tonyandkirsten.org

The continuing story of our trip to San Diego:

Monday, March 14th: Tony checks into his conference and attends a few sessions while Madeline and I explore the Gaslamp District (the area of downtown we are staying in), Seaport Village (a touristy area of shops and restaurants) and walk along the harbor. We enjoyed sushi from a mall food court for lunch and ate at a nice Italian place for dinner. San Diego has lots of outdoor dining — it seems nearly every restaurant has tables on a patio, sidewalk or courtyard. We’re finding this to be really nice when dining with Madeline, since she can make more noise while still not disturbing very many people!

Tuesday, March 15th: Instead of attending sessions at the conference, Tony has a meeting to attend at Scripps Research Institute to meet with the developers of some software he uses in his research. Meanwhile, I visit “Old Town,” which, not surprisingly, is one of the oldest parts of the city. Many original buildings are now part of a state park and contain shops, museums and restaurants. Tony caught up with Madeline and I for lunch at a Mexican restaurant in the park. While Tony goes back to the conference in the afternoon, Madeline and I relax and run a couple of errands to pick up things we need from a grocery store. We stay in and eat leftovers for dinner while Tony works on his presentation for the conference.

Wednesday, March 16th: Tony planned to be at the conference all day, including a lunch meeting so Madeline and I headed to Balboa Park. This is a truly amazing place! It’s a 1200 acre park in the middle of the city with dozens of museums, gardens, performing arts venues and sports facilities, plus the San Diego zoo. There really is something for every interest here. Madeline and I visited a free art museum, a few gardens and a photography museum that turns out to be rather disappointing since most of it was closed for an exhibit switch. After Tony’s day is finally over and his presentation is behind him, we all go for fish ‘n chips at the Tin Fish and then we share an amazing sundae at the Ghiradelli soda fountain. Even Madeline gets in on the action with her first (very small) taste of ice cream. She would definitely have eaten more if we would have let her!

Today: We had most of the day to be tourists together, since the conference was winding down and Tony only wanted to attend a few sessions in the morning. We went back to Balboa Park since Tony was interested in seeing it too. We spent most of the time just wandering around and admiring the landscaping and architecture. While wandering around we discovered an area of artists’ studios and we spent a while watching someone learning to blow glass. We ended up purchasing a beautiful handmade vase from that studio.

After taking an afternoon break in the hotel room while Madeline napped, we headed for Tijuana! It was a trolley ride of a little over half and hour both ways to get there and back, plus a bit of walking to get where we needed to be. It was a pretty interesting experience, and something I am glad to have done. I had never been out of the US, so at least I can say I have now been to another country. Tijuana is obviously highly commercialized, and full of many people trying to make a buck…many honestly by selling food and trinkets, some probably less honestly. It was heartbreaking to see small children trying to sell you flowers and jewelry and having to say no, knowing that it might just be a ploy or distraction of some sort and that even if it isn’t, you certainly couldn’t say yes to all of them. As you walk by, everyone from taxi drivers to shop keepers yell for your business. After walking for several blocks down the main commercial street, we turned down a side street to try and find a quieter, less touristy restaurant for dinner. We found a small diner and went in. The staff of the diner were warm and friendly and the food was great. Madeline got to try avocado chunks and jello for the first time, and she loved them both. After dinner we headed back to the US, where we didn’t even need our birth certificates at the border checkpoint. I guess Iowa drivers licenses are believable enough to prove we are US citizens!

Tomorrow we start our journey home. We fly from San Diego to Dallas to Chicago, and we’ll drive back to Iowa on Saturday! It’s been a great trip but I will be glad to be home.

If you are curious…here’s the play-by-play of our trip so far

Saturday, March 12th: After a fairly uneventful drive to Chicago the previous night, we fly out of O’Hare at a little after 9am for a non-stop flight to San Diego. It was a flight of about four hours and twenty minutes, and Madeline was, much to my surprise and pleasure, was really good on the flight. She slept for about the first hour and was fairly happy to play, eat, and smile at other passengers for the rest of the trip.

After grabbing a quick lunch at “Baja Fresh” (a fast food Mexican restaurant) we settled into our hotel room and did some driving around. Knowing that Panera would have free wireless internet, we drove to the one Panera location, about 20 minutes north of our hotel. The wi-fi worked only marginally on our laptop. We then got a few groceries for the week and stopped by a Target to see if we could pick up a cheap portable crib or pack-n-play for Madeline to sleep in. We had discovered that the hotel wanted to charge us $10 per night to rent a crib, and since we were staying for six nights, we knew we could buy something for far less than $60. Our decision to try and find something cheaper was very worthwhile: I found a returned pack-n-play on clearance for $20 after tax!

Sunday, March 13th: Upon the invitation and suggestion of an old-friend we drove to Los Angeles for the day to attend church at Kairos and do a little bit of exploring and sight-seeing. We left early enough in the morning that we didn’t hit much traffic and made the drive in just about exactly two hours, including a brief jaunt off the interstate to get our morning caffeine from a tiny drive-thru coffee hut. Visiting Kairos was a great experience. They are meeting in a section of a wonderful old church building, which they have very tastefully decorated and furnished. The music was great and the portion of JR Woodward’s message I was able to hear was very interesting (I missed a great deal of the message taking care of Madeline, since she was hungry and mothers in church comfort rooms seem to universally talk during messages!)

We didn’t catch my friend Heather at the Kairos service (I didn’t realize they had two services, and had previously assumed we would just see her there), and had to leave a message when calling her cell phone. We still want to at least see Hollywood and grab some lunch before heading back to San Diego, also knowing that by killing a little bit of time Heather might give us a call back. So what do we do? Without a map, we start driving around with little more than a hunch as to where to find the Hollywood sign and those famous sidewalk stars. After maybe 20 minutes or so of driving we know we are in the right area but haven’t hit the jackpot. We’re so hungry we get drive-thru burgers for lunch from a fast food chain we’ve not heard of before, and soon after Heather calls. We found out we were only a block or two from the main “touristy” part of Hollywood, and she agrees to meet us at a nearby intersection in about 45 minutes.

We spend a while walking around hanging out with Heather and and a friend of hers that Tony knew from a previous conference but I had never met before. We saw the stars-in-the-sidewalk and the famous sign…and those were about the only things in Hollywood we really cared to see. We started our drive back, and ended up stopping at an outlet mall to look for a sport coat for Tony to wear during his presentation. We scored a pretty good deal on a jacket for him and also found a new pair of Khaki pants for me.

On the way back we stopped in the town of Oceanside for dinner. We stumbled across “Rockin’ Baja Lobster,” a restaurant right along the harbor with outdoor dining. It’s a chain in this area, but the food was wonderful and new to us. We got a “bucket” filled with well seasoned chicken, beef, shrimp and lobsters (small lobsters — a warm water variety from the pacific, apparently) served along side rice and beans. Yum!!!

Wow…that’s a lot of writing already…I’ll continue with the recounting of our adventures tomorrow!