Wishful thinking

Why the placid snow scene, you ask? Especially in late August, which is shaping up to be the hottest on record for the Nashville area, with temps topping 100 by 10 o'clock?

Geert's feeling a little bitter about the weather because he raked leaves in the back yard for a good part of the morning in that heat. We finally got some good rain last night (maybe the third shower in six weeks) but it came much too late for one our trees, which began shedding two weeks ago and will be naked by Labor Day.

Upbeat thought: He won't have to rake them in November, when they're all soggy and stinky...

Pandas, apes and booze

See that snoozing black-and-white lump? That's kind of how we felt after traipsing up and down the hills of the San Diego Zoo. (Yeah, I know we said we weren't going to post any stuff from that day, but the public (well, Cindy) called for it, so here we go.)

There were some highlights, including the gorillas, where a young 'un was quite the entertainer as he wrestled wiith an adult and tried to goad Big Papa in the picture into a quick scrap in the dirt. No luck with that: Big Papa was not much fun.

Before that, the sea lions were a good laugh, but there really wasn't much else to wow us. The panda was snoring, the turtles were stationary and we were tiring quickly.

What to do? Why, let's order the biggest freakin' margarita we can find in SoCal! Holy hangover, opa...

"Hey stud, wanna foxtrot?"

Somehow, Cindy found the time and the outfit to do a little glamour session on the hotel grounds in San Diego. If you've got it, flaunt it, right?

California dream

Wow, what a week. Our trip to San Diego was a blast. We mixed fun excursions with a few days at the beach and some nice chill time. The Legoland and beach pics will come first, 'cause we still need to download all the Sea World shots.

Legoland was a great day. The park is well laid out and has a good mix of rides and Lego attractions. We saw a couple of 4D movies to get warmed up, then did a coaster or two before getting down to business with the big water ride. Opa teamed up with Sebastian and Natasja went with Geert, who got nice and soaked by people shooting water cannons mounted on the fences.

Miniland, the collection of building and city replicas, is very impressive. The San Fran, New York and D.C. sections are the highlights, although the detail throughout is sweet.

We spent two afternoons on the beaches of San Diego. The first was in La Jolla, where we walked onto a patch of sand right next to a collection of rocks jutting out into the ocean.

We hung out to watch the tide come in and the seagulls peck and pull at a giant hunk of sea meat before driving south through the coastal towns and down to Belmont Park before turning inland.

The beach pics here are from beautiful Coronado Beach, which is rightfully recommended as one of the family-friendly places to catch some rays. Coronado is a strip of land that sits across the bay from downtown San Diego. It features some very pretty beach homes - a quick price check shows a 1,400-square-foot, three-bedroom Victorian at $1.6M - as well as the famous Hotel Del Coronado.

We met up with Cindy's cousin Tisha and her family and had a blast playing in the sand, boogie boarding and chatting. To the north, we could watch the fighter jets from the Naval Air Station take off and climb into the clouds. Aside from a jellyfish-related clearing of the waters and Sebastian disappearing on us as we were getting ready to leave, it was a very nice afternoon.


What you very likely won't see much of in this or future posts is the one disappointment of the trip, the renowned San Diego Zoo. We were all very underwhelmed by both the layout and many of the animals. Oh well, one down day out of seven ain't bad...