Steak Restaurants Twice this Week

I've done something this week that's become unusual for me. I've eaten at a steakhouse. Twice.

It's not that I dislike steak. In fact I like it very much. And because I like it very much I don't enjoy it at family style restaurants. It's not good enough quality meat and it's not cooked that well. To get a good steak, I found years ago, one really must go to a restaurant that specializes in it. And those places, BTW, are expensive.

Cost both is and isn't a factor for me. Could I afford to eat out at steakhouses more often? Sure. But the issue is I choose not to because the amount of money I have to spend could be better used on other enjoyable things.

How much money am I talking about? Well, Wednesday night I met a colleague at Forbes Mill Steakhouse in Los Gatos. Steak entrees basically started at $80. The least expensive bottle of wine on the voluminous wine list was $90. We order a $300+ bottle as my colleague and I were celebrating. Our bill, with tax and tip, was over $700. Sure, we could have skipped the spendy bottle of wine, but even with two drinks apiece the tab would've run to at least $330 for dinner for two.

Friday's steakhouse visit was cheaper. We went with a customer to Birk's in Santa Clara for lunch. Just it being lunch made it cheaper. The menu prices are lower, and nobody was drinking alcohol. But still, entrees started in the $50s. Even lunch with shared appetizers and desserts, plus a mocktail drink, comes out to $100pp.

It bears saying that both of these meals were delicious. I enjoyed them very much. But I don't see myself doing such things very often, especially on my own dime. Do I believe in treating myself? Heck, yeah! But at these rates I might rather treat myself to something else with the same money. Like, last night Hawk and I stayed in a hotel so we could go hiking in the mountains today. For the price of even lunch-time steak meals we could eat on the cheap and pay to stay in a motel while traveling.

After Friday Night Halfway... Saturday ALL the Way. And Back Home!

You know what comes after Friday Night Halfway, right? Saturday all the way. And in today's case, the rest of the way there and all the way back.

We awoke today in Fresno, having driven there last night. We didn't roll from the hotel until 8:45am despite having set alarms for 7am. I snoozed mine a few times before getting up and let Hawk sleep in 'til she woke naturally. (Okay, I did open the drapes gradually to help promote her natural awakening. 😅) But it was okay that we got a not-the-crack-of-dawn start because we'd already covered 160-ish miles of driving the night before. With a few more stops along the way up into the mountains we got to the trailhead, ready to hike, at 11:45am.

We enjoyed a great hike up into the Dinkey Lakes Wilderness. Yes, we saw a bunch of Dinkey lakes. Four and a half of them. We got back down to the car just after 5pm, and we were beat. We'd hiked 7 miles and gained almost 1,000' of elevation... starting above 8,500'.

It took 45 minutes of driving just to get back to a paved road, then another 1:15 to get down to the Fresno metro area, where we ate a quick dinner. On the drive down the mountain we discussed doing a Saturday Night Halfway— halfway home— by staying in Fresno as we weren't sure we'd have the energy for another 3+ hours of driving.

Dinner rejuvenated us, though. And Saturday night traffic wasn't like Friday afternoon traffic.... The drive home would only be 2:45 straight through. We made plans to split the driving roughly in half with a stop to switch drivers in Los Banos. And, of course, we stopped for ice cream at Baskin-Robbins while switching. 🤣

We pulled up in front of our house at 10:45pm. We made quick work of unloading our gear from the past 31 hours of travel and parked the car in the garage. By 11pm I was already taking a shower to clean up from the dusty trail and start winding down for the night.