Saturday, September 17, 2011

An Action Packed Saturday

This has been a nice few days. Alycia is down for the weekend to be a bridesmaid in her friends wedding. Lisa picked her up in Long Beach. She flew in on Thursday evening so I was at the Temple and unable to go get her. She flew to Long Beach because she got a cheap flight but I think next time they get a "cheap flight" I'll give them the $78 gas money that we spend to pick them up and have them fly straight to San Diego. It'll be cheaper for us and whole lot more convenient. It has been great to have her here though.

Today has been a rather intense day. A very enjoyable day as well. It started off by me sleeping in until 9:00. It's been a while since I've done that. We had a relaxed morning with Alycia getting ready to go to the Wedding Rehearsal and then we headed off to Torrey Pines Beach for the Ward Beach Party. It was a rather cool and overcast morning so there weren't too many people at the beach but as soon as we got there the sun came out and it was a beautiful beach day. I decided to park in a different place than we normally do to try and get closer to the place where we were supposedly meeting. It would have been a good move too except that they were doing construction and the access to the beach was closed. This meant we ended up walking a bit further than we normally would have but it was OK because it was a beautiful walk on the tops of the cliffs and we enjoyed it.

The Beach Party was fun but I couldn't get Lisa to leave in time for us to meet our friends because tonight we were going to the Aztec / Washington football game. To compound the problem I thought it would be nice to return to our car along the beach and hope there was an access to the tops of the cliffs further down. Big mistake. We ended up walking all the way to the Del Mar beach and then walking back to our car. We probably walked three miles to get to our car that was perhaps a half mile from where we started. We enjoyed the walk along the beach and we certainly need the exercise but we got home around 4:20 and we were supposed to meet our friends at 4:00.

We got to the restaurant around 4:30 and had a good meal while the Haws watched us eat since they were finishing up when we got there. We then piled in our van and we carpooled to the stadium. Unfortunately the KGB Sky Show is getting so popular that this year the parking lot filled up and we were turned away. After running around the area for a good 15 minutes Brent guided us to a secret parking place he has. It is a great place to park and not a long walk away from the stadium. I'll have to remember it for the next time I go to the stadium.

The path we path we ended up walking on opened up into the stadium parking lot and to our horror it was all barricaded with chain link fence. We were beginning to see a theme forming here. We had done a lot of walking (and driving around) only to find barricades in our way. Our beach access, the stadium parking lot and now our walk way. It was only a beginning however.

The chain-link fence was to keep people away from the fireworks and we managed to get around it only to find that the ticket booth was closed. The Haws had free tickets Brent had won on the radio station but we needed to buy ours. Another barrier. We went to the people taking tickets and asked one of them where we could buy tickets. She pulled a bunch out of her pocket and said, I just happen to have a bunch of free tickets here, would you like them? I profusely thanked her and off we went. While the barriers through out the day had been frustrating they managed to get us a beautiful walk on the beach, free parking and now free entrance to the game. Not too bad eh?

The Aztecs thoroughly beat Washington and then it was the moment we had all been waiting for. The Haws assured us that the KGB Sky Show is the best fireworks we would ever see. KGB is a local radio station and every year they put on this huge fireworks shows after one of the Aztecs football games. The Haws have been going for a while but this was our first time. Have you noticed that at most fireworks shows they have a pretty nice show but then for the last minute of the show they light off a whole bunch of fireworks all at once? This big grand finale? Well imagine that grand finale lasting 30 minutes. That is what we saw tonight. The absolute most amazing fireworks show I've ever seen. I managed to record about five minutes of it for you to enjoy. Make sure your sound isn't too loud, this is amazing.



--------------------trivia--------------------
In 2008, for the first time in the history of mankind, the number of people living in cities surpassed the number of people living in the country side.
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4 comments:

Lisa said...

That video doesn't even do it justice, the lights, the smoke, the fireworks going all around the stadium, the music, the picture show that went with it (a Tribute to California) it was amazing!!!! We even had barricades on the way back! They wouldn't let us go back the way we came so we had to climb a hill, climb over a cement barricade, cross a very busy street, and then walk down another little embankment. It was worth it though!! For the trip to Long Beach, add to the gas dinner & a 2 hour trip up and 1.5 hours back. I agree, let's give her the extra money next time. It's been nice to have her here :)

Anonymous said...

Yeah...what a great adventure it was... don't forget almost being run over by that taxi cab... BOOM BOOM

Sarah Christine Leavitt Taylor said...

i miss you guys.... :(

Peter and Mandy said...

We flew out of long beach over the summer and it saved us $200. It was also a direct flight and with little one it tow it was totally worth inconveniencing others a little to get us there and back. We did buy dinner for them. For Thanksgiving we plan on doing the same...again direct flight and by far the cheapest...looks like we'll save over $300 this time.