San Diego: July 4th-6th. "Getting Ants-y with Sandy"

Our plan was to watch the "biggest fireworks display" in the country for our day of independence in San Diego. Although I did read the year before had been an epic failure involving all the fireworks exploding at once, the entire event ending in about 30 seconds. I think that would have been somewhat more special to be a part of, but ah well.

We arrived and although details always fade, I remember being in terrible spirits. It took a while to shake off road weary tempers and give the city a shot. We decided we'd need food (often our lack of proper eating timetables while driving would lead to unhappy feelings... people should eat, see) before heading to the display. We wandered around the gas lamp district and eventually got in line at Subway (often our traveling companion.) This line didn't move, however. Some sort of issue the staff seemed none too excited to deal with in a speedy manner. We literally waited in line close to a half hour, watching couple after couple leave in a huff, but we never gave up. Eventually, our patience won us a sub. Except we had to pay for it.

We brought our handy comfy folding chairs and followed the crowds to the bay. The fireworks were... firework-y. As one might expect.

Although this man wandered in front of our chairs, stopped directly in front of us as the show began and became our only view obstruction, we gave him the complimentary title of Mr. America and had lots of fun with him without his knowledge.

KG sneakily mocking Mr. America

The show ended and we sat in our orange ikea chairs watching the San Diego world go by in droves. It became fascinating mayhem as an old man with a cane knocked over the flimsy orange obstruction fence from the sidewalk to the road and the masses followed his lead and cut through the parking lot. When security caught wind of the chaos, they were outraged and took to yelling at guilty mothers walking their little ones through the road. The block was re-instated and the naughty fun the mischievous old man kicked off was over.

We thought we'd find somewhere free to camp but soon learned California is on to this beautiful trickery from travelers and have made it essentially impossible, even at Walmart. We did find ONE (out of many) around 30 miles outside of San Diego that seemed kosher.
Before setting off for the evening we wandered the area - The Gas Lamp District.

Lots of drunk southern Californians on the prowl. Quite a show. Soon enough you need to shield your eyes before you vomit in the street alongside them for reasons having nothing to do with alcohol.

Upon waking in our parking lot "hotel", I noticed dozens of tiny ants crawling around... then noticed more.. and more... and we opened the back of the van to discover they were colonizing our storage trunk (I think there was honey in there... did we even ever use this honey, you ask? Doubtful). Turns out we had parked directly on a thriving little ant colony and they were into this whole "living in a van" idea. We made it look so fun. It was! They were right. But that didn't matter. They were now The Enemy. We became the crazy van people in the Walmart parking lot dumping our storage trunk and belongings onto the ground, shaking and beating various items and flinging ant bodies in various directions. We threw lots of things away and although we made a fair amount of progress, it was time for brunch and the rest of the colony would simply have to wait to be destroyed until we had some potatoes, coffee and eggs. It couldn't be helped. Or maybe we'd wait until the following day to worry about the infestation. San Diego had yet to be seen and we had to get a move on.

We researched a delicious brunch spot (as you may have learned we are wont to do) and I remember it being quite tasty. The name escapes me, but this is what it looked like:

From there we went to Balboa Park - (shhh- forget about the ants for now). It was right by the restaurant and a beautiful day. This was the best part of San Diego by far. There were beautiful gardens, a Shakespeare Globe Theater recreation, fountains, museums galore and all the architecture was quite lovely. It's where they shot Citizen Kane!

The Globe

We went to a free art museum and wandered the surrounding. Thought about getting tickets to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead at The Globe, but tickets were a bit too pricey.

We spent almost the entire day wandering Balboa (they have a giant organ we were hoping someone would play, but unfortunately there were no shows scheduled for our entire San Diego stay. Quite a bummer.)

We even hopped on the free trolley tour, which felt a bit pointless due to the fact our driver guide was a miserably unhappy woman.

We decided to check out Old Town after we were through with Balboa. It was pretty tacky but good for cheap happy hour beer. There was another show playing there that was incredibly popular and intriguing so we got ourselves on the waiting list, but to no avail. Instead we wandered the touristy paths and Kevin touched a cactus...[Sidenote: he wants me to make it perfectly clear, it was the fuzzy flowery part of a cactus, and he says it was more "petting" than "touching"... it didn't look prickly, see, it looked soft? I guess? He was infected with many tiny invisible quills] it was an ordeal for him for a good long while, to no one's surprise. We went into the tea shop the cactus lived outside of and KG saught help from the young gal's behind the counter:
"I'm from Chicago and I just touched a cactus." The gals felt bad for him whilst simultaneously marveling at how often that seems to happen to tourists. Hmm. Wash your hands and wait it out.

