The morning after Emily's wedding, Seth, Mom, Dad, and I met with Aunt Oanh's family then had lunch with Aunt Kim and Uncle Dien before picking up a rental car. Seth and I then spent a couple days on our own sightseeing and visiting more relatives and a couple friends.
 |
| Lunch in Westminster with family. It's hard to find such excellent Vietnamese food in the northeast. |
 |
| After getting our rental car, Seth and I headed down towards San Diego. On our way we stopped by rugged Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve. |
 |
| I think we were about two weeks too late to see the peak Spring bloom. The flowers were supposed to be extra wonderful this year due to the high amounts of winter/spring rain that broke the decade-long drought. Regardless, we still got to see many wonderful desert flowers. |
 |
| The park reaches right to the coast. |
 |
| The Torrey Pines only grow in this park and on some island off the coast. There is a beetle that has been killing them :o( |
We left the park then spent the evening in San Diego, visiting with Grandma White. She recently moved from her modern house back to her older, more cozy house down the road. Ironically she is still within walking distance of my old buddy, Sandy!
 |
| We checked into our Airbnb then met with Sandy for a City Taco dinner on University Ave (I didn't realize earlier the street name is so common). |
 |
We spent the late night hours at the local arcade. It is so refreshing that my best friends never change :o)
|
The next morning we went for a nice jog on my favorite running route in Balboa Park then headed up into the hills towards Julian. After chatting up my family ranch for years to Seth, he finally got to see it for himself. The strange thing is that my only memories of the ranch are of it being blistering hot. This time it was in fact damp and chilly. Cousin Steve even put on a fire for us!
 |
| Flowers abound in Balboa Park |
 |
| The beautiful ranch house just outside Julian... |
 |
| Steve had me drive Seth around the ranch in the old, red, beat-up pickup truck. My first time driving such a crazy thing (Jesus was in the front, praying!). |
 |
| Many of the grand oaks were dying of some pest. They even had to chop down the legendary rope swing tree :o( |
 |
| Aunt Chris's |
 |
| After touring the ranch we said good bye to Steven then headed to Julian. We had a brief stop at the cemetery. |
 |
| The town looks so different under a blanket of chilly fog! |
 |
| No visit to Julian would be complete without a slice of the town's famous pie! |
