April 2024 Check-In's

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To Follow Us Along On Our
32 Day South America Cruise
February 28 to April 5, 2024

We depart on Wednesday afternoon, February 28, on a flight arriving in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on Thursday morning, February 29, 2024. We'll spend a few days touring Buenos Aires before boarding the Sapphire Princess ship on Monday, March 4, 2024. From there we'll be visiting a number of ports down the east coast and then up the west coast of South America, Central America, and Mexico before arriving into Los Angeles on April 5, 2024. Click here to follow us on our adventure as I'll be posting photos and videos all during our trip.

Twisted Gypsy Fleetwood Mac Tribute Band
Including Stevie Nicks Tribute
Dave, Joanne & Christina Fruth, Barbara & Me
CampusJAX, Newport Beach, California
Saturday, April 6, 2024

Rabdoll Band At
The Fling Cocktail Lounge, Santa Ana, California
Cher Mack, Barbara & Me - Cher's Birthday!
Saturday, April 6, 2024

Duke's Bar & Grill
Scotty, Gael, Barbara & Me
Riverside, California
Sunday, April 7, 2024

They have great pizza at Duke's, very big pizzas that are not expensive. I didn't even know they had pizza at Duke's.

Solar Eclipse
Monday, April 8, 2024

This is what we saw from our Anaheim Hills Vacation house at about 11:15 AM Pacific TIme using the Eclipse Glasses that we had saved from going to see the Total Eclipse on August 21, 2017 in Salem, Oregon, near our Vancouver, Washington, home.

Mazatlan, Mexico, was the first North America location to witness the first Total Solar Eclipse this year. That is about a 22 hour drive from the Los Angeles area. We were pretty close to there just a few days ago when we stopped in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, on Monday, April 1, 2024. That is just a 6 hour drive from Mazatlan. Maybe we should have gotten off the cruise and just hung around there for a week. We've stopped at Mazatlan on several prior Mexican Riviera cruises. The Holland American ms Zaandam did a port stop in Mazatlan today, but not until 2 PM. But, they probably still got a good view of the Solar Eclipse being so close.

Trailer Park Flamingos At
The Fling Cocktail Lounge, Santa Ana, California
Dave Fruth, Barbara & Me
Tuesday, April 9, 2024

Kirsten Edkins Band At
CampusJAX, Newport Beach, California
Wednesday, April 10, 2024

Stan O'Kane Of The Citizen O'Kane Band At
The Fling Cocktail Lounge, Santa Ana, California
Wednesday, April 10, 2024

Roman Cucina Italian Restaurant
Fullerton, California
Dena David, Barbara & Me
Thursday, April 11, 2024

Preservation Room Private Club At
The Charleston, Fullerton, California
Dena David, Barbara & Me
Thursday, April 11, 2024

The Preservation Room is a "Members Only" private club that is part of The Charleston, an event space in the old Williamson Building in Fullerton. This building has quite a history. When our daughters were little, the bottom floor of this building was a scouting supply store and we would go there to buy their Girl Scout uniforms and supplies. Later this retail space was turned into two restaurants that have changed hands and names over the years. For a while one was an Indian Restaurant and the other was "The Rail Restaurant" where our Rail Travel Meetup Group gathered for many years. Today they are Bourbon Street and The Bowery restaurants. Much of "The Charleston" space used to be a dance studio and is where I took dance lessons to prepare for Sherica & Brian's wedding. That is gone now and instead it is a space you can hire for events.

The Preservation Room has a one-time initiation fee of $1000 and then a minimum requirement to puchase at least $500 per month in food and beverages. It is such a nice venue I'd seriously consider the one time $1000 initiation fee, but the $500 per month minimum is a deal breaker for me. We were able to go in as guests of Dena David, the former owners of the Vino Nostra Wine Bar in Fullerton. She is now a distributor of wines and spirits in the area and The Preservatoin Room is one of her clients.

The first thing I noticed when I sat at the bar was they had a bottle Islay Scotch on the shelf. I told the bar tender that I noticed the bottle of Islay Scotch and asked if they had any other Islay Scotch. It turns out the bartender is also a fan of Islay Scotch and he said they had several high end bottles of Islay Scotch. I ended up ordering a shot of the Ardbeg Tragh Bhan Single Malt Scotch Aged For 19 Years. We ended up having quite a long discussion about Islay Scotches. If you are not familiar with Scotch from Islay, most of them are very peaty and smokey because they use peat as the fuel for the distillation process. Islay is just about covered in peat so it is a very inexpensive source of fuel. However, if you don't like your Scotch peaty and smokey, don't even try it. I've had friends say it tastes like licking the bottom of an ash tray.

