SD Fair! (click me)

If you park in the free lot at the fair you get to either go back in time and ride a school bus or pretend it's 1970s England and ride a double decker bus to the the fair grounds.  Excellent way to start the evening.  Jason & I went with our tip top upstairs neighbors and friends and first stop (and only pictures) was the livestock barn.  

Here's Ketty & Dave with a goat that is very happy to have met them.

Pigs are so adorable when they sleep.  These two big'uns didn't mind me giving a pat.

I wish we would have gotten pictures of the fried food we ate, which included a deep fried twinkie w/ chocolate sauce and (for Jason) a deep fried white castle burger.  It was gone (especially the twinkie) rather quickly.  Warm crusty shell and gooey sweet center...mmmmmm.  It's once a year, so whatever.  

We also watched a wonderful classic guitar duo that you can check out here:

www.benedetti-svoboda.com

Bought an album that will go with my Julian Bream.

There was also a surprisingly impressive and very large artshow to check out.  You could vote for your favorite one and they did a people's choice every day.  Jason voted for the dog riding a dirt bike with goggles on.  Nick voted for the kelp.  I told the nice elderly gentlemen who was handing out the ballots that I wasn't going to vote until November, thank you.

1978 at Petco (click on me)

I scored some free tickets to the Padres retro night from a co-worker for correctly identifying lyrics to Steely Dan's Deacon blues.  (Thanks again, Martha!)  I just raided my closet for some vintage goods.  We got Jason an old school baseball shirt from a resale store and I drew him a fu manchu mustache.  (We liked it so much he's growing a real one now.)

The view from our chill spot in the park.  We could see the field and two different screens; it was sweet.

Awesome Christina & Karen with us.

Our publicity shot.  (All sunglasses courtesy of the Christina collection.)

Dusty Horses

I used to walk through the canyon in Balboa Park on my way home from work.  There's a horse corral there that I had never seen in use until the other day.  There were about six very happy SDPD horses running around playing with each other and taking dust baths.  Adorable end to a work day.

Barry White is remembered by Grunions (click on me!)

My less than fabulous phone pictures of the pier at Ocean Beach don't really show the wonderment that is the grunion run in San Diego.  This is that magical time of the year where the grunions wash up on the shore, mate, and then head back into the sea.  Unless they're picked up by one of those jerks running around with a bucket and a flashlight.  Really, guys, let the poor lil' fishies get busy.  They're so little and I'm sure fish sticks are on sale at the grocery store; probably with less mercury, too.

Detroit Tigers vs. San Diego Padres

And Detroit won 5-3.  Hooray for my little Tigers!

View from our seats.  I got a weird sunburn on my legs that made it look like I was wearing red knee-high socks.  I'm still peeling from it.

Wild Animal Park goes Rrrrrrr! (click on me!)

Jason & I like to give each other gifts for Mother's and Father's Day from our cat.  We're cute like that.  This year Jason's gift was a trip to the Wild Animal Park, which is a pretty neat mock up of various African habitats for animals.  Here's some rhinos and some type of gazelle-like creature chilling in the shade.

If you care to spend extra pennies, you can take an exclusive ride in the restricted area and get really close to all the non-carnivore animals.  This giraffe has the perfect spot in the middle of the shade.  S/he's not going to move for the vehicle.  

These animals bite!  Do people really put their fingers through the fence to pet the big cats?

I say hello to the giraffe in traditional giraffe greeting.  (Yes, that is a statue.)

The lioness (and her companion to the left) were sleeping peacefully until Jason got close.  Then she wanted to say hi to Jason.

Sleepy face!  Just like my kitty.  (There is a very thick pane of glass between us.)

These aren't deer being bleed from trees; they're actually munching away.  Too cute!

(okay, I'm from Michigan - when a deer's hanging from a tree, that's usually why.)

Fantastic way to spend a day.  The slush puppies rescued us from the heat.  Also, they have a great conservation program to recycle cell phones.  Most cell phones contain an ore called Coltan which is mined in an area of Africa that destroys Gorilla habitat.  Recycling cell phones means less mining and less habitat destroyed.  Gorillas go yay!