The Great Ferret Reunion 2007

Every so often the planets are aligned just so and something amazing happens...the ferrets re-unite-ah! It just so happened that Kelly was flying in from London for a couple of days. Matt, who loves driving long distances in his Honda, decided to drive out from Flagstaff. V, being only two hours away, hopped on a train and zipped down to join the rest of us who eagerly awaited her arrival. It was the first time we have all been together since Nova Scotia five years ago!!!

We got the weekend started right away with dinner at The Tractor Room, Dench- party of 5.
It was pricey, but the food was excellent. We all had meat of some kind (their specialty- no vegans allowed) and shared a bunch of wicked yummy side dishes (mac and cheese, mashed potatoes, and a maple butternut squash that was like dessert!).

The next day we drove up to Julian to sample some pie. Also, I just had to show Kelly the Stars Hollow of California. The winding roads led us to that main street that Kurt and I are all too familiar with. We walked around, watched a movie or tv show being filmed on a side street, perused a book store, ate pie, and soaked up the small town feel.

Pie Girl likes to hang out and just smell the pies baking.

V contemplates...apple? key lime? mountain berry crunch? ahhhh!!!!

No trip to Cali would be complete without some chill time at the beach. We headed out to La Jolla and found a spot on Birdrock (right next to my house that I will own some day) to spread out. There is something about Matt and the California lifestyle that just don't go together....hmmm....what is it?


After heading home for some Passion fruit smoothies, Pie Girl, Kelly, and V hoped in the car and headed north to Pasadena for the night. Wiped out by all the relaxing they did that weekend they went straight to sleep. The next morning we had to drop V off at work :( and then we headed out to the WB studios! Happy Birthday to me!

Michael, our awesome tour guide, and my new best friend.

Too much fun sent Kelly to the ER.

Finally, after all this time, we arrived in Stars Hollow.



If only Luke was behind the counter.

Oh, well. Kelly will do. I'll have coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. And a paper coffee cup to go!

My very own Crap Shack.

Ooh! Meg, should I take 101 North???

A quick stop by the USC campus, which is gorgeous by the way, led us to this article in which Kelly was quoted! Although she didn't find exactly what she was looking for, we had a lot of fun like totally pretending to be college students again.

After a lovely dinner with V back in Pasadena, minus the hot pepper seed that V and I both accidentally ingested, Kelly and I headed back to SD. It was late when we arrived back at Ferret Cabin, so we went straight to bed. The next day's plan was to buy a beach chair and sit on the beach. We figured we better do some serious carbo-loading before we attempted all that so we headed to the Hash House a Go Go....

The plates themselves were so ridiculously enormous that they barely fit on the table. My Snickers pancake and Kelly's s'mores coffee gave us some seriously full tummies. The only thing to do next was to waddle 1/2 a block to the nail salon to get a mani/pedi.

The next day Dirt Doc was on Kelly duty while Pie Girl headed to the zoo to meet up with one of her favorite families...The Shutes!!! They had been planning to meet here at the zoo ever since we all found out that Pie Girl was moving out to San Diego. They spent the day squirming over snakes, looking for the turtles, and laughing at the monkeys.

Two monkeys pose in front of the Elephant area.

It was quite a busy week that was packed with excitement. Even though we are meeting new people and making friends here in California we were happy to see all of these familiar faces.

Momma and The Commander

Pie Girl and Dirt Doc were happy to have a visit with Dirt Doc's parents, Momma and The Commander. They squeezed a lot into their five day visit.....

Hooray for Pie Town!

First off, we simply had to take the old people to Julian, a small town about an hour east of San Diego (see previous post). Julian is basically one street, lined with places to get pie. We have tried them all and agree that Julian Pie Co. is the best. There isn't much to do there, except eat pie, look at all the shiny motorcycles, and pump dollars into the local economy via the myriad shoppes. (And let me assure you, they are all shoppes with the extra "p" and "e" on the end. You know what I mean.)

Backseat Driver ;)

One of the coolest things about Julian, other than all the pie, is that it is a mountain town that has desert on one side of it and green hills that lead to the Pacific Ocean on the other side. Quite often, the weather is completely different there than it is in the city and they have four seasons, unlike San Diego which seems to be perpetual Spring. Perfect for when we are feeling homesick and need to see snow, or leaves changing color. We are really looking forward to heading up there in the fall for apple season!

Kurt and his Dad look out over one side of the mountain at the Anza-Borrega desert.

No trip to San Diego is complete without a visit to the zoo. We met many new animal friends....

The Flamingos at the San Diego Zoo love to pose for photos!



and even ran into some old friends!

San Diego is turning into Delaware already.
When we were walking into the zoo we ran into Pam and Donna!
They work with Pie Girl's Mommy back in DE!
They were "attending" a real estate convention.

Momma and The Commander.


The Commander was attacked by a whale at Cabrillo National Monument. No one was injured in the accident.

Pie Girl and the Commander in front of Pie Girl's museum.
Dirt Doc: If things at the museum should turn sour, Pie Girl can always get a job as a Price is Right model. Look at how she introduces A BRAND NEW MUSEUM!!

While Kurt's good (?) work ethic drove him back to work, Pie Girl took Momma and the Commander on a tour of Balboa Park. They were able to get a sweet discount due to Pie Girl's status as "Park Employee" and all got into the Natural History Museum for free. The musuem shows An Inconvenient Truth every day on the big screen, so we also had a chance to see that.

We searched for a sunset each night with no luck. The night Momma and the Commander left, we had this outside of our house. Bloody weather.

We just hope that their experience with the flight home (delayed in Chicago - d'oh!) won't keep them from coming back for another visit!

At last, a cause I can believe in

OK, in the interest of not simply making this a blog where lots of random crap gets posted (fun as those blogs can be), let me tell you a little about what has been happening.

I found a neat little mountain town (well, I sort of found it the same way Columbus "found" America. Which is to say, it was already there.) called Julian. It's a total tourist trap, but in an endearing way (as opposed to Old Town, which one should avoid altogether). There are seriously five or six places to get pie in an approximately 100-yard stretch of road. The town has one stop sign so if you're not careful, you'll soon find you're leaving - without any pie! It's also a huge haven for bikers of all kinds. Lots of good riding roads out that way.

Near Julian is the Mt. Laguna Recreation Area, which is worth a trip in and of itself.





While SD offers a lot of culture (restaurants, bars, theaters, music venues) it also has tons and tons of people. And cars. So when I need a break (or when I need to come down from that sugar induced freak-out) I know where I can go.

I Wish!

Your results:
You are Mystique

Mystique 64% The Joker 56% Riddler 54% Dark Phoenix 53% Poison Ivy 52% Venom 51% Apocalypse 47% Magneto 40% Juggernaut 40% Dr. Doom 39% Catwoman 39% Mr. Freeze 32% Lex Luthor 29% Green Goblin 24% Two-Face 24% Kingpin 24%

Sometimes motherly, sometimes a beautiful companion, but most of the time a deceiving vixen.

Click here to take the Supervillain Personality Quiz

The Comments Thread

I know we haven't been doing a great job of updating the blog on anything resembling a regular basis. And if you're some kind of update junkie, that's just tough. I can't assign any time tables to the blog; that would only embolden our enemies. But in the interest of getting some more material up here and perhaps making this a more interactive experience, this is going to be the Comments Post.

What would you like to say? What would you like to know about life here in San Diego? What would you like us to write about?

While we always look forward to comments on each post, we haven't been good in posting our reactions to comments, and we're going to work on that, as well. Looking forward to this experiment!