Ammunition Wine & Spirits Tasting At The
Preservation Room Private Club At
The Charleston In The
Historic Williams Building, Fullerton, California
Dena David, Barbara & Me
Friday, April 12, 2024

Sonoramics Band At
The Fling Cocktail Lounge, Santa Ana, California
David Fruth & Me
Saturday, April 12, 2024

Wine Club Flight At
The Twisted Vine, Fullerton, California
Barbara & Me
Saturday, April 13, 2024

Red Hot Tribute Band To Red Hot Chilli Peppers &
No-Duh No Doubt Tribute Band At
The Charleston In The
Historic Williams Building, Fullerton, California
Linda Lopez, Barbara & Me
Saturday, April 13, 2024

Sonoramics Band At
The Fling Cocktail Lounge, Santa Ana, California
Linda Lopez, Barbara & Me
Saturday, April 13, 2024

Dinner At Roman Cucina, Fullerton, California
Barbara & Me
Sunday, April 14, 2024

Stan O'Kane of the Citizen O'Kane Band At
The Fling Cocktail Lounge, Santa Ana, California
Barbara & Me
Sunday, April 14, 2024

Wine Club Flight At
The Twisted Vine, Fullerton, California
Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Duke's Bar & Grill
Riverside, California
Scotty, Barbara & Me
Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Trailer Park Flamingos At
The Fling Cocktail Lounge, Santa Ana, California
Tuesday, April 16, 2024

Flight To Portland, Oregon
Thursday, April 18, 2024

Fenix Rising At
The Blue Diamond, Portland, Oregon
Thursday, April 18, 2024

I ordered a bottle of the Cabernet Sauvignon as I wanted a wine from a local Oregon winery rather than an Australian wine, as Oregon is know for their wines. The wine list said their Cabernet Sauvignon is from Rock Point, Oregon, but the above is the bottle that they served me which is from South Eastern Australia. This is the ONLY Cabernet Sauvignon that the Blue Diamond has. Next time I'll try ordering the Red Blend which says it is from Australia. Maybe it will be from Oregon instead.

A birthday party was going on when we arrived which took over almost the entire place. We managed to get one of the remaining two tables plus some of the free party mix and a great piece of birthday carrot cake.

Chris Brown Jazz Band At
The Soft Reopening Of
The 1905, Portland, Oregon
Friday, April 19, 2024

I think the person with the long hair and mustache in the first photo above is Chris Pfeifer, the new owner of The 1905 Jazz Club. The Chris Brown Jazz Band was opening band, one of our favorites with some of our favorite musicians including Chris Brown on drums, Garrett Baxter on base and guitar, Greg Gobel on piano, and John Masters on saxophone.

They layout and decor were only slightly different than the old 1905. There were black linen tablecloths on ever table which gave the venue a more upscale look. Most tables had candles on them. One wall featured photos of jazz players that I don't remember seeing there before. They moved the window used by servers to get food from the kitchen to a location more to the rear of the dining room where it was less noticeable. They also moved a high table away from the kitchen which made it easier for servers to get about as well as may have made room for one more low table near the stage. They also left the garage door that separated the indoor space from the outdoor patio open all night so that guests on the patio could also enjoy the live music. Guests on the patio do not have to pay for tickets, just for the food and drinks they order. I had thought they closed the garage at night due to noise ordinances, but maybe it was just to keep the cold out during the winter months. The menu is a bit different than the 1905, not necessarily better or worse, but they did take away some of the appetizers that we liked. We'll have to see how this evolves over time.

THe pizza was great but it appears they only sell it by the slice now and they have reduced the number of different types of pizza they offer. The old 1905 used to sell both large and medium whole pizzas in addition to "by the slice" and used to fill a lot of take-out and delivery orders. They serve wine in premium wine glasses, not Riedel, but a high quality competitor with cut glass edges. I don't remember if the old 1905 did that.

We brought our own bottle of with to The 1905. Their corkage charge is $15. I took one of our oldest bottles from our Vancouver home trying to use up our oldest bottles first. I removed and checked the cork at home before reinserting it. I do have a tool to put wine bottle corks back in but I was able to just push it back in by hand. I like to check the corks on older bottles before taking them to a restaurant just in case the cork turns out to not be in good shape and might break or fall apart when the server pulls the cork. Barbara and I were surprised at how good the wine was. It turns out it was only a $17 bottle of wine. You can buy a new vintage of this wine, or even the old 2013 vintage if you can find it for only about $17. It is true that not every cheap wine is bad or every expensive bottle is good. Generally the quality of wine follows the rule that you get what you pay for, but not always.

