Summer Road Trip 2015 - Day 6 Highlights

One thing I noticed in Crescent City were their many drive thru coffee places...

We made sure to stop by at least one...

Summer Road Trip 2015 - Day 5 Highlights

We noticed that the beaches here were wild and windswept, quite unlike the picture painted by the Beach Boys' Greatest Hits.

We continued our trip along the 1...

and deeper into Humboldt County...

Summer Road Trip 2015 - Day 4 Highlights

More driving on the Dramamine highway...

which was sometimes shrouded in mist...

Summer Road Trip 2015 - Day 3 Highlights

While at a hokey gift store up the 1, we saw a postcard that had a picture of a stretch of the windy highway with the caption, "Dramamine Road"!

They really weren't kidding about that!  We made sure to each take our pills before hitting the road again...

Summer Road Trip 2015 - Day 2 Highlights

Our morning wasn't complete without visiting the local coffee shop...

My macchiato (my new favorite espresso drink) was somewhere in El Cerrito, near Thane's place...

Summer Road Trip 2015 - Day 1 Highlights

We were on the road again...

This time in celebration of our upcoming 20 year anniversary...

Yes, twenty years people!

Birthday dinner & dessert for Mr. TJ - Parkhouse Eatery, the Old Trolley Barn Park, Holsem Coffee & free desserts

Every summer, MFH, La Ley and I meet up with our good friend Mr. TJ for his birthday...

He is the best host ever, serving various meats and cheese, peach salsa, chips and homemade guacamole along with blood orange mimosas before our trek to this neighborhood...

Our first choice, Burnside in Normal Heights is CLOSED on Mondays, $#%@  so Mr. TJ suggested Plan B...

Rudford's plus drinks from Coffee, Tea & Collective

I've been enjoying the break so far. TC and I have gone to a lot of places, both old and new...

(The North Park Water Tower near Howard & Idaho St.)

In this case, we went with "old", as in celebrating their 65th Anniversary...

We've passed by it so many times while driving on the Boulevard...

"A Fair to Remember" - The SD Fair 2015 Part 2: What we ate

On to the food...

This was our first stop...

"A Fair to Remember" - The SD Fair 2015 Part 1: The Sights

This past Friday we made our annual trek to the Del Mar San Diego Fair...

The theme was "A Fair to Remember"...and like the several years past, we parked in the Horse Park and took the free shuttle...

We were there early enough...

"Luke, I am your Fahjah"....

Recently this was on TV and for some reason, I thought it appropriate to include for today's Father's Day post...

Out of all the Austin Powers movies, the third one, "Goldmember" is my least favorite but I can't help but laugh when he says, "I don't speak freaky deaky Dutch!"

Happy Father's Day to my husband Bert and to any readers that are fathers...whoever you are since most of my (known) readers are chicks who don't have kids...

Bay Park Fish Company + dessert at 85C

Yesterday we treated Bert to an early Father's Day lunch...

Today we had lunch at my parents so we moved  Bert's lunch up by one day which was fine by him. Seafood he wanted and seafood he got...

Here at Bay Park Fish Company which is right next to Siesel's Old Fashioned Meats.

Holsem revisits or trying to go through their whole drinks menu

If you haven't noticed, I've been on a coffee kick this past year.

Until earlier this year, the only coffee I would try was iced or cold brew. Never hot drinks. Until this year. Tasting for the sake of "research", heh heh.

Chic-Boy

I must be directionally challenged because I thought this strip mall off the 805 and Plaza  Blvd had a new Thai bbq place but surprise, it didn't!

It turned out to be near East 8th St, dagnabbit.

Well, when life hands you lemons...

Highlights from the Balboa Park Centennial 2015 Philippine American Celebration Part 2 - The Sights & Food

Here are some of the highlights from the BPC2015PAC for the first two days...

Over in the House of Pacific Relations International Cottages were  educational exhibits as well as artists selling their works...

I really liked this painting by local artist Izzy Inocenio; the word "Balboa" is in the shape of a bangus, or milkfish. For every event he is a part of, he creates a specific painting for it (saw it on his IG). Although the artists wasn't there at his booth, I did meet his brother and bought a couple of postcards of his artwork of fighting roosters and the Coronado bridge...

Drinks from Better Buzz plus Charlie's Best Bread

With a new battery in our vehicle, we headed over to the Better Buzz drive through...


and got a couple of drinks. Before heading home, we went back to a strip mall on Garnet...

which turned out to be the wrong stripmall...but led to checking out a bakery I remember seeing last year...

Kate Sessions Park

Another summer day ahead of us...

We were curious about Kate Sessions Park especially after having visited the Mission Hills Nursery...

Highlights from the Balboa Park Centennial 2015 Philippine American Celebration Part 1 - The Performances

This post is a couple of weeks late but it's been a busy summer so far. Earlier this month, the Filipino commmunity in San Diego put on a three day event showcasing the best of local and statewide talent through dance, song, comedy, and orchestral music...

Set in beautiful Balboa Park, the Philippine American Celebration was the first (and only) major event for the Balboa Park Centennial...and it was totally FREE!

Mission Hills Nursery

As we were driving on Fort Stockton while looking for the coffee place, we saw the Mission Hills nursery and made a mental note to visit before driving back home...

I hadn't been here in a long time, as in before TC was born...

Espresso Mio

After our excellent lunch at Supannee House of Thai, the sun actually came out of hiding...

we made our way out of cloudy Point Loma and headed to Mission Hills. There was a coffee place there I hadn't tried yet...

Win Fook

*This restaurant is now CLOSED

We had a great time exploring the tiled staircases of the Inner Sunset and now it was time to grab some lunch...Instead of going back on Noriega which was pretty busy, we headed down Judah and then cut across. So much better since there was hardly any traffic.

