I snuck out from the COVID stay-at-home order for a little Los Angeles area daytrip last weekend and a San Diego area daytrip this past weekend.  It was great to get outta the house for a bit and take some pictures!  Still, yes, wearing mask and social distancing front of mind.  The dogs were happy to smell new smells, run in new places, and bark their heads off.  I also just missed getting stuck in traffic with all the protesters and rioting.

I’ve already got both days’ photos loaded up at my website but I’ll share a few photos here as well.

Let’s start with Harbor Liquors in Oceanside with it’s little lighthouse sign addition.  There’s also a nice rocky facade and a curvy roofline:

In National City, this one missing its neon and a cover-up panel (maybe “Homemade” under that?)

Crappy sun early in the day in San Diego — another one goes on my “reshoot” list.

This one is strung from one side of the street to the other in the Kensington neighborhood of San Diego.  It’s actually replica sign from 2010 of the 1953 original.

“The Spirit of Imperial Beach” (yes, in Imperial Beach):

This giant lion statue was being restored and the sun was all wrong when I was there.  Installed at the San Diego Zoo in 2018.  But something was up with the patina.  And maybe they were bored with everything shut-down from COVID.  This statue has a huge concrete substructure which give it that gravity-defying pose:

This sign borrows the design from the incredible Jimmy Wong’s Golden Dragon sign in town.  It was the Chinatown Bar & Grill but it’s now the Brooklyn Bar & Grill.  The sign went up around 2018:

Also San Diego — some gravity-defying neon tubing below:

OK — that’s enough for now.  If you’re hungry for more, I have other photos from this little trip over at Instagram and Flickr, and, of course,  my website scattered throughout various sections.

I’m going to sneak off on a little Northern CA trip soon.  But as for my month-long vacation to The South, that’ll just have to wait awhile until the danger has passed.  Hopefully, not until next year!

Hang in there folks — we’ll get through all this.

Debra Jane & the dogs