After the last post I walked around town at bar close time. I’ve never been sober at that point so I thought it would be interesting. Sure enough it was people staggering all over the place, planters knocked off stairs, and to top it off a drunken, black, homeless man decided to multi task by walking and peeing at the same time. Then I headed off to bed.
I picked Adam up from the airport at about 11:30 Saturday. We drove downtown and he grabbed something to eat. Our speed boat tour was at 1:00 so there wasn’t much time between. The boat tour was amazing. There were about 10 people in 5 boats plus the guide. Each boat had a walkie talkie to hear the guide explain things. When I saw the boats had a 30 hp engine I didn’t expect much, but the boat probably weighted about 800lbs. so they flew in the water, twice we got air going off the waves. The first part of the tour was just cruising around, dodging the larger boats in the harbor. That was my favorite part. The larger boats have the right away so it is you job to fly around them all to get out of the way. Then we went to the bait dock for all the fishing boats. This is where about 50 seals were hanging out making a ton of noise. Next we drove all the way down the bay, to the bridge that connects the military base to the main land. We pass a lot of really cool things but he explains them all on the way back. There was two aircraft carriers, one for the maritime museum and one active one being worked on. The guide went over each ship in the maritime museum including, the oldest sailing sail boat, the ship from Master and Commander, a really old rusted sub, and an old steam boat. That was the end out the tour. Adam and I went to explore at part of town called Old Town. This is a state park that is basically about 5 blocks by 5 blocks of the town from the 1800. It’s completely restored and looks how it would have back then. They had a lot of old horse drawn carriages on display, and went through the whole gold rush times. Most of the things sole there were old timey too, like the candy and some other things. It started to get dark so we left and check into our hotel. After looking up a few places to eat we decided on a Mexican place in the gas lamp area. Gas lamp is a downtown area where just about every place is a bar, restaurant, or club. Adam had a little head ache after the boat tour and it kept getting worse throughout the night. And after a few bites of his flaming burrito, it went to his stomach. He said goodbye to the burrito and we got some Tylenol. He felt and looked really out of it. Dr. Eric thought it was something with the flight. We went back to the hotel and he wanted to an hour nap and see how he felt. So I headed to the hot tub. There was actually a good group of fun people in the hot tub. 2 girls from New York, an overly talkative, attention seeking 11 year old, and a really nice LA prosecutor. The 1 of the 2 girls was here looking at schools for electrical engineering. The other was just tagging along for a vacation away from the cold. The 11 year old had a few problems, he was home schooled and just told us all too much information. He was still a nice kid there for a gymnastics meet. The LA prosecutor was here for his 15 year old son, who was playing baseball games at colleges for a pre scouting kind of thing. Adam woke up and felt completely fine, like nothing was ever wrong. Very strange but who can complain about that. I still had a bunch of cheap beer left over from New Year’s Eve so I just brought that down. 3 hours in the hot tub and a few beers later the girls said they were going to head down town and asked if we wanted to go. So us 4 and there guy friend from Argentina started heading downtown. Them being from New York and Adam being from Chicago all thought bars close at 5 am. We left the hotel at 12:40 and bar close was at 2:00, and we had to stop at the store too. I said the bars close at 2 but a guy at the store said some stay open until 3 or 4. Not knowing bar close, we drove all the way down there, parked, walked to 3 different bars, just to have them tell us they stop letting people in at 1:20. So we drove back to the same store had a few words with miss-informant, and bought a bottle of Bacardi and baileys. The hotel lobby was pretty much set up like a really nice lounge, so we just hung out there most of the night. Ended up polishing off the bottles and calling it a night. It was a lot of fun and cost 1\10th of what it would have going out to the bars.
Sunday we started the day with more hot tub time, at this point I spent about 10 hours in the last 4 days in a hot tub. We meet a lady in there who seemed normal at first, but turned out to be totally nuts. She was talking about black magic, and sensing dead people. For the packer game we found a really cool sports bar. It was mostly bear’s fans, but that just made it better when the noses tackle scores a touchdown. After the game Adam had to buy some dress shoes, he forgot his at home. We went back to the hotel and right to the hot tub. This time we met a real treat. A guy walks in the tub on his phone, already kinda seems like a tool. He kept asking us questions looking for us to ask him the same question back. He turns out to be an “adult model”, who I think wanted to go out drinking with us?. I don’t know how I end up with so many hot tub stories, usually not that interesting of a place. The rest of the night we just watched T.V., Adam had to do some work before seeing the client.
Monday morning we got up early and drove to Cabrillo National Monument, which is way out on the tip of Point Loma. The park didn’t open until 8 which I thought was weird, but we ended up walking over to a fence that over looked the bay. We got to see a submarine come into, and out of port. Not sure what it was doing, it literally came in and went out, nothing else, it never even stopped. Then we went into the park on the ocean side and checked out the coast line. After that we drove up to the light house. There were all the old lenses on display which I thought was cool to see. They also had the whole story of the light house. On the drive out we stopped and took pictures of these brass models of ships. They were like 8-12 feet long, and there were about 10 different ships. We packed everything up at the hotel and drove to Del Mar, where Adam had to work. Unpacked and went out to lunch at red robin with Adams boss Greg. They went off to work and I hit the hot tub. I just made a bunch of food and looked up some things. Adam got back around 5:30 and we went out for sushi. Everything we got was really good and very fresh. We stopped at a bar/brewery and had a few beers there. Adam got 2 of the best beers I’ve ever had. I wish they sold bottles of the beer, I would have stocked up. Very good beer. When we got back we had another beer in the hot tub and turned in early.
Tuesday morning we went to Torrey Pines state park and got a quick hike in before Adam had to work. All this work Adam had to do was really pushing my schedule, I didn’t like it. The park was really cool, there was a lot of erosion all down the sides of the cliffs, with other huge formations. Adam went to work and I did laundry, ran to the store, and made some more food. Well, and the hot tub of course. Adams bosses boss, Dave, came into town and we all went out to dinner. It was a really nice place, Dave meet up with an old foreign exchange student he used to have at his house, who happened to live in the area. The food was amazingly tasty; every bite was full of flavor. I got the sea bass, Adam got surf and turf. That night Adam had to do some things for work and I just watched some T.V.
This morning Adam and I tried to find an open golf range, to whack a few balls. But the place near us didn’t open until 9 so that fell through. Adam headed to work and got to golf in the afternoon. I packed up and headed out. I drove to Joshua Tree National Park and hung out there for the day. it’s very strange being in the dessert. I drove up to a lookout point and it was like 40 degrees with 50mph winds. It was hard to even walk. Then I hiked out to a spring that they dammed up to make a small pond for cattle back in the day. The park is very strange, the trees grow in all crazy directions, and the rock formations look like someone place giant boulder all over the place. The boulders are very granulated and easy to climb. So I went up a few different peaks and took some pictures. They also had some old paintings form Indians that lived there. After that I drove to needles, CA. it’s just a rundown town near the place I plan on going on a 2 day kayak trip tomorrow.
the one fishing i caught
