Place: The Habit Burger Grill
Lunch (well, early dinner technically): Double Char (no tomato), onion rings (w/ranch), strawberry limeade
The Habit is a fast casual burger chain that dates back to 1969. The idea behind the name is they want you to "make it a habit" to show up and order food.
Everything's cooked to order and priced in line with the usual suspects. The burger is good, if not a little too intensely charbroiley tasting. Loving the strawberry limeade, which is a flavored drink you can refill...there's no fresh fruit in it. There's at least three other sandwiches I'd like to try on the menu (an Ahi tuna, a tri-tip steak, and a portobello Char), but I'm only in town for a few days and have like 17 places I'd like to eat at while I'm here, so probably not.
Ford has a commercial running for the Escape...a car-based SUV not really designed for off roading...that suggests that you should give your kid a life lesson by taking them into the woods and finding a random tree to cut down and bring home for the family Christmas tree instead of going to a tree lot. A family adventure.
This seems ill advised.
First off, it can be outright illegal or at a minimum require permits. The US Forest Service has some guidelines here.
Second, make sure you're on public property where this is allowed and what the rules are. You'd feel terrible if you cut down a tree that turned out to be on private property and had the family dog's remains buried under it. Poor Fluffy. And poor you when the family's attorney gets involved and it turns out they had security cameras and you're suddenly a YouTube star for all the wrong reasons.
Third, know the conditions. Saws can spark. Dry climates can catch fire. And as the people of Paradise, California will attest, fires can burn whole towns down. Even the local Jack in the Box. Nobody wants to lose their local Jack in the Box. I mean, all those wasted tacos.
Fourth, there's safer places to do this. Find a cut-your-own Christmas tree farm. Find your perfect tree, saw it, properly secure it to your vehicle, and pay the attendant. Off you go. i have a memory of doing this as a child. Dad found the perfect tree at the bottom of a steep snow covered hill and intended to drive our '61 Transporter (the VW pickup version of the Type 2/Bus) down there and get it, but the lot owner wouldn't let him. "There's no way that thing will make it back up the hill."
"Yes it will," my father flatly replied.
They argued until Dad wore him down by accepting responsibility if he got stuck. He drove down the hill, cut the tree, loaded it in the back, and drove straight back up the hill, where the guy, arms folded, watched with surprise. "Damn. I need to get me one of those," he said.
But whatever adventure you have, it will never top the ones we had when we moved to Alaska.
Dad's boss had a 50-foot yacht. Every year, he'd take us and other friends out to some random uninhabited island to find the perfect "free" Christmas trees. Because who would pay for a tree while living in the middle of a national forest. We'd anchor off shore, take the skiff in, wander inward to find our perfect trees, cut them down, drag them back to the skiff, tie them to the back, haul them through the salt water, and put them on the back of the boat. Scrapes, bruises, colds, and once a broken leg ensued. But hey...we had our "free" trees. Not counting the untold hundreds spent on fuel and food and supplies and what not. A point Dad never missed pointing out, but nobody cared.
It was, after all, really about the adventure.
