San Diego, Day 2

Saturday morning we got an early start after our hotel breakfast - an actual hot breakfast this time!

Originally, the town of San Diego was settled at what is now a state historic park.  There were all sorts of buildings that were recreated to simulate life in the 1800s.  Nothing was open but it was still nice to see.

Then we walked up through some neighborhoods to get a viewpoint out to the ocean.  San Diego is very hilly.  It reminded me a lot of San Francisco.  The fanciest homes are always on these hills, too.

This little park, next to the USS Midway has this huge statue based on the famous Life Magazine photo of a sailor kissing a nurse once WW2 ended.  It was a very popular photo spot.

Then we drove to Coronado Island which is a real vacation spot with old, glamorous hotels.

We are standing in front of the Del Coronado - a very famous and supposedly haunted hotel of the rich and famous.  It was built in 1888 and the rich from the east coast would stay here during the winter.  We had a tour of the property then later went into one of the bars for a drink (an old fashioned was $21!).

This light fixture was designed by L. Frank Baum, who wrote the Wizard of Oz books.  He did a sketch and they created the lights.  There are many of these in the Crown Room.

The fake lawn outside the hotel.

We also traveled over to Cabrillo Monument which is at the end of a naval base.  There is a lighthouse there and this is where an explorer, Cabrillo, first landed in 1542 (or so).  These views are looking back into the downtown area of San Diego.

Sailing on the Pacific Ocean.

A restroom overlooking the ocean.

San Diego, Day 1

We headed out at 6am because it is a six hour drive to San Diego.  We had no traffic problems.  

Along the way, driving HWY 8, there are sand dunes to the right and the left of the car.  It's a bit hard to tell with this photo, but there were lots of ATV/dune buggy type vehicles driving around

We walked all over the downtown area known as Gaslamp where many of the buildings are over 100 years old.  In one of the fancy hotels there were lots of these rabbits, decorated by artists.  This one was covered in Ghirardelli chocolate wrappers.

We went to tour the USS Midway aircraft carrier.  This carrier changed the course of events during WW2, so I got to learn a lot about it as we explored all the decks.  Dave spent some time in the brig.

It was really windy on the water.  Here is Dave walking on the top of the aircraft carrier, even though it looks like a streets, it's really a landing strip for the planes on the ship.  This is a very popular attraction in San Diego and there were tons of people all over.

Finally, Javelina!

On Friday night we played Pickleball at the "ranch" - the sister property of Saddlebrooke.  When we finished a herd of 11 javelina were walking around, munching on acorns.  This was the only javelina that I was able to photo.

Trivia Success!

For the last three years we've been participating in the Trivia on Tuesday nights here at the "compound".  It's fun, but stale.  All questions are from 30 year old editions of Trivial Pursuit.  So I found a fun trivia in Oro Valley.

We met some friends at ZPizza where they have trivia on Wednesday nights.  The sponsoring trivia company is called Geeks who Drink.  It was so much fun.  We only came in 7th place (out of 10 teams) but, I won two bonus question rounds and here are my prizes.  The beer glass also was full of beer!

This trivia was so much livelier than at Saddlebrooke.  Plus there were very current questions and audio clips (which we suck at when it comes to music).  We'll go again in a few weeks.

The Countertop is in!

The installers came at 9am and were done by 2:30!  Much faster than I expected, considering they removed all the old tile countertops first.

The sink is part of the countertop.  It's called an Integral Sink.  Tomorrow the plumber will come back and install the faucet and turn all the water things back on.  This sink will be so easy to clean compared to the previous stainless steel sink that sat on top of the counter with calking.

I went pretty neutral, but also kept everything light and airy.  I may add some tin tile backsplash to the walls you see here.  I've got to live with it a few days before deciding.

So far I love it just because there is no grout!! Just a smooth, clean surface that will be easy to work on and easy to clean.

And they made a cutting board out of the sink cutout space and gave that to us (which I think all Corian manufacturers do).

Mini Time Machine Museum of Miniatures

Quite a mouthful, but it's a real place.  This is in central Tucson, about 45 minutes from our house and it was a very nice museum.  Of tiny things.  Mainly "dollhouses" and decked out with furniture, rugs, paintings, and food.  But plenty of other miniature displays too.

This was the front door to the museum.  Notice the tiny miniature front door right next to it.  The little door didn't open.  I tried.

My favorite display was this tiny pottery studio!

These carvings are on the tips of pencils.  There were three of these artists that do this kind of work and this was a temporary exhibit, but fascinating.  We had magnifying glasses to really see the carving in detail.

This hand holding a hammer was on the head of a contractor's flat pencil, so wider graphite for carving.

Another great owl sighting

We went to go find "our Great Horned Owls" last night.  After hearing some hooting we found them in a tree they don't usually visit.  The pair was in this tree and we were able to get pretty close.  I had to run back to my house to get my good camera.  By the time I came back, one had flown off.  This one was still pretty active when I got this shot.  Soon he flew away, too.