San Diego Vacation May 2012

Jim's military reunion group (veterans who served in Berlin, Germany) had their annual reunion in San Diego this year. So we went along, alternately participating with the group and doing our own thing.

We happened to be there when the jacarandas were blooming - really pretty purple flowering trees everywhere we went! This is a shot outside the Mission San Diego.

On our first day, we met my niece and her family and they took us to see the USS Midway, now a museum at the port. It also happened to be Memorial Day, so there were special events and decorations on board. Then they took us to a local vegan restaurant, and we had a great lunch!

 My dad was a Naval Reservist for 25 years, and every summer he went somewhere to serve for two weeks. One summer he was a dental officer on the Midway, so I was excited to find the Medical/Dental area. It was cool to think of him being right there where I was standing! Here's a picture of equipment like that I'm pretty sure he used.

 The next day, we took a San Diego bus tour with the group, one stop being Balboa Park. Many of the buildings were erected for two World's Fairs, and now are museums and other cultural centers. Beautiful grounds.

Another stop was Coronado, where we were able to walk around the grounds of the famous old hotel and go into the lobby as well.

 We also went through LaJolla, where we were taken to the beach where many seals live - here's a few.

 We went to Mount Soledad, which is a memorial to all US veterans who have served in wars. There are small walls around it with plaques put up by families of the veterans. We found President Eisenhower, actor Cliff Robertson, Benny Goodman, and many other familiar names. I found it touching that some were plaques of husbands and wives who had both served in World War II.




 

We often rode the San Diego trolley system. There was a station just behind our hotel, along with the city buses. We used both to get around, and got to pay half price ($1.25) as seniors!

One day we rode the trolley to Old Town, which we realized when we got there that we had already seen a lot of when we were here several years ago. Oh well. We visited the Sheriff's Museum, which of course Jim liked. (Lots of gun exhibits) We had a nice lunch too.

On Thursday we joined the group again and were taken to the San Diego Zoo, which we had also seen, but it's so large that it didn't matter!  We were expecially interested in the elephants, because our Tucson zoo (where Jim is a docent) sent our two elephants there when they opened a brand new elephant exhibit here. One of the keepers told us how they were doing, and all is well for Connie and Shaba. This picture is a bull Indian elephant - absolutely huge - who is dumping a bin over to get to some grass. His tusks are amazing, even after being cropped, it appears. Had lunch again, and managed to get lost a couple times.


On Saturday, we went to see the Arizona Diamondbacks play the San Diego Padres. Nice coincidence that they were there when we were! We had pretty good seats in the first row of the upper deck - and they won the game! 4-2. We were pretty cold, though, since the stadium is right at the ocean and temp was in the 60's.

On our last full day, we took the trolley to the Mission San Diego. It was originally settled near the downtown area, but moved here in 1775. It's been lovingly restored, and they're still excavating some areas of it.

We had a nice time, although the weather was cool. I'm not sure the temp made it to 70. At least we had a few days when the sun came out around midday. In Tucson while we were gone, they had a couple days around 107! Good timing.

Relaxing Week Off

What a pleasant week!

I managed to do almost nothing! Except knit, watch recorded TV shows, work out a few times, overeat a bit... a good time.

Yes, I did SOME cleaning, and got the leak in the garage roof fixed. It leaked inside after last Friday night's rainstorm, near the spout that comes off the roof (they call it a canally). They were old and inexpertly sealed and leaked inside the roof into the inside. Not the first thing in this house we've had to fix because someone in the past took the easy/cheap way to fix something. Grrr.

Anyway, the kitties have enjoyed being out on the porch a lot, and I've tried not to feel lazy, but being lazy is what vacations should be sometimes.

Today I bought a bread machine. I've been thinking about it for awhile, because of my gluten problems and the fact that commercial gluten-free bread is very "white" and fiberless, etc. Not healthy. I'm hoping to make some more fiberful and healthy bread myself. I've found some recipes and will start experimenting tomorrow! Stay tuned.

Vacation!

Friday morning I drove Jim to the airport and he left for his 2-week trip to Germany, Belgium and Paris with his sister.


This week I will be on a do-nothing (serious) vacation!


I've never done this before - taking time off from work and not planning anything. Of course, by now I have a list, but I'm going to try not to live by it! I want to just spend the time and do what I WANT. Knit, read, etc. Will do my workouts, but that's all!


No long walks - see previous post!


I'll update you as I go....

Pix from Split Rock

This is a display of our group's Samplers ...
We decided that we would rather learn MORE STUFF, more techniques, than to produce a
lovely finished product. We did plan at least one Yarnbombing project (look it up!), but liked
the idea of learning more. They do look strange, but we had a blast - and a few do-overs!

Here we are at our studio worktable

Pix from Split Rock

Below are some of the things we played with, and expanded our brains about, at the Split Rock workshop.

Here's an example of knitting a non-traditional "linear element" - strips of sheeting!

Here's another -- medical tubing (I did this one!)

My Vacation!

On Sunday I leave for Minneapolis to take part in a knitting workshop - not just ANY knitting workshop. This one is "Quiet Revolution: Knitting and the Political Landscape". It's about sculptural knitting, knitting used as an art form.

I was looking for something interesting to do for a week's vacation - this came up - after much consideration, I decided to go for it! I leave early Sunday morning and return Saturday night.

I look forward to getting out of the pattern rut! Yikes!