We’re on our way to Ashland and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for the first time in four years. We stopped in Fairfield for lunch at Lebanese Spoon; it was fine, but I’d try something other than the chicken shawarma next time because it was on the bland side.

We had a little trouble getting to the restaurant because of Fairfield’s Juneteenth Celebration; the main drag, Texas Street, was closed and there were booths set up on either side of the street. We wandered around for a bit but didn’t find anything we had to buy. :-)

The rest of the drive to Redding was easy, and we got to the hotel about 4:30. As usual, we’re staying in the Towneplace Suites off Hilltop Drive. We normally drive into downtown Redding for dinner, but this time, we decided to see what we could find within walking distance and ended up at Kelly’s Pub and Wine Bar for beer and pizza; the atmosphere was nice, the beer was good, and the pizza was OK.

I’d brought an Amazon Fire Stick with us so we could watch Ted Lasso. The TV was under the control of the hotel’s magic box, and the “input” button on the remote didn’t do anything. Usually, disconnecting the magic box from the TV frees up the TV to behave properly, but it didn’t help this time. I finally found the trick online: plug your device into the HDMI 2 input on the magic box, then use the hotel’s remote to select “Streaming” and then “Direct Connect”. Then hit “OK” and all will be well.

We took another walk after dinner, and I enjoyed the clouds.

I woke up a little after midnight today and noticed that the nightlight in the bathroom was out. I also noticed that the clock in the bedroom was dark. I didn’t put those two facts together (I guess I wasn’t really awake) until nearly 3am, when our Amazon Echo woke me up when it started to glow brightly, and I realized that the power had gone out sometime after we went to sleep and had just been restored.

This morning, I looked at my phone and found a number of messages. PG&E had sent three – one just before midnight telling me that our house was one of 12 without power due to equipment failure, one telling me that a crew was on the way, and one telling me that power had been restored. I also got two messages from Enphase, our solar system provider, telling me that we’d gone off-grid at 11:24pm and that power had been restored at 2:53am.

We’d had to choose six circuits to keep powered up in the event of a problem. We’d chosen the circuits powering the computers, the cooktop, the kitchen outlets, and the refrigerator. This was the first test of the battery’s ability to keep the house functioning, and it worked as planned – the refrigerator behaved just as it did the rest of the day, and the network (and computers) all stayed up.

I’d decided not to back up any lighting circuits because it’s easy to get a couple of rechargeable LED lanterns and keep them charged; I guess I really ought to get those lanterns sometime soon!