April 11th - Escape!! A Night of Mystery

Our first night away from the desert before heading home, and some of the family and I took on an escape room.  I'd not heard much about them, and didn't know how fun it would be.  My sister-in-law's grandsons would love it, though.

At Nightwalker Caverns, A very great guy runs the house with the aid of his family.  We were briefed on rules and how-tos, then got into it.  It was pretty fun.  The area was a puzzle to try and find clues to items we needed and where to put them.

Afterwards, we got a tour of the facility and had some great conversations.  I would definitely recommend them to anyone looking for a fun evening.

Their website is:
https://www.nightwalkercaverns.com

University Avenue

non-discript storefront  

strange creatures inside!!

Searching for clues

March 17th - St. Patrick's Day Romp.

Disclaimer: No green beer was drunk here.

We took a drive into San Diego with the primary purpose being to get some corned beef and cabbage for the holiday.  Friday night we played Magic: the Gathering.  always fun and even one of John's cats got into the game.

On Saturday afternoon, we had picked Hooleys Irish Pub for our early dinner.  The pub was changing into an event mode, where they were going to not wait tables, but put out a buffet and got ready for a live band and dance night.  A couple of very nice people waited on us and made sure we were happy.  The food was good and we enjoyed it.

Later that night, we made a visit to BNS Brewing in Santee.  They were absolutley rocking with a live band.  The band had 9 members including a four person horn section.  R&B, rock, and disco.  They were a very tight band and we spoke to a couple of the members afterwards.

It was a mellow and fun night.  Erin Go Braugh!!!

Cat Playing Cards

Our waiter

Us

Nana got a wringer for her towel rack.

The Band at BNS

November 10th - Day (?) trip over the hill

We took a trip over Mt. Laguna to play MTG with my brother's group.  We drove in, got a hotel, played all night, hit a few stores the next day and went back home.  It was a lot of fun and there was some great sky pretties.  We stopped at the Golden Acorn ("Home of the 7.77 prime rib!") Casino on the way home for dinner.  The famous 7.77 prime rib was like a 6 oz cut. We ordered a larger cut and took half home.   The Golden Acorn is like the halfway point between San Diego and El Centro.  It's also at the highest elevation of the drive over the hill.  We ahd fun and our little travel cat was typically unhappy about it. 

The manager at our favorite  hole-in-the-wall taco shop

Decent sunset at the Golden Acorn

Shot of the traffic on I-8

Cool slots

September 10th - A shopping mall is put into the grounds of the old San Diego Naval Training Center - NTC

On a previous visit, we have gone into the Trader Joe's shop in Point Loma.  What I didn't realize was that the shopping mall around it was a very large area covering several blocks and situated on the grounds of what used to be the Navel Training Center in Point Loma.  Someone told us about it and we returned to walk around and what we could see.  Besides stores like Trader Joe's and Vons, There are museums, nightclubs, a comic book shop, a couple of art galleries, and even a Stone Brewing brewery and restaurant.  The grounds are beautiful.  The buildings are period for the training center but brought up to date and all the lawns refurbished.  We saw a bunch of it, and want to go back to see more.  It's pretty fantastic.

September 18th - The Padres win at Petco Park

Happy New Year.  This post is appearing on New Years Day. 

It was back in September that we decided to go downtown and attend a Padres game.  Fairly insignificant event, but baseball games in a stadium are always fun.  We took the trolley downtown and walked to the stadium.  I took a bunch of pictures of basic downtown sights.  We made our way to the lounge and had a couple of drinks sponsored by Cutwater Spirits, the hard liquor company that split off from Ballast Point Breweries.  Then we walked around, had a brat, and found our seats.  The stadium never got very full, but we didn't care because we never get to games and it's always fun.  As an added bonus, the Padres actually beat the Arizona Diamondbacks, 4-2.

I found this to be an interesting shot

This is a steak restaurant.  NY strip steaks..

PetCo Park

On my post about ComicCon, I included a shot of PetCo park from the Convention Center. It seemed right to post a shot looking back from PetCo.

I'm captivated by the old Western Metal Supply building that was moulded into the park rather than being torn down like the surrounding lesser factories and wearhouses were.

And yes, there was a badly attended baseball game, too.