XXX: San Diego, Pt. 3

And the day arrived, inevitably as they must, barring accident or plague or the like. We quickly distracted myself from the stabbing pain that was the contemplation of the implications of my 30th birthday and headed down the beach for a looooooong double-u with the dogs. The sun was just rising and made for a slew of nice pics, like the following action shot of seagulls in the sunrise:

The surfers were out in full force, as were the fishermen. We headed up and down the beach and even illegally took S&W along the pier. They are not huge fans of this whole "ocean" concept, and I will post pictorial evidence of that hilarity in a bit. But for now, enjoy some of the shots of Ocean Beach on a sunny Sunday morning:


We made the long trek back to the hotel and left the pups in the room so we could head north along the coast for a birthday brunch. We drove up through Paradise Beach toward LaJolla to a restaurant overlooking the sea that Beck had learned about from her handy tourist guide. The drive was beautiful - the coast is lined with what we can only assume are lovely cost-efficient houses - I mean, seriously, with the risk of falling off the cliff and into the sea, they would have to mark the price down, right? There were also parks galore (more on that in a second) and the general lush green scenery that the Pacific Coast is famous for. Sweet. Beck and I were a little nervous about making it back in time for the Pats game because, without the beloved internets, we had no real way of figuring out what time the game was. And since we were in the PST zone ,there was a chance that things might be starting at 10. We figured we should probably just ask someone when it dawned on us that WE WERE IN SAN DIEGO! And the Pats were playing the Chargers! After our big DUH wore off, we overheard the hostess at the restaurant say that they shouldn't have many people coming at 1 o'clock because of the game, so we knew we were safe. Here's a snap of me enjoying a scrumptuous b-day omelette and a snap of the view from the restaurant:

We ate up our delicious seaside breakfast (after a small scallion-related SNAFU by the cooks) (I had ordered my usual special-occasion cheddar-bacon omelette which came stuffed with gross onions; it was quickly replaced, but the odd thing that was our waitress explained this by telling us "the cooks are all Mexicans, and they're always throwing crazy stuff in omelettes." Ah, hilarious Mexican hijinks! I should have known) and, with plenty of time before kickoff, took a stroll down the beachside. Those pics are coming in the next post, but just be forewarned that Beck started off our journey with "Look at those weird looking rocks..."