Oh when the sun beats down and burns the tar up on the roof, and your shoes get so hot

Kitsune's Happy Fun Beach Day pictures are online.

"Kitsune-sama" (pictured right) on Cosplay.com organized a small beach outing at Belmont Park, Mission Beach, San Diego, 20-Aug-2005. It was a group of animé fans, most of them from San Diego. Jack Kim and I were the two token adults, and we both drove down from out of county -- battling some hellacious traffic that day, I might add. Traffic jams near San Juan Capistrano, and another south of Oceanside. I got there an hour and a half late.

Mission Beach has free parking. Really! Astonishing, for me; I grew up with Newport Beach and Balboa being the destinations of choice, and they have pay lots and parking meters. (Locals know where to find the back streets to park for free, but I lived in the next city up -- Costa Mesa -- and wasn't aware. Paying to park was simple.) Anyhow, I drove around and looked for a parking spot. Almost gave up; actually, I did give up, but as I was driving away I saw a place on the street.

I brought my rolling cooler full of cold sodas. It leaked a bit -- the stopper wasn't in! -- but fortunately library_lynn's car dried out the following day. Anyhow, I was walking along Belmont Park, which is a small fun zone next to the beach, wondering if I'd even be able to find anyone. I ran into Yesenia -- I didn't recognize her face, although she's seen me at other conventions, but the big wooden "Yaoi Paddle" she was carrying gave her away. And she recognized me, even without the ears; I wore my spiffy Dragon Princess animé shirt, to be recognizable as an animé fan.

A couple of the ladies were wearing bright wigs -- a yellow one on Angel Tifa, a pink one on Anna-chan. So even if I hadn't seen Yesenia's Yaoi Paddle, I would have spotted them in the crowd! I was touched to learn that they'd been waiting for me. Thank you, that was really sweet! We gathered at a pizza place and had some lunch, then we headed out to the sand. Kitsune, Anna-chan, and Yesenia did most of the frolicking in the surf, although almost all of us at least got our feet yet. I hadn't planned ahead -- I didn't have anything to put the contents of my pockets into, and my towel was back in the car having been used to soak up the water -- so I could only wade out to about knee-deep or so before endangering my wallet, cell phone, camera, and so forth.

All in all it was a pleasant afternoon. I was tired from the drive down, though, so I missed caprine's gig at Lestat's -- I headed over in that direction but had to pull over for a nap, and eventually decided to go straight home.