Vista, California

We arrived in this town last week and have been busy since that time.  Vista is a medium-size town in the San Diego metropolitan area.  John Frazier chose the city name in the late 1800s.  I will have more regarding John Frazier in another posting.  Vista was a farming community, following WW11 it grew primarily tomatoes, celery, and citrus.  And it became known as the " avocado capital of the world" in 1948.   Which brings me to the Avo Theater (actual name Avocado), where Beauty and the Beast was performed this past weekend. 

Yes, our son is performing in that musical, and his bio note is on a listing outside the theater- along with the names and bios of about 60 other cast members.  It is community theater, so many are not certainly professional actors, singers and dancers.  That being said, we saw the performance Saturday night  and enjoyed it very much.  Of course, it means a lot more when when you know someone performing in it!  Our son played the baker, a fork, and some other small roles.

Yes, that is him front and center, singing and dancing in the wonderful song "Be My Guest".  He enjoyed performing for the show ,but certainly is not considering quitting his day job anytime soon.
He is also pictured below on stage dressed as the village baker.

 The show had a small orchestra preforming for it, which also made the show quite good.  And if you are in the San Diego area next weekend, the show will still be running then.

We spent a fair amount of time in Vista over this past weekend, as that was the best place to meet up with Mike and hang out with him and our nephew David between shows.  David works for the Jet Propulsion Lab in Los Angeles and drove down here to spend the weekend with us.  It is coincidental that, what with David's interest in astronomy, there is the brewery "Wavelength" in Vista which has some telescopes sitting around.

The brewery advertises that here one can get their fill both of science and beer.  The owners are passionate about science and host a variety of science outreach presentations.  Unfortunately none of them were going on when we visited the brewery.

Vista is an interesting town to walk around in what with its small shops and street art on the corners.  Pictured above is the "Alley Art Man" who seems to be tending to his plants.  What bright red eyes he has!  Over the weekend we also visited a couple other small towns and also drove down the coast to La Jolla.  More on those adventures in my next posting.