Road trip to the Kern river for tubing!
Playing the alphabet game on the way. "Stay behind this guy until we get to Q. Otherwise we'll never find another one."
A paintball field. There's even a tank.
Pretty view.
Last palm tree before the hills.
Forest trees instead.
The edge of this rock was painted red. I think it was to warn drivers to stay away since it sticks out pretty far.
A lake.
The floor of the store we rented the tubes from was covered in pennies.
Those look fun.
The front of the store.
Ready to go.
On the river. Monica got the shot by setting the camera on the rock and running back; she just made it.
A fun angle.
Ogii with a beer strapped to her tube.
Kendra and her floating cooler.
Uh oh, lost a tube, gonna have to double up until we get it back.
The group.
Some small rapids.
Gotta avoid the rocks.
Nice house.
Having fun.
Sisters.
I'm coming to get you.
Ogii and I.
Taking a nap and waking up.
More rapids.
Causing more lost tubes.
Monica and I.
Smashed up my foot on some rocks.
More rapids.
Some ducks.
A floating hamster ball at the end.
Me in it.
It was pretty slippery, so people fell a lot, sometimes even out of the hole.
Afterwards we went to some hot springs. There weren't any specific directions for them; just "about a mile south of these campgrounds." The first trail we tried didn't have any.
But the second one did.
A tadpole.
From above. The springs were really small, but we fit in pretty well.
Some of the gals.
This side got cool currents from the river on the other side of the rock wall.
I was working on Sunday and had a pool party afterwards a few blocks away. It'd be easier for me if Monica took the bus and I met her there rather than going to to pick her up and driving back. However, the bus stop she'd get off and and walk to the party from is in Skid Row... probably better to pick her up.
Monica kissing a graffiti dinosaur-monster creature.
Waiting in line for Summertramp.
One guy all alone in the VIP line.
We didn't get in until 11:45am, so there was only 15 minutes left for the drink specials. Which mean most people grabbed two or three drinks.
Sliders.
A pool with some giant floating toys.
A double waterslide.
Aw, cute unicorn.
Monica with a baby duck.
Inflatable mini houses.
95% of the people there were fabulously-dressed gay men with amazing bodies.
Hula hooping.
Spontaneous limbo using a random pool float.
The indoor area.
Us with a blow-up.
Kendra with the swan.
Giving the hula hoops a try.
Kat by a guy with some fitting swim shorts.
Kendra and I playing on the teeter-totter type float.
Lots of splashing water.
Phones in condoms to protect them from water; that's rather ingenious.
Kat and I on the waterslide.
Yep, that's a butt.
It got pretty crowded.
That afternoon we went to a Mongolian Festival in Griffith Park.
Bags of goodies for kids.
Wrestlers preparing; they flap their wings like eagles.
The big guy has quite a weight advantage.
Participants in the children's chess competition.
A "horse race" for the kids.
Tug of war.
Really digging in.
Cute little kids dressed up in traditional outfits.
Monica and I.
That evening we went to X-Lanes, a new bowling alley downtown.
They had some private rooms.
The ball weights were organized by color.
The arcade.
And pool tables.
Time to bowl!
Steeee-rike!
Getting low.
The ball looks like a ghost.
I guess it was moving too fast to look solid.
Kat and her sister wore almost identical tops and shorts.
Although her sister was a lefty and had blue shoes.
Happy about that shot.
And from behind.
The group.
I won the first game.
Liz took the second.
Onto the arcade and multi-player Pac-Man.
6-player racing game.
It's more fun watching people's expressions than the race.
Concentration.
Guitar Hero.
And the evil drop-a-coin-and-see-if-it-pushes-any-others-off games.
Everyone loves Skee-Ball.
Eating at a British pub-type place with Monica right before she leaves.
Nice dessert.
We looked it up, and a GT Cruiser was a limited edition PT Cruiser.
That would be a fun flight if it were real.
Pretty sunset over the highway.
Open bar at Palihouse in West Hollywood.
It was pretty interesting inside.
The lens on my point-and-shoot camera kept jamming. I noticed this rubber sticking out and pulled it all off. It seems to work again now, although I wonder what purpose the rubber served.
Getting tickets for the IMAX. Everybody wants to sit in the back center.
I haven't used the printer queue in forever. I always had to in the past to fix printer issues, but the newer versions of windows have much fewer problems with that. At least there's some progress.
Started playing chess online a bit again. I love this kind of attack as white; castle queenside and shove all my pieces at the black king.
This guy fianchetto'd his bishops (put them on the long diagonals) and had to move is side pawns up to do so; I put everything in the middle. Theoretically taking the middle is better, but it's quite a contrast in ideas.
Although sometimes I like fianchettoing my bishop and castling behind it for extra defense.
Always watch knights for forks.
Aw, that was low. This guy left the game, so I let it sit there to run the time out, but then he sneakily came back and moved. Since I was doing other stuff at the time, I didn't see it and he won on time. Sneaky and pretty unethical.