Labor Day BBQ on PB

Beach barbecue, anyone? Ahhhh, life is sweet!

On Labor Day, we met some friends from my residency (Jess and Matt) at Pacific Beach for a barbecue. Geoff carted our trusty $15 grill to use it finally for what it was intended (as opposed to serving as a ghetto kitchen on our condemned back deck).

So we were going to go to a beach in La Jolla called Windansea, but, instead, we ended up at PB because that's where Jess lives. Allow me to "explain" PB to you: Beverly Hills 90210.

OK, there.

PB is San Diego's beach town, kind of like Myrtle Beach for those of you from NC (but with more surfboards and far fewer mullets). There's a permanent theme park with a rickety old roller coaster and bags of cotton candy, almost everyone is blond and tan, the mean age is 22, and the dress code is bikini or surf shorts.

Since alcohol is permitted on the beach, and this crowd just loves the beercahol, you can imagine what interesting cocktails ensue. Perhaps you heard the news of the riots that broke out in PB earlier in the day before we arrived.

OK, now insert us.

As you can see from the photo, only Jess blended in with the local folk (and only because she had decided, at dusk, to go for a dip). The mean age of our group was 34. And, oh yeah, instead of Budweiser, we were drinking a fine Argentinian Malbec and grilling marinated carne asada for fajitas with homemade pico de gallo, guacamole, red peppers and vidalia onions.

The drunk, golden kids actually came sniffing around, wondering what smelled so good. Two surfers tried to bum beer off of us.

Luckily, no one puked on us or tried to start a fight. Besides some beach wrestling, which was held at a comfortable distance, they didn't bother us much, which was good, because it was a spectacular sunset and an unbelievable dinner. We stayed until the sun had melted completely away and all the kiddies had gone home.