A bar patron walks home in San Diego's Pacific Beach community, April 9, 2011.

Summer is almost here. There’s something about the vibe from the pedestrians near Garnet Avenue that tells me a change is in the air.

Butch Bauer celebrates the holidays with his decorated bicycle and truck in San Diego's Pacific Beach, Dec. 12. 2010.

Wandering around Pacific Beach at sunset, I took a quick snap of a festive cyclist and was quickly hooked into conversation with the man, who was riding a vintage Mongoose bicycle wrapped with holiday lights. Butch eventually showed off the modified Dodge truck which he had similarly decked out for the holidays, and which he calls home — along with another truck and an airstream.

On top of this truck were a serious set of solar panels, and Butch went down the list of amenities in his homemade camper: HD television, powerful Wi-fi antenna, and constant companionship in the form of a 14-year-old pitbull named Maxine in the passenger seat. It was a serious setup, so it made sense when I learned he had been living like this for over 30 years. He was only in Pacific Beach for a few days when I met him, but he said he might be around in the summer — donning a mohawk and showing off his seasonal “totally ripped” physique.

“It looks like I’m happy, and I am,” Butch told me as he described his lifestyle. “I’ve got too much to be happy about.”

San Diego's Pacific Beach community reached a high of 83 degrees, Dec. 12, 2010.

Like tan, overdeveloped leafcutter ants carrying inflatable rafts ten times their size, several thousand students and twenty-somethings swarmed Mission Bay on the first day of spring for a water party known as Floatopia. Revelers set themselves adrift on buoyant objects running the gamut from large inflatable castle to overnight twin mattress in an effort to spend spring break appropriately inebriated. Floatopia took its name from a similar event in Santa Barbara, and appeared in San Diego after a loophole was discovered in a recent alcohol ban that covered San Diego Beaches, but not the water.

Ultimately no one drowned, though police and lifeguards were kept busy issuing citations and keeping everyone safe.

Floatopia had over 10,000 confirmed guests on its Facebook event page, though the number of revelers in attendance was closer to 5,000. The page summed it up best, as always, in all capitals:

“GET DRUNK!

GET FU**ED

HAVE FUN

BE REPONSIBLE

SEE YOU THERE!!!!!!!!!!”

Floatopia – Images by Will Parson

I visited Pacific Beach’s boardwalk yesterday, where I found some people bundled up and others feeling fine in shorts and shirts.

Here is the gallery:

December in San Diego – Images by Will Parson