Every month, the San Diego senior missionaries get together for an activity of some sort. This month, it was a baseball game at Petco Park between the Padres and the Rockies. It was a beautiful evening for a game:
Twenty of us had tickets together, and we all sported our name tags:
Given my Colorado roots, I felt obligated to cheer for the Rockies. So when they scored the first run of the game with a solo homer, I whooped and hollered. The rest of my section– including the other missionaries– soundly booed. Whether they were booing me or the Rockies was hard to tell. Another home run by the Rockies a couple innings later led me to cheer loudly again (and led them to boo).
In the end, the Padres walked away with a 3-2 victory. Even though “my” team lost, it was a great time.
We visited the Museum of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park today. I thought it might showcase different photographic techniques, or show the history of photography, or even include a few old-school cameras.
Nope. It just had a bunch of artwork. Like this:
It’s a little hard to read the title of this piece, but it’s called Ceiling of My House. And, true to form, it’s a photograph of the ceiling of this guy’s house.
A couple years ago, Zack was sporting quite a hairdo.
He’d just let it grow and grow until it became a massive curly explosion. Finally I think enough ladies said they preferred it to be a little more trimmed, and now his hair isn’t quite as crazy.
But tonight we saw a parking attendant with an amazing ‘do.
We bought a museum pass for Balboa Park, which has a number of museums– some more well-known than others. For the next year, it lets us visit any of the museums at any time. We dropped in on the Air and Space Museum with our friends the Knudsens:
Then, with some time before our dinner, we decided on a whim to take a look at the Model Railroad Museum.
It was so cool!
There were many enormous models of landscapes, towns, scenes, and of course miles of (scale model) train tracks running through all of it.
I loved the little “Easter eggs” scattered throughout the scenery.
In some cases, I wondered how you’d even build a model of, say, a car accident where someone lost a load of caged chickens.
Notice the little white chickens running amok. There’s even a tiny rooster right in the center of the shot. The attention to detail was astonishing.
There were even scale models of local areas, including some of the canyons in the area, and El Centro itself (as it was around the turn of the 20th Century).
In short, a museum that I thought would be pretty dry and dull turned out to be a ton of fun. We’ll definitely go back… hopefully at some point with Ollie!
We visited our friend Tracy today. She lives way out in the desert, in a little resort community. In the winter, it’s absolutely hopping and she says there are easily three thousand people in their homes and campers.
In the summer, however, it’s a different story. It’s a ghost town. She says there might be a hundred people at best. The reason was evident on the little weather station in her house:
With a heat index of 133 degrees, it’s not a lot of fun to be outside.
Still, we decided to hop in her trusty little golf cart and take a tour of the place.
It’s a great little area, with nice pools, spas, a well-equipped gym, entertainment rooms, a library, a general store, and all the stuff you’d want if you were spending a few months of the winter in the middle of the desert.
In a few weeks we’ll be teaching seminary, and the room where class is held was… well, kind of run-down. I think it’s just one of those areas in the church building that doesn’t get a lot of attention. The only people who really use it are the seminary classes, the young adults, and the missionaries. So it’s sort of neglected. The walls had holes, scuffs, scratches, sticky residue, chipped paint, and so on. Old posters were barely hanging on; some of the photos were downright weird. The computers had a mess of disorganized cables. You get the idea.
We decided it was due for a facelift. We thought it would be really great to paint the room in a nice light blue-grey, or something similar, to give it a quiet, relaxing feel. What a peaceful environment that would make for the groups who used it! Alas, when we asked about doing that, we were told the Church has a single paint color that’s approved for buildings. It’s called Pacer White (which is actually sort of a creamy yellow), and Thou Shalt Not paint walls any other color. Sigh.
We bought a little sampler of the paint and attempted to touch up the scuffs and scratches. However, the new paint didn’t match the old… not because it was the wrong color, but because the walls probably hadn’t been painted since they were first built thirty years ago. The paint itself had simply faded from sunlight and time. In the end, we had to paint everything.
We enlisted the help of a few friends, including our fellow seminary teacher Jen, and went to work on a first coat.
It was a nice improvement, but needed a second coat. We rounded up the hermanas.
After two days of work, the room looked so much better!
I still pine a little bit that we couldn’t paint it blue, but we can feel good that it’s nicer than it was. It’ll elevate our seminary experience.
Kyra and Greta are having a really fun summer… without us. It’s kind of strange to talk to them and hear about their adventures at our home, on the lake with our jet skis and paddleboards, on the local trails, and even with our friends!
The other day they were out on Flathead Lake, and Pepper pulled up her Life360 app. The app lets you see the locations of all your cohorts who have given you permission to see them. Kyra was out on the lake, although apparently not going very fast:
When we commented about it, she replied with this photo:
Yep, the two of them had set up a nice little picnic at Yellow Bay and were enjoying a beautiful summer day on the water.
Of course we’re thrilled they can do this. And of course we’re enjoying our time in California. But on days like this, we wish we could be there with them.
Jersey Mike’s is my third-favorite sandwich chain. A few years ago, I was elated when one opened in Kalispell, and I was a frequent visitor.
When we moved to El Centro, a new Jersey Mike’s was under construction. But according to multiple sources, it had been under construction for many months. Nothing seemed to change, and one rumor was that they’d aborted the effort and abandoned the restaurant. Disappointing.
But on Sunday, there was suddenly a new sign on the side of the building: “Grand opening in 3 days!” Sweet! Wednesday came, and we headed there for lunch.
It was an absolute madhouse, packed with people who were so excited to have a sandwich shop that wasn’t one of the four Subways in town. We talked to a couple of the workers as they furiously built our sandwiches. They were brothers who’d been flown out here from New Jersey (of course!) to oversee the first week of operation. With a crew of a dozen employees bustling behind the counter, these two were calmly and efficiently putting together sandwiches for the dozens of people in line. I could see why the company sends out their elite squad for a new store.
The excitement will likely die down soon, and then I can start getting weekly sandwiches there. Woo hoo!
It was almost two months ago when we visited the Imperial Sand Dunes with the young missionaries serving in our area. Well, after transfers we have some new faces in the group, and they wanted to see the dunes as well.
So we all got up at 4:30 in the morning and headed out there. We beat the sunrise, which is important for two reasons: first, it’s really pretty when the first rays of the day peek above the horizon.
And second, it’s a nice cool 85 degrees. Once the sun is up, you can feel the temperature start to rise. Within maybe half an hour, it’s climbing past 100.
Of course you can’t go to the dunes without snowboards, and we had three this time. We all took turns riding down the steep dunes.
