Home, Sweet...ah Crap, we don't live there anymore!

TOP: Lumpy hits the trail in Fallbrook

2nd: Lumpy, Catherine, and Jeff hanging at Casa de Nichols

3rd: Kamper Kathy leaping across the San Diego river

4th: Kathy and Scott oceanside in OB

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We just got back from a great trip to San Diego. We started the trip visiting with our buddy Scott in OB. Scott's been fortunate enough to pickup a great place about 5 blocks from the beach, built a huge rooftop party deck, and uncharacteristically stocked the fridge with beer...who'd a thunk it! We walked around everywhere...down to the beach, to the local bars, and then did a marathon walk over to catch the finish of the SanDiego marathon which just happened to be going on that weekend. Scott has been doing the team-in-training anti-cancer athletic group, and is heading out for a century at lake tahoe in a week. I don't want to be on the road when he cannonballs down off spooner summit...I hit over 50mph on my own!

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Next we went off and did 3 days of good hikes...black mountain, iron mountain, and fortuna mountain. Each eventful in it's own right. Iron was completely cloud shrouded when we hiked it, and then about 2 minutes after we summited, the clouds all dissapated and it looked like the other lower hilltops had villas floating in the clouds on their summits. It was awesome. Fortuna we just did a walkabout, going up wherever we could, and then trying to figure our way back down. Who the heck needs a map anyways when you've got the "human compass" Lumpy with you! And on Black Mountain, we were only about half way up when a huge Tstorm rolled in. We beat a hasty retreat back to the car, just keeping ahead of the rain and lightning by a couple of minutes. That was scary. We lived in SD for 2 years, and never once saw a lightning storm there.

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Next, after a couple of days of that dreaded work thing, we headed off to visit our friends the Nichols up in Fallbrook. Fallbrook is the far NE end of SanDiego county, and a beautiful place nestled up in the mountains. Their villa sits atop a ridgeline, and has about a 15 mile view off the expansive deck. We emptied their wine cabinet...well, ok the cabinet only held a couple of bottles...the wine CELLAR had about 2,000 bottles that we never even touched, had an awesome fresh salmon meal (I now know how to cook salmon!), a morning hike, and then an awesome mexican breakfast in fallbrook village. Great visit, and always a treat to catch up on lives.

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Heading back to ra-cha-cha today, and to the grind.

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"Take me home, country road" Lumpy out