Although you can't tell, KG was convinced this was the Indian Hippie version of my father.

 We waited in line for the popular Mexican restaurant but the wait was about an hour. No thanks. Not for a burrito. So we researched on the robot phone and found a cheap and highly rated sushi restaurant. A GREAT decision. It was cheap and delicious. Strangely, it was Bob Marley themed. All the music and wall decor... did he love sushi? Or does sushi just love him?

When we left the restaurant, we saw an adorable orange tabby in the street. The road in front of the Sushi Diner was at a sharp curve that all the cars were taking at break neck speed. Or certainly neck breaking speed for a kittycat. K went to chase it out of the street, trying to be scary, waving his arms and attempting to "shoo" it. (I think he may have literally said "shoo".) The kitty simply walked alongside him the the sidewalk and lay on her belly, purring and asking for love. She was the best kind of cat. We pet her and she looked at us like she'd found home. Our hearts broke (maybe a little) and we discussed our options. Leave her on the busy road and continue on our way, forgetting her loving mews? Take her to an emergency vet? No Kill Shelter in the morning? What if she has a home, just no collar? We decided KG would drive the van through the neighborhood to find an inconspicuous less traffic-ed spot to sleep for the night while I followed via the sidewalk hoping kitty (let's call her Sandy Ago... very original, I know) would follow me. She did! She was the sweetest of kitties. K isn't even a kitty person. Allergic and uncomfortable, almost always. But she won him right over. I walked her to the van and invited her in, but she seemed nervous in there. So we decided to leave the window open and get in, letting her decide her own fate and involvement in our lives.

 

We lay down and soon enough heard her mew. I peered out the window and couldn't see her... looking, left, right, forward and back. Eventually I noticed a large kitty shaped shadow on the truck parked in front of us... I looked up, and there she was, on the roof of the Scuttlebuss. She was a charmer and I gave her a good head scratch before settling back in.


Soon enough she took advantage of the open window and lay in the bed with us. She purred and cuddled and was a pure joy. She came in and out throughout the night and gifted us kitty kisses and good friendship vibes. She quickly became our favorite San Diegan. We discussed bringing her with us to LA and asking my friend there if she could live with her kitty until we decided if and how we could maybe keep her. It was all quite fanciful thinking that night. As you may guess, she had vanished in the morning. She had recently been laying on our chests and purring out her love, but when we were ready to leave our illegal sleeping spot she was no where to be found. We decided we would wander the neighborhood seeking her until we felt she was not to be seen again. Our story with Sandy Ago ended that morning.

We drove to a cafe breakfast spot with delicious food and coffee drinks, still putting off our Ant Battle until we felt properly nourished and satisfied.

Then to power washing and vacuuming the ants to death. It was a long battle, but we came out on top. The amusing aspect of the self-wash experience, looking back, was KG bought too many tokens and we tried to sell them to other washers... all of whom assumed we were swindlers and looked at us as Criminal Van Folk. So, we have $5 in wasted San Diego self wash tokens somewhere. If you wanna buy em off us.

Then to Ocean Beach area. Where the real San Diegans play. First we went to Starbucks for the Van Folk's bathroom and internet, then to gaze at the water & human interaction... San Diego Beach Folk stereotypes are real, dood. Surfer's paradise, but a bit of a culture shock for pasty Midwesterners.

There was a crazy lady who talked to us for a while (an addict of some sort with a cute dog. Hopefully she doesn't eat him later. She crazy.) Then we popped into a couple of happy hour deals, after which I indulged KG's request to share the advertised Frito sub at subway... which I STRONGLY regretted.

We closed out our San Diego experience wandering the streets and stopping in to a ska band show to witness a bit of the local night life. We awoke to one of the few San Diego rainy days in our comfortable illegal street sleeping spot and continued on - to La Jolla. Where the rich folks play:

 

Yummy Yuppie Cafe. That's not what it's called.

 

 

Yes. These are backyard ocean-side horse statues.

 These people are not like us, Naaimeen?
While we were at the Yummy Yuppie Cafe we got a confirmation call about a gig at a cafe in Encinitas later that afternoon. So off we went. To Encinitas. To play a gig. That will be a much shorter blog.

Onward.