More movie magic

If I were to ask you about your favourite volleyball movie, I'm pretty confident you'd pick the same as mine: the great 1986 Tom Cruise vehicle, Top Gun. Sure, where some planes or something also going on in that film, but the heart of the movie was really about beach volleyball.

Today, I got to recreate some of that movie magic.

Not the flying planes part. The beach volleyball bit. And not with a bunch of shirtless, muscular dudes, with a motley, mixed gendered group of people in the late 20s and early 30s. But other than that, it was exactly the same. That movie is actually set in San Diego, which is known for its volleyball culture, so you could feel the parallels at the time. There's also this giant military base at the south end of the city, but it's all about the volleyball.

After a good day of riding yesterday, today was a day to check out the city. Somewhat unfortunately for Arthur and I, it being a sunny Sunday, a couple of million other people had the same idea. I ended up driving around seeing the highlights, but not actually stopping anywhere. It’s tough when things are crowded to find enough room to park my boat of a rig. And while San Diego is a very dog friendly place, they aren’t allowed everywhere.

I did start out at Dog Beach, which has been my focal point while here. The tide was out, so Arthur and I had lots of room to walk around. He’s limping a bit from yesterday’s run, so I kept it pretty low key.

After a rest in the afternoon, we headed out for the beach again, for our pick-up game. With a big expanse to offer, it wasn’t crowded, except for the parking lot. There was a dude flying a big Canadian flag out of his obviously homemade camper unit, but I didn’t stop to chat. That is just a black hole of a conversation waiting to happen.

I did get to see the lifeguards swing into action. They were driving down the beach in their red Tacoma, with lights flashing and sirens going. Which was a bit odd, because there’s no traffic on the beach, they are the only vehicles allowed, and there weren’t any people in front of them. They also didn’t even jump into the water, they just turned down towards a group of people. Kind of disappointing from my perspective, but I’m glad no one was hurt.

We played from about 4:30 until sunset, which is that much later now thanks to daylight savings. Suffice to say, my second full day here in San Diego was a good one.

wes