Hi folks!  This will be the first of several San Diego area trips.  If only I had a week off and I could do it all in one fell swoop.  Instead, it will probably take two or three months of random weekends to get ‘er done.

Today’s shooting was pretty low volume.  Lots of stuff north and east of San Diego in twisty windy mountains.  Tomorrow, we should be more in the heart of things.  No Monday holiday for me (Presidents Day) so I have to turn around & head home just as things start to get rolling.   But maybe I’ll miss some nasty traffic.

The dogs were tormented at the end of the day by beach aromas & views.  I saw nothing but “No Dogs” signs so they were out of luck.  Not that they didn’t get lots of grassy-running in today.  But they’ve come to EXPECT a beach at 4:30 pm every single day of their lives.   I’ve got a legal doggie off-leash beach spot picked out for first thing in the morning which should make up for things.

On with today’s photos.  Let’s start in Oceanside with the Surf Bowl:

 

Also from Oceanside.  The wrong time of day for sun on this one.  You can make out the patched holes from former neon tubing:

 

From Bonsall — where there was this sweet little place back in 2008:

 

Today, it’s sitting abandoned in someone’s back lot.  I had to do a little trespassing to shoot this one:

While I was briskly tiptoeing around, I saw another similar style giant cup sort of building.  I have no idea where this one came from:

 

I did a lot of shooting today at the Deer Park Winery & Auto Museum in Escondido.  I had never been there before.  There must be 100 or so restored, incredible cars — mostly 1950s & 1960s era:
http://deerparkwine.com/museum.html

But there’s other stuff, too:

Toy gas stations:

a Barbie room:

 

Here are just a couple of the cars — the Crosley Hotshot:  an American car deemed one of the worst cars ever built:
http://content.time.com/time/specials/2007/article/0,28804,1658545_1657867_1657678,00.html

And a Nash Metropolitan:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nash_Metropolitan

 

But I was there mostly to see the signs.  LOTS of neon signs.  But very hard to shoot since pretty much all of them are stuck way behind the cars.  I did what I could to hop the ropes & take some quick shots — expecting alarms to go off or personnel to see me on hidden cameras.  Luckily, nobody came to yell at me or arrest me.  This one was one of my faves:

A couple of nice window signs:

This one was w-a-y in the back and I had to scoot sideways between some big land yachts.  Very nice three-dimensionality to this one:

 

There was no way to shoot this one without the glare.  I’m guessing these were mass-produced and there was a business name at the bottom of the sign:

 

Back on the road — still in Escondido.  This wonderful circus tent like sign/building houses Escondido Coin & Loan.  I can’t find anything on-line about what this was originally:

The windows and some of the wooden cases inside suggest maybe jewelry store:

 

From Encinitas — where we called it quits for the day.  A very sweet use of perforated steel panels:

 

Also in Encinitas — the “Surfing Madonna” mosaic.  It’s about 10 foot by 10 foot and has been moved a couple of times.  More about it here:
http://www.surfingmadonna.org/about.html

 

Tomorrow should be a busy day — if the weather isn’t too crappy.  Sun was promised for today & it was pretty darned overcast.  So, tomorrow’s prediction of “partly cloudy” might mean anything short of rain!

I’ll get photos from tomorrow up on Monday or Tuesday.    Til then — Happy Post-Valentines & PrezDay Weekend!  And as for my pals back east… my heartfelt sympathy.

Oh, and some more photos from today over at my Flickr account:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/agilitynut/

dj & the dogs