Hollywood Farmers Market + protest

We went to the Hollywood Farmers market on sunday. It's the best market around, and we try to go most weekends. There are some really good tomatoes, figs and white nectarines we get regularly.

There are a few regular performers; the reggae musician who gets kids to help out with the bongos, the jazz band with the bass player who rarely wears shoes, the blind flamenco guitarist and the asian-american cover song guy who I swear no one can make heads not tales of.

In a nutshell, the Hollywood Farmers market is a good morning, with lots of characters and a celebrity here and there. Well on this sunday there was also an immigration rally. We watched for a few minutes, but they seemed to just be getting all wound up and not going to ever get marching. It almost seemed like there were more police than protesters when we rode our cruiser bikes there. Also most of the roads in Hollywood were closed. It was sort of a mess.


-Gary

24 hours of adrenalin

We went up to Monterey and Laguna Seca for the annual mountain bike race; the 24 Hours of Adrenalin. Gary has done this for 4 years in a row now, competing on a team of 5 for the last 2 seasons. The first couple years being on 8 person teams. Our team is sponsored by Bad Boys Bail Bonds, and having a biking jersey from a bail bonds company is an added treat.

It is always a lot of fun, especially the last couple years. We get to see old friends and get in some good riding. Sarah has become the seasoned pro volunteering at the scoring table over the years. The course is usually both great and an absolute nightmare. This year was no exception, the course was expanded with more climbing and rutted downhill sections selected by some sort of sadist.

Gary and Lori getting ready for our lap of the course at night. We got the big headlights on and area ready for our 75 to 90 minute ride. It was dark 1/4 into this lap.



And really, what sort of mountain bike race would it be if the mountain biker kids didn't get to chase a clown? Not a sort of race I would want to go to, that's for sure! The bike race has a kids event each year; the 24 minutes of adrenalin. It's always lots of fun seeing the kids race around the campground. This year was no disappointment.

San Diego & wild animals

We went to San Diego over Memorial Day weekend. We met up with Gary's cousin Kelly, cousin Chris, Chris's wife Marci, their daughter Emma and twins Liam & Spencer. We met up at the San Diego Zoo Wild Animal Park. The kids had a great time, and the adults were pretty impressed with the park also.

Chris (holding Spencer) and Kelly (holding Liam).




Giraffes at the Wild Animal Park. If you want to spend lots of money, you can take a truck ride through the fenced off areas of the park and hand-feed the giraffes.




Fireworks are Petco Park. Gary, Sarah and Chris caught the game. Great stadium and we had pretty good seats as well.




I posted additional photos on Flickr