April 9 to 17, 2004, Jon & Elise Hammond visited San Diego from Cleveland, OH. Actually, they live in University Heights and we live in Encinitas, but, close enough. Jon & Elise were college sweethearts at Ohio University and got married about four years ago. Jon teaches high school history and coaches basketball and copies CD's from the Cleveland Public Library, and Elise is in marketing for National City Bank and drinks martinis. Elise is the daughter of my younger sister Jeannie and the infamous J. Kevin McHugh. We had a great time with them. The weather was good enough to hit the beach a few times. We went to Old Town, the Gaslamp District, Carlsbad Village and the Flower Fields, and we managed to squeeze in a few restaurant/bar visits along the way. Here are some photos.

Day one: Jon, Elise and Lorri in front of our house; Elise, Jack & Jon in front of Rossanna's in Encinitas where we had lunch; Lorri, Jon & Elise in front of "Swami's", the Self Realization Fellowship and popular surfing spot; Jack & Elise enjoying a martini with Jon in the middle.

Off to Old Town State Historic Park where our first stop, naturally, was for some margaritas at the Bazaar Del Mundo. After walking through to Park it was time for tequila shooters at Old Town Mexican Cafe. That's Jon and Elise in front of Casa De Bandini, a famous Mexican restaurant.

Easter at Moonlight Beach, Encinitas. Note the service going on in the background. The preacher went on for at least an hour. We sat in the sun and Jon fried himself up pretty good on this day.

Gaslamp District. We parked on the pepper level in the Vegetable Garage at Horton Plaza and headed toward Fifth Avenue but made a detour at the Dublin Street Irish Pub on Fourth for a quick one on the way there. We had drinks and oysters at Bluepoint and then went to Croce's for a nightcap. Jon & Elise danced to "Misty". Later Jon had his photograph taken with some dead rock stars.

Lunch at the Beach House

Carlsbad Village Excursion: Drinks at the Coyote Grill; Jon & Elise pose in front of Hennessey's and a couple shots of the inside of Pizza Port.

The Flower Fields: On the way back from Carlsbad we stopped by the world-famous flower fields where we had a swell time looking at the flowers and taking photos.

Jon swims in the Pacific Ocean! This series of photos proves that, even though the water temp was about 60 and the air wasn't much warmer, Jon Hammond added to Pacific Ocean to his life list of major bodies of water in which he has swam (swum?).

On their last night, we played guitars and sang lots of songs and sounded just like Peter, Paul & Mary, sort of. Having Jon & Elise visit was like taking a vacation for Lorri and I. We hope they had as much fun on their vacation as we did.