3rd Year Anniversary – Pine Hills Lodge

We went to the Pine Hills Lodge in Julian, CA for our third anniversary. We went there for our first anniversary too, that same black and that same black and white cat from 2007 was still wandering around. We arrived late Friday night and the main building was locked up, couldn’t get the key. Pine Hills Lodge is in a tucked away spot up in the mountains, they shut the operation down early. Eventually they answered the phone and came downstairs and we went to sleep in Pine Cone 2 cabin. It’s a lovely room but it has curious graffiti inside the wooden dresser drawers, former residents signing their names and leaving positive comments about their stay.

The next day we went to ride horses (see previous post). Later we went to the Julian Grill for some dinner, went there in 2007 too. Nicole ordered some soup before dinner.

The real fun began when we got back to the cabin. For our anniversary Nicole got me “The Last Days of Disco” on DVD, one of my favorite movies. I’ve been waiting for this to be re-released on DVD for years. Before we watched it on Nicole’s tiny DVD viewer I wanted to achieve an appropriate level of excitement, so I opened up the Mountain Dew. As you may remember, drinking an ice bucket of Mountain Dew has been an anniversary ritual for me since our honeymoon. This year Nicole provided me with a test market size bottle of the experimental blue Mountain Dew. Blue Mountain Dew tastes disgusting but we gave it a whirl.

“The Last Days of Disco” is eleven years old this year and it stood the test of time. The Mountain Dew did its job. The scenery and horses can speak for themselves. Great food, it was an utterly satisfying weekend. But Nicole met a dog that she liked at the Julian Stable and now she wants a long-haired Chihuahua too.