Vacation.....Gotta Get Away

I wonder if this is what the Go-gos meant? Thanksgiving was fun, and we all ate a lot. Most of Laurie's family was there and everybody behaved. Later we played Mexican train and had dessert. Just a typical holiday, but we haven't been home for this time of year since we moved to ND so it was kind of special. Friday Laurie and I went to Old Town and walked around a looked at the shops. It has kind of grown up. It was always a tourist draw, but now it's more apparently commercial. Not bad though. Walking down the street, we passed the Whaley House, a landmark and famous haunted house. We didn't feel like going in this time. Later we passed the Chuck Jones gallery and found it pretty amazing. There were a lot of Dr. Suess paintings on display as well as Jones' work from his Warner Bros. days and his work on Dr. Suess' animated stories like the Grinch. There was also some great work by a few other artists. One amazing set of paintings and scuptures were by Markus Pierson. His work is centered on this coyote character. It's ahrd to explain, the work is kind of dark but not negative. A lot of hope, dreams, and love. I'd suggest visiting the CJ Gallery website or Pierson's to see more. They are really amazing. After all this we walked around the Old Town Square and saw some great shops as well as a Wells Fargo exhibit. Pretty cool. We met later with Gary and had dinner at Chevy's in Mission Valley. An okay restaurant. They don't serve shredded beef so that was disapointing and the Carnitas (hsredded pork) was a bit fatty. I thought it was better last time when we went there about two years ago. Oh well. I'll try to post a bunch of pictures soon. Later.