Vacation!!

I promised to update about my local "vacation" when I had some free time. Sara came out to visit for 5 days (mainly for the Cure concerts), but also to hang out with me. It's funny how the only time I do touristy stuff is when I have people visiting! The first night she was here we went to the Angels' game because my company had to get rid of our tickets that night. The game was OK, but we had a fun time because Shelly (receptionist) and her brother came along with us. If you don't know Shelly, she's a hoot.

Saturday was the first of two Cure concerts. It was at the Hollywood Bowl. I'm glad we took a friend's advice and didn't try to park at the venue. What a mess. We actually parked at the LA Zoo and took a $3 shuttle. Excellent door-to-door service! The venue itself is really nice, but it's not suited for a concert the magnitude of the Cure. You can bring picnic baskets and many people seemed like they were season ticket holders and not necessarily fans. They were basically eating wine and cheese, chatting about their daily lives, and then "Say! Is there a concert tonight?" *Sigh* Cure concerts are special because the fans make it that way. There are certain crowd-interactions required for songs, like clapping to the bass line in "A Forest" or humming the background chorus in "Play for Today". Those didn't happen at the Bowl. But anyway... it was the first time we had seen the Cure in about 5 years, so we didn't let the crowd spoil it.




On Sunday, we grudgingly drug ourselves out of bed after about 5 hours of sleep. Boy, kayaking sounded like a better idea when we weren't so sleepy! But that was quickly dismissed when we met up in Newport. Tammy had arranged a fun morning of kayaking with friends and it really was a blast. Tammy, if you're reading this, nice work on coordinating the dolphins and seals! We went around Balboa Island and docked at a beach for lunch. I'm looking forward to doing that again this summer.
We're in the 2nd boat from the right.



Monday was a well-needed day off. We went to Salt Creek Beach (got burned) and headed to Laguna Beach that night for sushi at Mosun. We played a lot of Guitar Hero III and Sara's best song is Pat Benatar's "Hit Me with Your Best Shot"... Next time you see her, call her Pat!

On Tuesday we headed down to San Diego State University for the second concert. We were hoping it would be better than the Hollywood Bowl and it was! The venue was much smaller, the crowd was younger, and our seats were awesome! We were in the 3rd row of the second section on the floor. We were about 100 feet from the stage. The setlist was such a treat... I couldn't believe they played "Jumping Someone Else's Train" and then launched into "Grinding Halt", "10:15 Saturday Night" and "Killing an Arab". Robert was much more interactive with the crowd than usual. He even threw a mic into the crowd for someone to sing along on "Close to Me". He danced around stage without his guitar and looked like he was having a great time. Based upon the setlists Craig posts on chainofflowers.com for all the shows, it was a special night in SD.



Unfortunately Sara had to leave the next morning, but we sure had a great time.

Here's one of my favorite videos from the Kiss Me era (Why Can't I Be You?)... just goes to show what you can do when you're a bit tweaked! And yes, the giant lips are all they could come up with to represent the word "Can't"....


via videosift.com