Back Home Again

Hi! I missed a couple of days, so here is the update.

On Thursday morning we took off after breakfast for San Diego.The hotel in LA was nice - Culver City, actually. We went to Denny's for breakfast. We like Denny's - it is safe :o) After breakfast we jumped on the 405 and headed south. Traffic was great, and we detoured down to Laguna Beach to catch the last part of the Pacific Coast Hwy that we missed out on last time we stumbled on Laguna Beach. Very nice, kind of like White Rock. Lots of condos and houses on the strip, with a lot of small stores and shops - very much like our White Rock. We could love there quite easily :o)

On the way down to San Diego we stopped at Legoland, of course. We weren't really all that interested in going on the rides and stuff (considering they are rated 2-12 years of age - kinda big for us LOL), so we paid $12 for parking and walked around looking at the attractions. Some really cool things there! We saw Lego versions of Las Vegas, New York, New Orleans, and Washington DC, as well as many dinosaurs, Bob the Builder, and other neat Lego constructions. We wandered around for an hour or so, taking pictures and oohing and aahing, etc etc.

We got to our hotel around 3, I think. It was in a nice area - right across the road from the World Cup Pier, near the airport on Harbor Road. It was close to the airport, downtown, and Loma Point, so it was a great base for the next couple of days. Unfortunately, although it bears the Best Western name, it is not the best Best Western we have stayed in. I think it was either a converted apartment building, or a not-so-nice hotel bought by someone and opened as a Best Western. It was clean, but not managed very well, I think. The first room they gave us was small, on the first floor, right on the parking lot across from a construction site, and had no wifi access. We asked if there was something else, and they said no other king-sized beds, just a room with 2 queens. I said fine I would look at it, but before I did I asked one more time, anything witha king-sized bed? Then I reminded the lady that Stefani was a travel agent, and yes she got a really good rate, but she could get that anywhere, and she was seriously considering going to a different hotel at this point. Well, the room she "suddenly found free" was a much nicer room, on the fourth floor, huge, king-sized bed, with at least 3-4 bars of wifi - my Palm TX even got a good connection!! "Why didn't you give me that in the first place?" we wanted to ask, but we just said thank you very much; much better; yadda yadda yadda - sometimes I hate being a polite Canadian!! :o)

From there we went to Old Town, and went for dinner at Casa De Reyes. It is a great Mexican restaurant that we went to about 10 years ago with some friends we met on a Mexican Riviera cruise from San Diego. It was memorable, so we tried it again. Guess what? Still a great place - definitely a keeper! We wandered around Old Town for a couple of hours, bought some sugar-free candy, tried on some Indiana Jones style fedoras (I still want one!), and listened to a Latin band play live pan flute and stuff. Pretty nice time. After we got back to the hotel, we went for a walk on the pier and dreamed about living on a 40 foot cabin cruiser for the rest of our lives - {sigh}

The next morning we went to Loma Point, which gives a great view of San Diego bay, the Navy base, and the Pacific ocean, including Mexico and the hills in behind San Diego. It was very nice. We walked around on the beach, checking out the tide pools, looked at the monuments to Juan Cabrillo (not the character from the "Oregon" series by Clive Cussler), and taking a lot of pictures of the view. Then we went to San Diego downtown and checked out the USS Midway. We didn't get to go last time we were here, and we didn't get to go to Pearl Harbor last time in Honolulu, so this was pretty special for us. We went through the museum part kinda fast, looking quickly at the exhibited rooms and quarters and stuff, making our way quickly to the Flight Deck, where all the action was! OH MAN THAT WAS COOL!! All the jets and helicopters and missiles and rockets and machine guns and - well, see the pictures on Facebook, if you can - very cool. By the way, Mickey had a really good time too, sitting in cockpits of fighter jets and hugging a variety of small ordinance :o)

After the Midway we went on a 2 hour harbor cruise on the Lord Hornblower. I don't remember what the regular price was, and we had a $2 off coupon that Stef found somewhere, but I told her to ask about travel agents rates. The lady in the booth said something, and we thought she said buy one get one free, so we say "cool", and Stef goes to hand the lady her credit card, and the lady repeats what she said - You and one guest are free. Seriously? We took something like a $100 cruise for free? Too cool!! It was nice for the first hour, sitting on the deck, on the bow area of the ship, enjoying the sights, sounds, and smells (sea lions) of the bay. Then we realized that we were quite cold, and went in for the second hour :o) We got to see a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier leaving port, and our little boat had to get the heck out of the way! That night we had dinner at Sizzler (yes Sizzler! we don't have them at home) and it was delicious. I am going to put it on my list of top ten places to eat when you are hungry (and McDonald's is NOT on that list!)

On Saturday we checked out after breakfast and headed for Sea World. Now THAT is an aquarium, and then some! It puts Vancouver's little eco-friendly "Green Peace demonstration of an aquarium" to absolute shame! In other words, we really enjoyed it LOL. Shamu(s) were cool, I touched a sting ray, picked up a star fish, smelled penguins and sea lions, and went deaf from seals barking. I could spend an entire day there, checking it all out - we were there for about 4 hours, which was pretty cool, too.

We dropped off out wonderful automobile at about 3:15, hugged and kissed it (did I already say that I gotta get me one of those? well, I do!), and jumped on the shuttle for the airport. I like San Diego airport almost as much as Bellingham or Abbotsford. One single runway (although it is apparently the busiest single-runway airport in North America), but the terminals have decent amenities. We sat near Starbucks, took advantage of the free wifi, and sipped a Strawberries and Creme Frappuccino. We were there early, so we went to a bar-style restaurant for some nachos, and boarded our plane at about 6PM. We arrived in Bellingham at about 9:30, and our friend Richard was there to pick us up. After a quick stop for duty-free liquor, gas, and getting our SUV back from Richard's place, we were home about 11. We went to bed much later, however, as we were still a bit wired from the trip.

In all, it was a great week, and although I missed our new place in White Rock a bit, it was really great to get away, and forget about work and stuff. It was really nice to know that we were coming home to White Rock, and not our last place :)

Later today we will get outside again and go for a walk, enjoy the rain, cold, and wind, and remember how much rain, cold, and wind we had in SoCal :)