devastating effect that 4 eggs exploding simultaneously had! The explosion had blown the door of the microwave open and covered the floor, ceiling, walls, inside the toaster, and all the packets and tins on the food shelves with a fine spray of scrambled egg. We cleaned up as best we could but eventually had to leave it as I explained to our hosts that if we didn't eat soon the food we'd been bbq'ing would be completely ruined. We started with bbq'd shrimp and as Russ doesn't like fish he disappeared halfway through the first course and came back with some charred steaks and burgers, having seen out the corner of his eye flames and a pall of smoke coming from under the closed hood of the bbq.
Conversation over the meal was easy enough, although I found it difficult to meet our hostess eye to eye because I couldn't help being fascinated by the sugarcube sized chunk of scrambled egg perched on the top of her perfectly coiffured hair-do. Miraculously this disappeared at some stage between courses.
We spent most of the following morning clearing up - and at Russ's suggestion checked that the microwave still worked because as he pointed out, they are designed to have their doors opened with the handle and not to be blown open by explosions from within. To misquote Michael Caine - "you're not supposed to blow the bloody doors off."
Overall, by skill and diplomacy, I think an international incident was narrowly avoided, especially as I suspect they were Republicans, and it is as well that Sacha Baron Cohen's alta ego - Borat - hadn't been there because he'd have included it in his film. Anyway, they told Russell before we left that he's welcome to come back anytime with his girlfriend, although he didn't say whether they added that next time he should leave his parents behind! He wrote a glowing report in the feedback section of AirBNB and hasn't received a negative one of him as a guest. Or it could just be that they will have no internet access until 1st Nov!
The property had WiFi so one eveing Russ and I sat down together and he showed me how to download films and TV programmes on to my tablet ready for the flight home, as whilst United Airways is cheap, their inflight entertainment is dire, so we set up 3 one hour programmes to download from BBC iPlayer, and as the connection was slow we left it to run overnight.
On the last night our hosts said they would like to meet us for a drink and a chat, so we invited them to join us for a barbeque. When food was approaching being ready, Russ popped over to our hosts accommodation but was gone sometime. He came back about 15 mins later and said that their son had phoned to say that they had used 90% of their monthly download allowance in just 3 days and that they should check that they hadn't left a window open. Did Russ know anything about computers? He flanneled his way round it but thought that they would probably put 2 and 2 together and link it to our visit.
Anyway, having avoided the problem at least for the time being, our hosts arrived for the bbq, and with this we were on home turf - we DO bbqs! Cooking facilities were a bit sparse - coffee machine, microwave and a gas bbq was all we had - but ever willing to improvise we thought of a good way to hardboil eggs for the salad without a kettle or hob. Now we all know that a raw egg in a microwave is bad news, but reasoned that if you boil water in a plastic bowl first, then place the egg in the boiling water, there would be no problem. This seemed to work fine whilst we chatted away to our hosts outside, telling them what a beautifully appointed property it was, and they told us proudly about how it had only just been opened for letting following the completion of a comprehensive makeover, because it took at least 10 minutes before there was a dull "whoooommmpppphhh" from the kitchenette and we rushed in to see a cloud of steam rolling across the ceiling like a "flash-over" in a house fire.
If there is one thing worse that putting a raw egg in a microwave, it's putting in two. Even worse is when you put in 3, so you can imagine the devastating effect that 4 eggs exploding simultaneously had! The explosion had blown the door of the microwave open and covered the floor, ceiling, walls, inside the toaster, and all the packets and tins on the food shelves with a fine spray of scrambled egg. We cleaned up as best we could but eventually had to leave it as I explained to our hosts that if we didn't eat soon the food we'd been bbq'ing would be completely ruined. We started with bbq'd shrimp and as Russ doesn't like fish he disappeared halfway through the first course and came back with some charred steaks and burgers, having seen out the corner of his eye flames and a pall of smoke coming from under the closed hood of the bbq.
Conversation over the meal was easy enough, although I found it difficult to meet our hostess eye to eye because I couldn't help being fascinated by the sugarcube sized chunk of scrambled egg perched on the top of her perfectly coiffured hair-do. Miraculously this disappeared at some stage between courses.
We spent most of the following morning clearing up - and at Russ's suggestion checked that the microwave still worked because as he pointed out, they are designed to have their doors opened with the handle and not to be blown open by explosions from within. To misquote Michael Caine - "you're not supposed to blow the bloody doors off."
Overall, by skill and diplomacy, I think an international incident was narrowly avoided, especially as I suspect they were Republicans, and it is as well that Sacha Baron Cohen's alta ego - Borat - hadn't been there because he'd have included it in his film. Anyway, they told Russell before we left that he's welcome to come back anytime with his girlfriend, although he didn't say whether they added that next time he should leave his parents behind! He wrote a glowing report in the feedback section of AirBNB and hasn't received a negative one of him as a guest. Or it could just be that they will have no internet access until 1st Nov!
