A Visit to Home, Sweet San Diego

At home with Jackson Blue and Mr. Stripey Pants

Torrey Pines beach

The cliffs at Torrey Pines

Sand Pipers at Pacific Beach

Snoozing Sea Gulls at Pacific Beach

A Sushi Deli feast. We also had garlic edamame, but it was gone by the time our rolls arrived. This is my absolute favorite sushi place. I love how elaborate all of the rolls are. There are so many flavors in each; I'm getting hungry just looking at these beauties.

Greg had never been to a desert before, so he, my mom, and I went to see it. Anza Borrego is the second largest state park and it's in San Diego County. We started on the western edge of the county, at the beach. You can see that it was 71 degrees at 7:50am.
Greg enjoyed the seaweed.

Crystal Pier, Pacific Beach

We saw the obligatory squished snake in the road.

It was much hotter on this side of the county.

The Bug was a trooper

The Salton Sea is in Imperial County, just east of the San Diego County border. My dad and me on Cowles Mountain. I love this mountain so much I also hiked it with my friend Megan while I was home.

Sunset Cliffs area

The boys, toe to toe
At the Zoo

Check out the Latin name for this fella!

Here he is "in action"

I imagine the mama meerkat is telling the young meerkat a story.

What a wonderful trip home. I'll look forward to seeing everyone again over Christmas.
~Much love, Genoa

Sail Boston

My friend Maria and I went to the harbor to see the ships at Sail Boston. Many navies use old style ships to teach their young sailors how to sail, because the older ships are harder to operate and require a greater skill set. Kind of like when you learn to drive on a manual transmission - you will always be able to get into anyone's car and drive it. The ships sail around the world every few years, and they were recently in Boston.

We boarded the Kruzenshtern, from Russia.
Is this what 18 looks like these days? This sailor's a baby!

Busy Boston Harbor

More Stinkin' Rain/San Diego Here I Come!

I normally roll my eyes at San Diego's consistent 72 and sunny. But since Boston has been consistently cloudy for weeks, I'm really excited to be able to escape for a visit to America's Finest City. Check out this forecast, San Diego on the left and Boston on the right:
Pitiful, you can't even see the top of the Prudential Tower.
Greg and I were heading out for a run on the Fourth of July. I was putting my shoes on when the sky opened up. Thankfully, it was just a sun shower, and passed quickly. Blue sky and rain; weird.

Check out Hampton Beach, New Hampshire:

A row of houses, most of them clapboard style, then a street, parking, a sidewalk, a wide seawall that some people sit on or lay out on (you could go to the beach without setting foot on the sand), then the beach.

The highways here are lined with tall, thick, green trees. "Dogs and cats, living together - mass hysteria!" What are these turkeys doing with these geese?

Billy isn't the only cat in town who likes watching pigeons.

Some apartment houses

It Wasn't Just Me!

June was one of the gloomiest in Boston's recorded history, based on wetness and coldness. I like the rain and the cold, but I need a day or two of sunshine in there somewhere. Thankfully, it's been sunny and warm for several days. It was up to 80 today, and I didn't mind the heat, much.

An Exciting Night

The farm team for the Red Sox is the Pawtucket Red Sox, in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, about an hour from Boston. A bunch of us from work went to a game last night. I borrowed Greg's car (he was out of town), and hit the road. Check out this street sign: Right Lane for U-Turn. Does that make sense?
I knew it would be short-lived, but I went through a pretty heavy thunderstorm.
I made it to the game, and the ground in Pawtucket wasn't even wet. It was a great game. Clay Buchholz was pitching (he's apparently a great pitcher for the Red Sox), I had a hot dog and some popcorn. Bottom of the ninth, tied game, bases loaded, we get a hit and win the game. It was really fun. Driving out of the parking lot, there wasn't even much traffic getting onto the highway. I wasn't very far along when I got a flat tire. Alone on a busy highway at night is not the ideal place to get a flat tire. I called for a tow truck, who removed me from the highway so I could safely change the tire.

Ha ha, he actually did the changing, thankfully. Then I got horribly lost getting back into the city. It started when I couldn't take a left where I thought I could, and instead I got spit onto the highway. I kept taking wrong turn after wrong turn. In my defense, everyone says how difficult Boston is to navigate. I finally ended up calling my brother at midnight (9pm in CA) to Google-map me home. Thanks, Bubba Luke; you were a wonderful life line. The one-hour drive from Pawtucket took me three and a half hours. Gawd, was I glad to get home, scoop up Billy and squeeze him close.

Sweet Relief

I've never been happier to see blue skies. It seemed like it was gray for weeks. In San Diego, I always joked that if the June Gloom got you down, you could drive east for 20 minutes and be out from under it. The cloud cover we've had here was more pervasive, and I'm so glad it's over. The ten day forecast has a chance of thunderstorms and partly cloudy every day, but I can handle that. I love thunderstorms (I'd gotten fed up with the impotent drizzle, though). And partly cloudy is just fine with me, as long as I get a little blue skies from time to time, to keep my own blues at bay. Below, Billy seemed confused by the sun shining into the apartment this morning. Perhaps he'd forgotten what sunlight is, poor fella.

Drizzly and Blue

Everyone thought the "long, harsh" winter would get me down, but I loved winter in Boston. I've loved the weather the whole year I've been here. But it's been drizzly and cloudy for weeks, and the June Gloom, which I thought was a San Diego phenomenon, is what's finally done me in. After work for the last couple of days, I've been so down, and I know it's the oppressive gray skies. Fortunately, I've started running again, and that seems to do a lot to wipe the blues away. There's a great park near my apartment, and each loop is 1.7 miles, or I can head for the Charles River, which has been three or four miles so far, but can be as long as I want. Billy, with his affection and amusing playfulness, also helps immeasurably.