Goin’ Out West, Part 3: California→MS→Alabama

The final part of the trip out West was to see my old friend* Jeremy Mucha’ (AKA Cap’n Hardqore AKA Homeskillit) out in San Diego. It was a brief trip-just two days- but it is always great to see him. I went out to see him back in 2009, but this was Katie's first trip to California, so for her this was a chance to check something off the list of states to visit.

We spent the first day driving up and down the coast, checking out some sights, just hanging out. The next day we spent the day at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park in Escondido. Really cool place.


Up Close and Personal with Lioness

But the most exciting thing was the Great Power Outage of San Diego AKA San Diego Unplugged 2011. Around 3:30pm on that Friday, the power went out at the zoo. OK, whatever. Then Jeremy starts getting texts from a friend saying that the power was out in all of southern California. Eventually we realized that the power was also out in some of Mexico, Arizona, and New Mexico. The entire grid went down. We assumed this was big news, but we now realize that this didn’t make much of a blip on the radars of national news outlets (thanks, lamestream media!**) But it was a big deal for those of us stuck in it. No traffic lights worked. Airport shuts down, all flights cancelled. The radio announcer starts telling everyone that the power could be out for days and to enact your emergency plans immediately. It was quite surreal. Now, in the grand scheme of things, the power was back on in 10 hours and we left on time the next morning, but for a while, we really didn’t know what was happening, so we raided a target, bought a bunch canned food and went back to Jeremy’s for a bonfire behind the “Adventure Shack.” It was a great evening. Who needs power when you're with such good company?***


Looting Target (You pay for stuff when you loot, right?)


The fire behind the "Adventure Shack"

We flew back to Mississippi, stayed the night with my Uncle Carl and Aunt Mischelle, then took off to Alabama to see Gringo Star in concert in Opelika, AL. Great show, great to see the guys.



To finish out this blog post, here’s the video of the first single from their soon-to-be-released album Count Yer Lucky Stars:



* I’ve known the guy for 27 years now.
** I hate this term. Please don’t ever earnestly use this term in conversation with me. Seriously.
***Robots. Robots would likely need power.