What I Did On My Summer Vacation, Part Deux

So when Pretty Girl and I got back from Indianapolis we did laundry. Boring? Noooo, we did laundry cuz we were going to SAN DIEGO!!!!!! Woo Hoo! Let the real vacation begin!

Pretty Girl didn't mind the drive very much - cuz she slept through most of it! My favorite part was the boarder stops and being asked if we were citizens. I wanted to say "What business is it of yours!" but we decided Boarder Patrol Agents probably didn't have the same sense of humor we do.

Anyway, we stayed at Ocean Beach in a hotel across the street from the beach. The hotel room was small but adequate, we had a fridge for my wine so I was happy.



















The first morning we walked out on the Ocean Beach Pier. It pretty much smells like urine. I think the homeless use it for their bathroom at night.



















Then we layed out at the beach even though it was overcast. Hey, it wasn't 112 degrees, which is what was happening at home! We chuckled at the surfers. Get a load of the size of the waves.



















We then went and picked up Stephen and went to eat at a Mexican Restaurant in Pacific Beach.



















This was my favorite sign in Ocean Beach.



















This sea gull was really pissing me off cuz he kept staring at me. I think he thought he recognized me from somewhere.



















Sometimes I think I'm a good photographer.



















We went to Belmont Park to ride the roller coaster cuz we do every time we go and we ate a corn dog cuz if we bought one we got one free. You don't have to ask me twice!



















We then walked down the beach walk to find the place we stayed 5 years ago. We found it.



















Meanwhile, back at Ocean Beach, this kid was so cool. We couldn't wait to see him surf. He had all the gear and the attitude.



















Till he went into the ocean ...



















Here is Pretty Girl sipping a margarita.



















Then some random guy off the street came up to her and handed her a note, his phone number, and asked her to call. I'm not sure what the outcome of that was. (Just kiddin' Doug)



















But, alas, all good things must come to an end. We had an uneventful trip home even though I wanted to mess with the Boarder Patrol.

What I Did on My Summer Vacation

I know, I know. I'm a piece of crap. I haven't posted in an eon. Lazy I guess. Anyway, here it is...

I flew to Indianapolis to watch Pretty Girl perform in the DCI World Finals at Lucas Oil Stadium. I went with some very good friends and had a blast with my Roomie watching the most interesting late night television on TLC (I can't believe the reality stuff on there!). We stayed on Arizona time even though we were in a time zone that was 3 hours later.



















Here is the stadium. It was pretty impressive but they could use some lessons on crowd control.



















We stayed across the street from the stadium and the downtown area started a block north of us. There was a mall and many, many other shops and restaurants (and drinks!).



















It was fun sitting on the patio of Alcatraz Brewing Company cuz we saw a lot of members hanging out downtown. Two of these people have lived at my house at one time or another.



















The downtown area had several horse and buggies to move people around. Kinda like Central Park.



















Teal Sound was warming up in Monument Park (I think that was the name of it).



















This was some sort of daycare outing. If you look real close you can see that all the little munkins were tied together.



















Indianapolis is also the capital.
























The city also has this cool fountain/museum.
























It's also where the Mounted Police water their horses. These horses were huge!



















The city is also home to White River State Park. It's a very cool park where the zoo is, a museum that has art on the outside as well as the inside and waterways where you can rent paddle boats. It also had this park bench with this odd green bug that I made my Roomie sit on. You can tell she didn't really want to.



















There were a lot of related festivities going on in the park including Purdue University's Drum.



















At World Finals members are allowed to perform individual and ensemble performances for medals. Pretty Girl and Kate performed in the category of Dance Ensemble. They won the gold medal for a perfect score, which, apparently, has never been done before. I couldn't be there so I had to take the pic from her Facebook page, hence the size.









After the Medal Ceremony is the Age Out Ceremony. That's when all the members of all the corps go down on the field to wish everyone well as this was their last year to be in drum corps. There is also a tradition that they "leave something on the field", a symbol of no regrets. Pretty Girl left her false eyelashes. Anyone who knows Pretty Girl knows this was the perfect thing to leave behind.



















So the corps did better than last year, which is good.



















Whew! That was a long post and that was only half of my summer vacation. The second half I'll save for another time.