zoo

We have passes to the San Diego zoo this year and have gone several times. My favourite animals are the hippos, but we also really enjoy the enclosure with monkeys and river otters, although the otters are pretty good at hiding. It's a big zoo, of course, and nearly impossible to see all in one trip. In fact, we just explored the reptile corner for the first time on our most recent trip. Our passes also allow us to ride the Skyfari, the ropeway above the zoo. It was an interesting and different way to see the zoo.

-Jason

Camping and the Reagan Museum

Our anniversary celebration this year was a little camping getaway to Simi Valley, near Ventura northwest of Los Angeles. We didn't decide what we wanted to do until relatively late, so a lot of camping options were booked up by the time I was looking. I did find this one in Simi Valley that had room, though, so I grabbed it.
When we arrived, I thought maybe I saw why it was available so late. It wasn't a very luxurious campground, just a basic municipal one. Though it was big, there wasn't much to explore, as it was mostly just open dirt fields. To top it off, our campsite was maybe a stone's throw from the railway tracks. When a freight train rumbled by a few minutes after we got there, I was afraid we were going to be rattled awake all night.
Fortunately it turned out that the trains didn't run through the night, and although there wasn't much to our campground it turned out nicely. Since there weren't many people there it was pretty quiet and we could just sit and relax.

We did venture out one day to the nearby Reagan Presidential Museum, since there wasn't a lot of activity at the campground. It was an interesting museum, with a lot of information. It was a little heavy on the Reagan propaganda; unsurprising, I know, but by the end it was getting a little much. I still liked the history. The best part is definitely the retired Air Force One that's housed there. I was actually surprised at how small and cramped it felt; I guess I assumed it would be amazingly luxurious, without having taken into consideration that it would still be the size of an airplane. Granted, this was the Air Force One from the Nixon-Reagan years, so they've presumably upgraded. I also enjoyed the replica of Reagan's Oval Office. During construction he apparently made the contractors dig a hole so the office could be set deeper, allowing it to be the exact height of the original in Washington. Consequently you now have to head down a few stairs in order to see it.
There was also a Reagan portrait made entirely out of his favorite snack -- jelly beans.
-Jason

Swoon dessert bar

On our anniversary we decided to go out to a dessert bar that had opened near us a couple of months earlier. (It's a quirk of our neighbourhood that there are a couple of dessert places within blocks of each other). A dessert place seems like a natural for me, but it turned out to be not quite our scene. It was a fancy, foodie-type place with rotating creations. We had a chocolate cake filled with cream and infused with thyme - or something like that, I forget the details - and sprinkled with sea salt. It was pretty good, but pretty small. I probably would have been happier with a larger slice of regular chocolate cake. I guess this means I'm not a foodie.

Circus train

Last week I was taking the trolley to work as usual. There's a train yard just south of Petco Park, usually filled with idle Coaster trains and a few freight trains. But on this trip I went by a Ringling Brothers Barnum & Bailey train. I read Water for Elephants last year, but it hadn't occurred to me that circus trains were still in use. Seeing the train was probably more interesting to me than the actual circus, though.
-Jason

Chula Vista Community Run

Back in May Chelsey and I participated in the Chula Vista Community Fun Run at the Olympic Training Center. This was a good follow-up to my Carlsbad 5000 race, mostly because my library sponsored our entries. I also got my friend Chris in for free. He almost decided not to run because he was sick, but the free bib got him in. Good thing, too, as it turned out.

There were a lot of kids at this race, and as usual the kids went out fast. It probably didn't help that we started downhill. Around the mile mark Chris had moved into the lead, and I was coming up into second. I was pretty excited for this; probably too excited. Between that and the downhill start, I was flying! I thought I was going to crush my Carlsbad time. Unfortunately, I hadn't really thought about the hill waiting for me on the way back up to the finish. I blazed through 3km, but the last two were quite a turnaround, so my overall time was slower than Carlsbad. I also lost ground, dropping from second to fourth. Chris, however, held on for the comfortable win, so I guess it was a good decision to run.

Meanwhile, Chelsey was staying stronger on the hill than I did, as she passed people all the way to the finish. Despite not focusing as much on running, what with all her other sports, she was the seventh woman, which is pretty good, I thought.

The race was pretty low-key; the bib numbers weren't even assigned to specific people, which makes official results impossible. It's a nice event, though, and I liked running at the OTC. Next year I'll just try to remember the hill.
-Jason

Barrio Logan

For my birthday Chelsey offered to take me to any five stations on the San Diego Trolley system that I want. This is a great present for me. I chose Barrio Logan as my first stop. Barrio Logan is a neighbourhood just south of downtown San Diego. The trolley stop is almost directly under the Coronado bridge. Barrio Logan used to be known as Logan Heights; its named changed as Mexican immigrants moved into the area. In the 1960s, however, the neighbourhood was split by the construction of I-5 and then the bridge. Both of those projects created huge concrete flyways that cut through the heart of the Barrio. In partial compensation for this, the land underneath the bridge was left as Chicano Park. A few years later, however, the city planned to develop the land. The residents of the neighbourhood protested, staging sit-ins in the park and painting murals on the concrete support pillars. The city eventually relented and the park remains.

That's where we headed on our trolley trip. We had a nice little time walking around the park, which is not that big. We also stopped by a new grocery store to grab some lunch. The store is a distinctly Mexican grocery store; it was not entirely foreign, but walking through it was like a little reminder of wandering through the grocery stores in foreign countries and trying to figure out what some things were.
-Jason

sports

Almost as soon as we moved to San Diego, we found an adult water polo group. They're a great group of people and we rarely miss a Friday night pick-up game.
When I started my new job, one of my favorite things about the office was the Thursday afternoon inter-office volleyball. I'm now the volleyball commissioner. I've also joined the office soccer team (organized through the office but in a city league), and started an office tennis league (inter-office). This week I was convinced to join the office softball team (city league). So, my new schedule is:
Monday: Softball
Tuesday: Tennis
Thursday: Volleyball
Friday: Water polo
Sunday: Soccer

Whew!