Siobhan Braun

Ramona family takes the pigs no one else wants “This is 100 percent my husband’s fault” Michelle Pannell “wanted to work with commodified animals.” If you make a right onto Dye Road off SR-67 north, past a sign advertising midget wrestling, tucked amidst dusty chaparral and dirt roads, you’ll find Grazin’ Pig Acres. A kitschy “Pig Lover” sign announces the entrance to the sanctuary that is home to 95 abandoned pigs. This little piggy stayed home....

The many colors of Ocean Beach “I will never go back to having a regular job" Photo by Andy Boyd The rainbow van, parked just north of the Ocean Beach Pier. The musician Miranda Mears is sitting on the sea wall at the end of Newport Avenue in Ocean Beach. Waves crash behind her. The dreary sky covers everything in a blanket of gray. A white hoodie covers Mears’s cropped pink hair. Underneath it she wears a colorful triangle bikini top and a blue button-down tied in a knot at her ribcage.

University Heights and the school of nature University Heights has always been something of an odd duck. For one thing, there's no university there. There never was. Instead, there was a wild rush of land speculation, leading to the Bust of 1893, which ensured that the university in question remained purely speculative. But maybe duck is the wrong sort of bird here. Before the days of avocado toast and craft beer, this little slice of San Diego was home to some truly unusual attractions.