Please excuse me for any incoherence, I only just returned yesterday, and the flip of my night and day is a brutal thing to deal with. I don’t think I’ve ever been this tired.
Anyway, a few weeks ago I mentioned I was performing an “experiment” where I was going to figure out if there were, in fact, so called “warm” places on earth. Living in a dreary, arctic realm, you’d understand why I was loathe to believe in such fantasies. So, of course, I had to put the comic to the side and find out for myself. Purely in the name of science, of course.
I found that not only do such places exists, but there even exists such a place where a partly cloudy 55F day (about 13C) is “freezing,” and is referred to with terms such as “winter” and “bad weather.”
This place is called San Diego, and I promise you, it is real. I have pictures!
My “experiment” lasted for two weeks. And, though this was purely for scientific purposes, I decided a little fun wouldn’t hurt either. After being welcomed by a pink sunset over the mountains from the plane…
… I spent the first 4 days exploring this beautiful city…
One of my first stops, since I AM a cartoonist, was the SD Convention Center which hosts the monster San Diego Comic Con every year:
Then I explored the sweet gaslamp quarter with all of its restaurants…
Which was followed by a day at the zoo where I got to see some cuddly favorites…
And then I jumped in the car and drove to Vegas, baby! (which I hear is the official name)…
…where I, quite happily, lost all my money playing craps, and found out you can go ANYWHERE (seriously) with a drink in your hand – a hard habit to break when I went back to the real world.
Once I’d run out of cash, it was back to San Diego and my beach house on Mission Beach!
…where I spent much time riding around on a bike…
…and building sand castles with one of two of the sweetest little girls in San Diego.
There was also a trip to Sea World which involved killer whales who were only named Shamu during a show…
…and where I overcame my fear of anything that exists underwater and TOUCHED A FREGGIN’ STARFISH. (though, this probably won’t change the fact that I jump as high as the moon when something brushes my leg in the ocean).
Last, but most certainly not least, I got to spend time with supercool comic people, like Tom Racine of Tall Tale Radio (on the right), Lucas Turnbloom of Imagine This (on the left), and Justin Thompson of Mythtickle (not pictured.)
Oh, and, OF COURSE, there was endless amounts of excellent Mexican food…
So, in conclusion, warm and sunny places do exist. And I can sit here and believe this even though it is currently SNOWING outside my window back here in Stockholm, because I can still see the prominent freckles on my nose which appear mostly when I’ve had a decent amount of exposure.
And any place where I can wear a miniskirt and a hoodie and call it “winter” is golden in my book.
So now I leave you with one of the greatest sights from my trip. A Pacific Ocean sunset. Sorry, but there is no greater sunset than this. Especially when it turns green right at the very end (no lie).
(comic returning on Monday the 4th of April)
