sailing

Last summer our friends Aaron and Wendy took us out sailing from Oceanside. Aaron is a fairly avid sailor and borrowed a friend's boat to take us out. It was my first experience with ocean sailing, but it went pretty well. Aaron did the tricky part to get us out of the harbor, but once we got out on the ocean he gave me a turn piloting the boat. I think you can see from the pictures that I did an excellent job of it. It was a pretty calm day and we did have a good time sailing off Oceanside, although the lack of wind did make the sailing tricky a couple of times. We always recovered, though, and made it back into port safely.
-Jason

Mission Beach roller coaster

Many of you may be familiar with the Giant Dipper rollercoaster at Mission Beach. It's an old wooden coaster that is something of a San Diego landmark. Chelsey and I have been by it many times, as we often park there when we go to the beach. We had never ridden it, though, so we finally decided to give it a try. It was pretty fun, it's a good coaster - but the old wooden tracks sure leave feel shaken up by the time you're done. There are some nice views from the top, too, if you have the time and the stomach to look.

-Jason

Mission San Diego festival

Last summer we went and visited Mission San Diego de Alcala, the first mission established in California. It's not as famous as other missions, largely because it was mostly destroyed and is still in kind of a state of disrepair. It has been somewhat preserved however, and we were lucky enough to go during the Festival of the Bells, a weekend festival with food and dancing. It was a nice evening, until Chelsey tried to send me to jail. She couldn't make the math work, though (see the sign).
-Jason

Reeses pancakes

Last summer, while we were in Phoenix, we went to Over Easy (a good breakfast place) with some friends. They and Chelsey seemed to think it was funny that I ordered the Reese's Pieces pancakes, as if that were not suitable for someone on this side of 30 (or maybe 15). It didn't matter, they were still delicious.
-Jason

Summer Nights track and field

Over the summer I ran a series of three track races. After running longer races in the previous year it was fun to get back on the track again.

The first race in the series was a mile. There were a lot of competitors there and they broke us into three heats, which was good because I would have been left behind by the really fast runners there. The middle heat turned out to be perfect for me; I got pulled along to a time that was almost as fast as I had hoped to go by the end of the series.

The second race was an 800, a distance I'd only run once before since graduating high school. I was a little nervous about this race; I was never that fast at it to begin with and I have lost quite a bit of raw speed over the last decade or so. I almost chickened out of the race and ran the 3000m instead. Chelsey found it quite amusing (or confusing) that I would opt for the longer race, but that's more of my comfort zone. I stuck with the 800, though, and it turned out better than I hoped. In fact, the first lap was fast enough that I didn't even care too much how the second went - I was just happy to learn I was still capable of running that fast! Of course, I did slow down on the second lap, but I passed someone else and was closing in on another runner. A definite success.

The last race was a 1500m. I was hoping to improve on my (adjusted) mile time from the first race, but the race makeup was different this time: I was in the fast heat. Consequently I got pulled out a little too fast with the leaders (including a woman who had just run in the U.S. championships) and barely hung on to the main pack. It was a good thing I managed to hang on at all, as it was no-man's land behind me. My time ended up slightly slower than I had hoped for, but only because my first good race had raised my expectations.
-Jason

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