Mystic Mama Band at
The Blue Diamond, Portland, Oregon
Shelli, Barbara and me
Saturday, April 20, 2024

Their wine list says their Cabernet Sauvignon is from American and their Red Blend is from Australia, but the reverse is true: their red blend is from California and their Cabernet Sauvignon is from Australia. No matter. We found out their corkage fee is only $10 so I will be bringing wine from my home from now on.

Maryhill Winery Tasting Room
Vancouver Waterfront, Washington
Monday, April 22, 2024

We are "All Red" members of the Maryhill Wine Club. Our membership level, "Selection of Maryhill" has us receiving 6 bottles of wine 3 times per year, January, April and August. The cost ranges between $135 and $220 per shipment depending on the category. There are a number of wine club member benefits, but the biggest of them is that we can go into any of the 4 Maryhill Wine Tasting Room locations (Vancouver, Goldendale, Spokane, and Woodinville) and get TWO free flights of wine EVERY DAY! Normally they charge $30 for one flight of wine, so that is a $60 value every time we go in for a wine flight! We only go for a flight a few times each month, usually when they have live music, but we could go every day if we wanted to. If we did, we'd be getting $1,800 worth of wine flights each month! You can see what a wine flight looks like in the above photos. Each wine flight consists of 7 wine tastes, of about 2 ounces each. They also provide a 25% discount on all food menu items every Tuesday. The Vancouver Waterfront venue has live music on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday.

In the above photo you can see the ALL-DAY Happy Hour they have on Monday & Thursday. We ordered one of most things on the Happy Hour Menu including truffle chips ($3), mixed olives ($5), clam chowder ($5), and the petit fromage board ($9), a real banquet for just $22! A man from the table next to us saw our huge flight of wines and asked us about them. We explained that the flight costs $30 per person, but wine club members can get 2 free flights every day! He said he already belonged to too many wine clubs. But after giving some thought to this great membership benefit, he decided to join the Maryhill Wine Club. As a reward for landing them a new club member, the manager of the winery gave us a free glass of our pick of wines.

Birrieria PDX Mexican Food Truck
Vancouver, Washington
Monday, April 22, 2024

This food truck has been parked at a small shopping plaza near our home at the corner of NE 99th Street and Highway 99 for the last several months. There seems to always be people standing in line to buy food from this truck so we assumed it must be something special. We decided to try it today. We purchased one Burrito PDX ($12) and one regular Burrito ($9). They were very large burritos, but we were pretty disappointed with the taste. I was hopping they'd be something special like the burritos I used to buy from a food truck that used to be at the Albuquerque Amtrak Station. Those were so good that I'd get off the train and buy a couple and have those for dinner instead of eating in the Amtrak Dining Car. These were nowhere as good as those. Actually, I like burritos from Del Taco better than these. These were not spicy and were a bit dry. I'm not sure why so many people seem to like the burritos from this food truck. I don't think we'll be stopping to buy Mexican food from this truck in the future. Or, maybe we just ordered the wrong items from this food truck.

Ben Rice & The Portland Hustle Blues Band At
Billy Blues Bar & Grill, Vancouver, Washington
Most Tuesdays, April 23, 2024

Mel Brown B3 Organ Group At
The Official Reopening Of
The 1905, Portland, Oregon
Shelli, Barbara & Me
Wednesday, April 24, 2024

Fenix Rising Blues Band At
The Blue Diamond, Portland, Oregon
Thursday, April 25, 2024

Driving To The Pot At
The End Of The Rainbow
Friday, April 26, 2024

One-Eyed Kats Horns Band At
Celebrities Parkway Grill, Fairview, Oregon
Friday, April 26, 2024

Mystic Mama Band At
Cidar Mill Restaurant, Portland, Oregon
Saturday, April 27, 2024

Dinner At McGrath's Fish House, Vancouver, Washington
Shelli Tucker, Barbara & Me
Sunday, April 28, 2024

Ron Steen Jazz Jam at
Clyde's Bistro, Portland, Oregon
Barbara & Me
Sunday, April 28, 2024

Dinner With Sherica & Brian At
Versai Kitchen & Wine Bar, Yorba Linda, California
Tuesday, April 30, 2024

Barbara Dancing To The Trailer Park Flamingos At
The Fling Cocktail Lounge, Santa Ana, California
Dave Fruth, Barbara & Me
Tuesday, April 30, 2024

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