We have been to THREE San Diego Padres' games and each time they won. Steve and I believe that today's victory was because we were there to root, root, root for the home team. There was no shame at Petco Park. What a game!

Hundreds of fans came with their laptops. It was hysterical!!!
This phenomenon was new to us. "Tarps Off" is a viral fan craze where spectators take off their shirts and wave them in the air like helicopter blades. Originating in college football in 2025, it exploded across Major League Baseball. Many teams have even dedicated specialized, high-energy seating sections to the movement.
Over the course of the game, the number of half naked fans grew. Their energy was infectious. What fun (what sunburns)!

The game was fantastic. It was very close which kept us on the edge of our seats.

The excitement was interspersed with interesting player facts on the jumbotron.
Gavin Sheets not only shares his birthday with National Asparagus Day, the chant for him is "Holy Sheets". What a hoot.
This was an article written about the Cincinnati loss and the Padres victory, "It's not just a hard flight back to Cincinnati because the Reds won only one of six games on their road trip through St. Louis and San Diego. It's knowing that they led all six games and couldn't close most of them out with more wins.



What a game! What a day!

Sunday and Monday were days of connecting with friends... A main purpose of our visits to Temecula.

After saying goodbye to Leslie, I met up with Suzanne and Nancy, two of my 39-year-old's 6th grade teachers. We were a trio of women whose conversation never stopped. What fun!
After lunch, Suzanne and I ventured to the Temecula Valley Museum for its current exhibition, Am I An American or Am I Not? which asks visitors to think about examples of unfair treatment from our country’s past and present in order to protect the American promises of life, liberty, and justice for all.
The exhibition’s title comes from Fred Korematsu, who famously challenged the mass imprisonment of over 125,000 Japanese Americans during WWII. When faced with criminal charges for not following the military orders to leave his home without due process, the U.S. born citizen remembered his Constitutional rights and asked, “Am I an American or am I not?"
Developed in partnership with the Fred T. Korematsu Institute, the exhibition draws on timeless themes to bridge past and present, highlights stories of connection, and encourages civic participation to stand up for equal rights. It features stories of loyalty and resistance, belonging and othering, and solidarity and resilience. It explores how fear, discrimination, and government actions led to the violation of Constitutional rights during the war and how this history relates to the experiences of other communities, including Native Americans and African Americans.

Importantly, the exhibition addresses stories of other historic and modern-day events that parallel aspects of the incarceration of Japanese Americans to encourage visitors to take action today and stand up for the rights of all Americans.





We were directed to walk in a specific direction with exhibition sections titled: Immigration and Citizenship: Who gets to be an American?; Othering: What does it mean to be an American?; Loyalty and Resistance: What do you stand for?; Resilience and Solidarity; and How do you respond to injustice? The Conclusion poses the question, "How will you make a difference?"
Fred Korematsu and Rosa Parks were two iconic ordinary citizens who sparked pivotal moments in American civil rights history. Both defied unjust, systemic discrimination and bravely took their fights to the highest levels of the U.S. legal system, ultimately reshaping the landscape of civil liberties in the United States.After the heavy history lesson, the mood was one of frivolity as we met David and Karen at Cougar Winery for Karen's birthday fête.

Monday, after a very crazy day of medical commitments (another reason we are in Temecula), we dined at Lynne and Scott's to celebrate her 80th birthday!

This special Reserve consists of 9,000 acres of land that has been set aside to protect unique ecosystems like Engelmann oak woodlands, riparian wetlands, coastal sage scrub, chaparral, bunchgrass prairie, vernal pools and more than 200 species of native birds and 49 endangered, threatened or rare animal and plant species, including mule deer, mountain lions, badgers, bobcats, western pond turtles, and white-tailed kites.

There are 40 miles of trails here. Due to poor orienteering, we ended up traversing 7 miles which wasn't our original plan but it gave us wonderful, needed time in nature.

Our destination for a picnic was here at Landmark NO. 1005 which reads, "SANTA ROSA RANCHO - Located on the Santa Rosa Plateau Preserve, the historical site of the Santa Rosa Rancho is a prime example of various historical phases of cattle ranching in Southern California. Archeological evidence gathered from the site indicates that various bands of Luiseño Indians established village and religious sites on the land. No other historic rancho site in Southern California retains so much of its original setting undisturbed."
Home to Native Americans for thousands of years, their way of life came to an end in the 1820s with the secularization of mission lands. The Santa Rosa Plateau became Rancho Santa Rosa in 1846, under a 47,000-acre Mexican land grant given to a rancher named Juan Moreno, who raised cattle and sheep. In 1855, Señor Moreno sold his ranch to his neighbor, Augustin Machado (owner of the Rancho La Laguna, today the Lake Elsinore area). The adobes that Moreno and Machado owned still stand as the oldest structures in Riverside County.






While I don't like manmade things left in nature, this hidden reminder was sort of sweet.
What an ideal way to pass a Saturday morning. Yahoo!
We spent three days just enjoying being together: neighborhood walks, movie night, long talks, and of course, Scrabble!