Since it's a public walkway and a straight shot to the beach from the main north-south auto arterial in the area, dozens, if not hundreds, of people walk that sidewalk daily. However, this man wasn't forward-focused. I could see he was looking at each place he walked by - into windows and he glanced down into the mail box on our bungalow's back fence. To me, he appeared to be casing joints.
So, I kept an eye on him and sure enough, just two doors down and across the sidewalk he entered the neighbor's (minuscule) front yard and went right to the duplex's mailboxes. At first he started picking through the mail right there in the boxes. At this point I opened the back door on our unit and went out onto the patio and pretended to be looking for the kids' shoes. I purposely made a fair amount of noise in the process, hoping to scare the would be thief off. But, he was too addled or stupid or whatever. Instead, he picked the whole wad of mail up, tucked it under his armpit and went and sat down in the neighbor's front yard. Pretty brazen. At this, I told Christian, whose first reaction was to go say something to the guy. I quickly put a kibosh on that and told him to call 911 instead. Christian phoned in with our address, the address of where the mail marauder was, and a description of the perp.
The (alleged) mail thief eventually stood up, and then I saw him walking around the side of the bungalow where he'd messed with the mail, before coming back to walkway and heading east, away from the beach and back the direction he came.
About 30 minutes later, Christian, CeeJ, Bee and I were about to head out when an San Diego police officer showed up at our back door. At her request, we recapped what we saw and she said they'd picked someone up based on Christian's report/description and that they wanted Christian to go ID the guy. After talking a bit more and the officer finding out I was the one who actually saw him messing with the mail, she decided I was the one who should make the ID.
And so, I hopped in her big squad SUV and we rode about four blocks south to where the man was being detained. They had him in handcuffs, in an alley next to a very busy restaurant. A bit of a crowd was gathered, gawking. From across the street in the squad car, I was 99.999999 certain it was him, and when we flipped a u-turn and parked right next to him, there was absolutely no doubt about it.
I never even had to get out of the car, and the officer was careful to try to keep the detainee from seeing me, which I appreciated. The officer got out of the car to check in with her fellow officers and so I sat there for a few minutes. During that time, I read Christian's phoned in description of the guy, as it was up on her screen. He sure did a great job - it was spot on. Male Caucasian, medium build, mid 20s, dark green jacket with orange shirt underneath, green hat with orange bandanna underneath. By the time I was taken to ID him, his hat and bandanna had been removed, but it was obviously him by his height, age, face, complexion (Caucasian with lots of sun exposure) and hair color (orange).
It might sound weird, but as the young man was standing there, cuffed, unkempt and looking like the embodiment of miserable, I couldn't help but feel a bit sorry for him. It surprised me that I felt that way, given his behavior I'd witnessed earlier in the morning.
PARKx3: On our final full day, we went to Belmont (amusement) Park not once, not twice, but THREE times. Our first stop was in the a.m. right after the police action. Annabelle happened to be wearing her fierce new motorcycle style boots and it occurred to me the heels on them might come in quite handy.
Sure 'nuff, when she stood next to the height requirement sign next to the Giant Dipper roller coaster, magically she WAS tall enough (the answer had been 'sorry, but no' just two days prior). Yee haw!!!!
The Giant Dipper originally opened on July 4, 1925. According to the Belmont Park Web site, it's one of two original oceanfront roller coasters still operating on the West Coast. Its steepest drop is 73 feet. Overall, it's 2,600 feet of track and takes 1 minute and 45 seconds to ride. Here's a photo of it courtesy of the National Register of Historic Places.
There were plenty of return trips to the other rides, too. Bee took a few more rounds on the carousel (CJ never did hop on board that), and there was more bashing in bumper cars.
My favorite ride to watch was this wild, swinging thing called "Beach Blaster." Per Belmont Park's Web site, it swings passengers 60 feet in the air to 120 degrees in both directions. Annabelle was too scared to ride it the first day we went to the park. On Friday, however, she was a fool for it. Here, the three of them are facing the camera.
After the morning amusement, we met the rest of our party (G&G and Rick & Kennedy) for lunch at tiny waterfront cafe on Mission Bay. There were only four tables in the place, and our party of 8 took up half of them. We got off cheap, too, because we'd brought a couple of Restaurant.com certificates with us, knocking $50 off our bill for just $2. That's right, we roll with coupons, even on vacation.
SHELTERED: After lunch, we caravaned to the south, destination Shelter Island. There, we met up with Christian's former brother in law who is captain of the 115-foot yacht Ocean Pearl. He gave us a tour of the lovely, large boat, which had three spacious bedrooms, each with a posh bathroom. There's a large, well appointed living and dining area, and lots of spaces for outdoor entertaining.
We visited the bridge, where CJ was enthralled by all the buttons and monitors.
We also got a tour of the engine room, and learned the yacht's seven gas tanks (totaling 9,600 gallons in capacity) hold about $40,000 worth of diesel. Yikes.
Moored nearby the Ocean Pearl were seven beautiful boats, all handmade in New Zealand to traditional Maori custom. Called waka or vaka, the catamarans are ocean going vessels steered and sometimes powered by hand. They were funded largely by the Okeanos Foundation, Germany, which is producing a feature-length documentary on the fleet's voyage around the world called "Blue Canoe."
While on Shelter Island, we saw some pelicans, and enjoyed the view.
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