San Diego Day 2

     We started off the day innocently enough. With two options in mind for breakfast, we ended up driving past Breakfast Republic because the line was out the door. We drove to Morning Glory, the other spot on my list, because they have the Japanese Souffle Pancakes that I really wanted to try. Unfortunately, or fortunately as you'll see in a moment, they had a farmers market going on in the same area so cars were parked everywhere and streets were blocked off. We chose to park in a parking garage (with a $35 charge for only 2 hours!) and when we got in the elevator to head up, floor two said "Morning Glory". Well there ya go lol. We actually wanted the first floor though. W had to stand in line in order to add our names to the waitlist. This place was popular as f. So, with about a 40 minute wait, we checked out the farmers market until it was our turn.

    This place was very interesting to say the least. Check out the link above to see it. The restaurant was open air so we actually had pigeons flying in occasionally. The souffle pancakes were... not what I was expecting, I guess. The texture felt off to me, like I expected them to be light and airy, and they were still pretty dense. I dunno, everyone that eats the pancakes really likes them, but I prefer the originals. Patrick really liked his egg chorizo hash thing; it was very tasty if not a tad spicy for my liking.

    After breakfast, it was time to visit the place I was the most excited for: La Jolla. It was still pretty cloudy out and it was taking its sweet time to warm up, (too early for swimming) so we decided to walk around the shore a bit before doing some window shopping up the main two streets on Prospect and Girard. As I began to walk past a gallery, which I would normally never enter, we decided to take a peak. The artist, Ian Elly, was a wonderful photographer and had a lot of gorgeous pieces on display. Patrick really liked this one of the moon, but the one that caught my eye was his gorgeous shot off a dock looking at a storm, bolts of lightning, and even a piece of the galaxy of stars in the corner. It was incredible; all of these things in one shot. The lady who worked there hooked us in, began talking about the pieces, and thought to bring us into a small room where we can see different lighting conditions on the piece (it's crazy how much light can bounce off the whitest parts with hardly anything shining directly on it).

    She told me that if we were interested in the piece, the smallest size was 20x60, and was $5500. That made us pause, of course. We/I had never spent that much on a piece of art! Apparently, and I should have figured this but never really thought about it, digital artists need to create scarcity in their pieces, you know? They have the original file, and can make copies as often as they want, but they choose to limit the amount sold and once they're gone never bring them back. So when she said this was only 1 of 500 pieces, that's what creates the price and makes them limited edition. She then mentioned free shipping, which is normally about $800 because it's crated and has an insurance policy on it. And then also said there was no sales tax if shipping outside of California (for some reason). It got me a lot closer to saying yes but I still wasn't sure if that was enough. She also said that the piece included his coffee book, which I guess sells for 1k (like, why??), and mentioned this piece was shot in Washington. That peaked my interest, I asked if she knew where, because that would be cool to tell people it was shot in my state. She said she'd be right back and when she returned she was followed by Ian Elly himself! He had stopped by and generally wasn't around as he didn't live locally, but was doing some work there. He said it was shot in the Seattle area but wouldn't disclose exactly where because he didn't want to ruin it in case he wanted to return. Fair enough, I get it. Seattle was close enough to say anyway. But how cool to meet the artist! And knowing it was a piece shot in WA kind of sold it for us. We celebrated with some champagne (well, Patrick did) and he told us that he would sign and dedicate the coffee book to us, which was so cool.

    After blowing our budget for the entire trip (and then some lol) it was time to head back up to the car and switch into our swimming stuff. We stopped by Bobbi Gelato for some delicious ice cream and got ready to go swimming. La Jolla is one of the prettiest places I have ever seen. The ruggedness of the west coast always takes my breath away. The colors of the water are striking, and my pictures definitely don't do it justice (in order to keep us to a carry-on, I left my camera gear at home). I wanted to swim in La Jolla Cove, so we headed down there. The air temp was about 75, the clouds were finally parting, and the water temp was between 65-70. The tide was going out but was still very high, and I was not expecting the waves to be so strong. I wasn't used to the huge undercurrent. The way that the beach was, there was a large dip close to shore, and that's where all the waves formed. A large wave would come in and hit us pretty hard even at knee or waist high, and pull back so strongly that I had to hold onto Patrick most of the time.

    Then, the worst happened. Patrick and I were standing probably 6 feet in front of the concrete entrance stairs. This is a pic to show you how high off the ground they are. An incoming wave swept me off my feet, and threw me right into the stairs. The side of my face hit them as well as both of my knees pretty badly. I got pushed into them twice before I was able to stand up. Luckily the undercurrent didn't take me back out to sea, as I was able to grab onto the railing in order to stay put. There were several lifeguards on duty and one of them got to me quickly, though. I am okay, but my face is pretty scratched up, my right leg is all bruised, and my left knee was injured in some way, like maybe a bruised MCL. It hurts to extend or bend my knee at all, and I was limping for the rest of the trip.

    Obviously after that accident, we headed back to the car and went to the hotel to shower and make sure I was really okay. I did not hit my head on the concrete luckily, so no concussion. Just banged up, and hoping the knee heals up quickly. We decided to eat in at the resort, and spent the evening at their many fire pits on their private beach along the bay. It was a nice way to end the night.