This was our original lunch destination, the literally named "Pizza Place on Noriega".

but alas, it was not to be...

Porky's, the restaurant not the nasty 80's flick

Last month Bert and I were doing errands in between several events. His mother's 80th birthday was coming up and we wanted to check out this place for their lechon...

I found the name amusing, Porky's. As in Pig. NOT As in gross horny 80's sexploitation flick:

Those of you over 40 should get this reference. The rest of you, the trailer is posted at the end...

So, Porky's is in the same shopping center as Seafood City (National City location)....

Supannee House of Thai with TC

Earlier today TC and I ventured out to Point Loma to try her parents' favorite Thai place (besides Sab e Lee)...

She was curious because she knew how much we liked it...

I was happy to find out that they opened at 11 am on weekdays...

Hidden Garden Steps

In retrospect we could have walked here from the Mosaic Steps on 16th Avenue...

but instead, we reparked and found out it was only a few streets away...

Grand View Park

Once we reached the top of the 16th Avenue Tiled Steps, we hung a right where we saw yet another set of steps...

which weren't tiled but which is on an area known to locals as "Turtle Hill"...

The 16th Avenue Tiled Steps

The morning was still young so we ventured to the Inner Sunset neighborhood...

 to check out the 16th Avenue Tiled steps, also known as the Mosaic Steps (sometimes even called the Moraga Steps)...

Amarin Thai

Yesterday Mr. TJ and I took a few former students out to lunch...

Although hidden in the photo above, Amarin Thai is right next to the Alibi bar in Hillcrest, right on the corner of University and Richmond. It's also across from Filter Coffee House.

You can't miss this wall on the side of the Alibi...

This was the first time I'd ever seen it but TC has seen the wall on other peoples' Instagrams.  I didn't contribute to the wall but others did, some are hilarious (and even X-rated)...

Lion Coffee, Balboa

Handily, the same strip mall as Tropical Star was the Lion Coffee kiosk which opened late 2014.

I remember this being another coffee place in the past as well..

It's been awhile...return to Tropical Star

So far we've had San Diego's infamous (yet normal) June Gloom...

I was craving a fried pastelillo...TC was game for anything that afternoon.

I'd been wanting to come back here for so long so today was the day...

Nati's Mexican Restaurant

Our visit to the OB tidepools had to come to an end...

After our thrift store shopping foray, I remember walking down Newport and looking left on Bacon Street. At the end of the block I saw this...

Return to the OB Tidepools Summer 2015

The sun was actually out in OB that morning. It was quite overcast when TC and I left Chula Vista that morning...

It was nice to see the sun out even for just a little bit. This is supposed to be summer in San Diego for cripe's sake...

"God, That's good!" or a meat pie by any other name...

This movie was a bit on the gruesome side and it was a bit disturbing find out later what was REALLY in those pies...

also known as the "best meat pies in London", heh heh.

Luckily these meat filled pastries that I've tried over the past few months weren't filled with murdered humans...

Wolf's Head Pub & Eatery

After hightailing it home after Sea 180 Tavern and enjoying the rainless commute, Bert and I dropped off the teen to watch a play with her friends (extra credit) and headed over to Grantville...

and endured a small bit of rain while on the 8...

Wolf's Head Pub & Eatery is kind of in a random spot on Fairmont Ave, near the Home Depot...

J & T Thai Street Food

Yesterday TC and I had the pleasure of having lunch with my good friend Cathy of mmm-yoso...

at a place she recommended and one that I was actually curious to try...

Birthday Lunch at Del Mar Rendezvous 3x, return to the Torrey Pines Glider Port and cupcakes from Sprinkles

I was liking this concept...being "off" on my birthday. It was like, as my friend TORC said, "playing hookie".

(photo from my "Return to Del Mar Rendezvous" post, April 2014)

Even though I felt a tiny twinge of guilt, I thought about it and thought, "You know, FK it! Work will be there tomorrow. I need to to do this EVERY year, %$#@"!

All American Sandwiches, Harry D'z BBQ, Karl Strauss, return to the Mariscos Gonzalez taco truck & The Buffalo Spot

All right, the only reason I posted this video is because it's from one of my favorite movies, the classic 80's flick "Fast Times at Ridgemont High"...

and that Brad's character only resorted to working at this fish and chips place after getting fired from All American Burger (he threatenedd to kick a customer's ass)...

Cafe Mingei

Bert and I were at Balboa Park this weekend for the Balboa Park Centennial 2015 Philippine American Celebration (BPC2015PAC). TC was with the troup getting ready for their performance.

We didn't have our morning coffee yet and I'd been meaning to try Cafe Mingei, new coffee place next to late artist Nikki de Saint Phalle's whimsical sculpture, Nikkigator...

Balboa Park on my birthday

Bert and I spent some time at Balboa Park before heading up to my birthday lunch destination.

The Instruments of Torture exhibit is located across from the Museum of Man. We saw this exhibit the summer I was pregnant (2000) and found it to be a bit gruesome but fascinating. We saw it once but wouldn't really care to see it again...

Instead, we wandered the park to enjoy the beautiful buildings of what is known as the Smithsonian of the West...

Return to City Tacos, Caffe Calabria and West Coast Tavern

The dance troupe had call time at the building in the late afternoon and after dropping off TC, Bert and I headed over to North Park to get some early dinner...

I found this interesting, this trolley and water tower sculpture seen on a wall as you exit the 805 offramp (coming from down south) to University Ave). Back in the pre-WWII days, a trolley line used to exist in North Park...

Lemongrass Thai Food

Now Ramona is a place we only visit once a year...

which is usually when we pass through (operative word "pass) on our way home from our Julian day trips.

We weren't sure where we were going to go...