Not so quiet times

Haven't blogged lately because we've been, well, for us, busy.  My wife's brother and his wife visited the area and we enjoyed seeing them.  Last Friday we went in to Las Vegas to spend a few hours with them and our daughter.  They got to see her new home and we all went out for some dinner in an OFF STRIP restaurant.  It's a nice place with a good view of the strip so it's kind of fun.

Then on Monday they came over the hump and landed here for a couple of days.  We spent Monday night talking mostly catching up on all the stuff that goes on in life.  Ate in; my wife kindly suggested I make my baked ziti so I did.  Made her do the salad though which is certainly needed.  (The ziti recipe is pretty big so we actually have another casserole of it ready for tonight.  Recalculate the recipe?  Too tough for me - or I'm too lazy - you guess!) 

Tuesday we went to the China Date Ranch.  It's this relic from the past almost.  Back about 1900 a Chinese guy started a farm here.  Something happened and he disappeared; even the story on the web site doesn't quite agree with the story at the farm!  Bottom line is that others took over and did market gardening kind of stuff for a number of years.  It had to be really tough!  It's a long way to anywhere from there.  But today they grow dates and sell them to visitors.  They have a small shop that has the date products (a date shake anyone? very good BTW), and the usual trash and treasures of any second hand joint.  They also have some cacti for sale but on this trip there wasn't a lot available.  But, it is a fun place to visit and we enjoyed ourselves.  They even have a few trails available if you want to get some exercise.

After all that we got some lunch then went to Pahrump's second winery.  The Sanders Family Winery is down in the valley and not well known but it should be!  The Sanders family started Nevada's first winery here in Pahrump a number of years ago.  They sold it about ten years ago.  Then decided that they still loved wine so started a new winery.  Got to talk with Mr. Sanders and did a tasting of six or eight wines.  We ended up buying a bottle of their Pinot Noir and a bottle of their sherry.  I would have bought some of the port but I'm the only one who drinks port around here and just couldn't justify it.  It was good though!  We've had dinner at the other winery and drunk some of their wine with it and I think Sanders Family Winery product is better. 

Now we are taking a couple days off to recover from our visitors.  And to eat up some of the leftovers!  What army did we think was invading?  Have a good one!