California Dreaming, Day 7

Today, we had a big break between interviews and so we took an extra long lunch break and drove to Old Town, San Diego. I enjoyed using the filters in my camera app. Some sightseeing shots:

Since today was also my last day of recording in California, we decided to live up the rest of the day and after everything was packed and put away, we took the short drive to Sunset Cliffs, CA to enjoy a nice sunset. Some shots:

I love this shot of Alex in silhouette. Totally jealous that we couldn't replicate it with me. 

This is a horribly drawn K & Y within a heart. Cuz I'm sappy like that. 

All the fresh air left us starving and so we met up with Alex's friend Billy and headed to Phil's BBQ. We had to wait about thirty minutes in a line that snaked around the building, but it was completely worth it. Waiters would come out every once in a while and provide people with an onion ring to make the wait bearable. At Phil's, you order at the counter, pick up your food and stuff, then hope to try to find a place. I realize that most "tasty" BBQ places do this. Because I felt adventurous I went with the pulled pork, and a ginormous order of fries to share with Alex.

To boot they had malted vinegar, which was amazing. It took forever to eat this, and both Alex and I gave it a valiant try. I did eat more than he did, and I had a great time rubbing it in cuz ha ha! Reminded me of my High School years at Church, where on Saturday nights our idea of fun was daring each other to see who could eat more, or the spiciest thing, and stuff like that. I always won at the eat more contests, because Mama didn't raise no fool.

Now to get ready for New York! This trip was exhausting, everything from my thumb being hurt to the time difference from NY, which made phone calls to Mi Cariño short and unfulfilling. I'm glad that this is my last recording trip of the year!

Miami, Part 2

Spent another week in Miami with Mi Cariño and her family. It was a great visit indeed, and the time just FLEW. Which is nice, and then it isn't.

We flew in Tuesday night, in theory. By the time we were heading to the airport, thunder was crackling like crazy, which delayed us right off the bat - originally we were scheduled to depart at 9pm but that didn't happen until after midnight. Thankfully Mi Cariño's parents still picked us up and we arrived at the house somewhere close to 4am. But since we had nowhere to go the next day it was all good, and we just spent Wednesday lazying about and catching up on sleep.

Highlights from the trip: a visit to Coral Castle Museum.

This guy (25) is jilted by his 16 year old fiancee. After deciding he will never love anyone else, that no one else can love him, and being told by the "Sweet Sixteen" that she was saying no to him because he didn't have any money, he made it his life mission to build himself a castle. And he did so, by using Coral. It's essentially a sculpture garden, the guy's name is Edward (you look up his last name!) The amazing thing is that he built it all himself, and he did it at night so no one could see him. He "knew the secret of pyramids" apparently, and went about making reading chairs, thrones, bedrooms, a well, a confession room, a place to stargaze, and a place for children to play. It's actually kind of impressive. 

I mean, y'all, he made a heart table. Without modern tools. We're talking before 1951. Amazing. 

Another Highlight - Zoo Miami. Mi Cariño, two of my nieces, and my buddy O and his youngest son Caleb and I, had us a good time looking at animals and melting in the sun. We should've gotten a bike to ride through and minimize the walking and the child whining, but it was all good. Witness, cute picture of kid turned Jaguar!

We also visited the mall and had us some fun at Dave & Buster's and went crazy at the bookstore buying the kiddies books (and ourselves) and had us a 50% dinner at some chain looking restaurant thanks to the girls and their connections. Here, a pretty decent spaghetti bolognese. 

Which makes me say: let's talk about food! First there was Yucca with grilled chicken and maduros.

We ate that at Las Islas, where we ate at the last trip. The food was once again, uninspired. But the Abuela likes it, and so, we go. 

Then, we had pasta bolognese at some fancy outdoor restaurant by their "Lincoln Center." The area has a name. I do not remember it. It was very nice, like a loooong strip of stores and restaurants. Does it count as an outdoor mall? We ate there after watching "Sarah's Key," a movie that's just chock full of happy, happy, joy, joy. (Smell the sarcasm.) It was a nice movie, though. So was the pasta. 

A couple of days later we ate at some new trendy restaurant in the heart of Miami. Kill me because I don't have the desire to check for the name. I suck. We began with some cheese balls as appetizers

An I had me an extremely expensive Chicken Mofongo. It was worth it though, the stuff was delish. But don't tell Mi Cariño I said that.

On our last night there, we ate at The Cheesecake Factory, a first time for me. The food was good, I had meatloaf with mashed potatoes. I'm pretty sure I took a picture of that, but can't find it, so just imagine it. Mi Cariño sent me a picture of our dessert though:

The Cheesecake did not disappoint. Neither did this amazing week. I will leave you with an image from Matheson Hammock, a manmade area we visited (but did not swim in) that afforded us a great view of the Miami skyline. But don't worry, I did swim in Miami Beach. I even got a tiny tan! So, yay.

Life is Good

Work starts late in the afternoon so we began our day with a morning in Coronado, CA. First, there's this really long bridge. Then, I sight my very first TP'ed House.

We kept driving to Coronado, til we hit one of the beaches. The sand was very interesting looking, I can't recollect seeing anything like this before.

We walked down the beach, taking our time, enjoying the water. Unfortunately, no swimming was had.

The rest of the Island is beautiful, too... the houses are gorgeous! Everything was so well manicured and beautiful and what not. Carolina fell in love with the place and we had to stop every other step in a while for her to take a picture.

I took some pictures, too.

and

to share a few. To end this post, here's a picture of one of the many houses I really liked. There were many houses, most of them two floor type of things, with roof decks if they were close enough to the beach. But this one... this door just made me happy, and I could see myself walking through here and being comfortable.