We flew from Minneapolis Friday morning. It’s been a couple years since I’ve flown anywhere. We wear our masks and so does everyone else. Its nice having the middle seat empty. Delta is the last airline still doing that and they’re stopping in May.
On the plane I crochet, watch Shietsel, read my New Yorker. I eat a muffin but nothing else. A 3 hour flight and we’re in San Diego.
Dan and Kelsey meet us at the airport. We haven’t seen them since July. We drop our bags at the hotel and then go to the house they rent. It’s in La Jolla, high over the ocean. You can't see the ocean from their house but it’s not far away. It’s in disrepair, built in the 1950’s. The owners are renovating it so the rent is cheap for this area.
We meet Rossy, their adorable puppy. She is all fur and spunk. She very friendly, and pretty well trained already especially for a baby that's only 14 weeks old. She's even mostly potty trained and least if you let her out right when she goes to the door!
We go to a poke restaurant for lunch. We sit outside eating poke and some of Lee's fish tacos because he ordered too much. Then we go back to the hotel and unpack and get organized. Its only a mile from their house so its very convienient. And its a Marriott Residence Inn so it has a small kitchen.
We take a walk to an overlook high above the ocean. Rossy hasn't had all of her shots yet so she's not allowed to walk around where other dogs might have been. They carry her in a doggie snuggly, but she's getting a little big for it. In another week she'll be able to walk around like a big dog. It’s chilly in the shade, hot in the sun. The views around are spectacular.
On Saturday I run around the UC San Diego campus in the early morning fog. I pull up my buff when people are near but not many people are out. It’s very hilly here but I keep the pace easy and don’t stress. I don’t know how much I will run while I’m here. I’ll try not to worry about it because 1 week won’t impact my training and the break may even help. But still.
Barb Lais lives in San Diego so she comes over and spends the day with us. She’s lived here for many years so she takes us on a tour. We go to downtown La Jolla. We park and walk to the water, see the sea lions and the caves. We find a restaurant where we sit outside at the bar for burgers and cocktails.
We take the car to the top of Mount Soledad and take in the amazing views.
Sunday morning my idea was that it would be nice to run along the beach. Nice and flat, right? Dan was going surfing, so we all accompanied him. Kelsey, Lee and Rossy hung out on the beach while Dan went surfing and I went for a run. Only I somehow chose a route that took me up on the cliffs overlooking the ocean! So much for flat! I ran for 5 miles south and then ran back. Very petty, and I managed to stay within the prescribed pace range for all but two of the miles without really working on it.
Later in the afternoon we go over to this place near their house where you can see the paragliders. Its beautiful to watch but I would never ever want to do it myself.
Dinner was at Din Tai Fung. It was very delicious as always. We got a LOT of dumplings, couldn’t finish them all.
Monday I went running, thinking I would only run 4 since we were going to the zoo in the afternoon. I ran too fast, and ended up running 5. On the way to the zoo we stopped at Nordstrom Rack so Dan could buy some shorts and Lee could buy a swim suit. I ended up buying some compression running shorts. We’re going sea kayaking on Tuesday and Lee and I needed something we could wear under a wetsuit, since we didn’t bring our bathing suits.
We stopped at a sandwich shop for lunch. Amazing sandwiches, mostly seafood, and garlic noodles. I got a ginger beer, made locally. Very gingery!
At all of these restaurants we have been sitting outside. We wear our masks until the food comes, and if there is table service we try to remember to put them back on when the waiter comes to our table.
Vaccine availability in California has just opened up to everyone 16 and older and there seems to be a scramble for the vaccine. Dan and Kelsey managed to get appointments in Yuba City, outside Sacramento, for Thursday, but that’s an hour and a half from San Francisco, so they keep trying to find something closer, or along the drive back on Wednesday.
The zoo was great. We walked all over, seeing monkeys, birds, tigers, elephants. The best was probably the polar bear, who found a carrot right by the glass viewing wall and proceeded to enjoy it right there.
We walked a lot. The others were tired, so you can imagine how I felt after 10 miles on Sunday and 5 miles that morning! The San Diego zoo is expensive. The tickets are good for the entire day, but after 3 hours or so we were spent. We didn’t get our money’s worth but that’s ok.
I have to say, most people in California wear their masks, and wear them properly. I saw maybe 10% of the adults at the zoo not covering their noses, or pushing their masks below their chins. I’m trying not to be so judgmental. After all, if we didn’t have our shots I wouldn’t feel comfortable in a crowd like that at all. We were in the open air, and it wasn’t too hard to stay away from other people, but still.
After the zoo we went back to the house to get Rossy, who had been cooped up in her crate for awhile. She really is a good little dog. They are spending a lot of time on training and it is paying off. They keep her on a house line so she can’t wander off and have accidents, and they work on commands, with lots and lots of little treats. Dan is her favorite, and she cries when he leaves the room, lol.
We went to a nearby outdoor shopping center and sat in the sunshine. Some people got ice cream, I got a Blue Bottle cappuccino. Dan bought cheese fries at Shake Shack which we all shared. Take a fry, dip it in cheese and then in bacon bits. Mmmm!
Dan and Kelsey got a line on what they hoped might be extra vaccines at a Walgreens 15 minutes away, so we watched Rossy while they tried that. No vaccine, oh well. They will try again on our drive to San Francisco.
On Tuesday Lee and I went to La Mesa to visit Barb and meet her friend Carla. La Mesa is a cute town east of downtown San Diego. We didn’t go to San Diego proper this time, maybe next time we visit.
Barb lives in a nice apartment, very close to the center of La Mesa. We walked to lunch at a nearby restaurant, Farmer’s Table. At first they seated us inside and even though it was nice and airy I didn’t feel comfortable and asked for an outside table. We are all vaccinated but are the servers? Barb and Carla were definitely more laid back about Covid protocols then me. Carla even shook hands with me when we met, and then I tried to discreetly wash my hands. I know it’s stupid.
The restaurant was pretty good. At the end Lee excused himself to go to the bathroom. He was gone a long time. I started to get a bit concerned. I could see several of the servers gathered near the restrooms, which were unisex single units. Finally Lee reappeared, with a napkin wrapped around his bloody finger. He had gotten trapped in the bathroom! The door wouldn’t open and the handle fell off the doorknob! They were all just milling about, unsure of what to do, so Mr. Engineer took the door off it’s hinges and freed himself! That’s how he cut his hand. He said the supervisor kept saying, “He broke the door! He broke the door,” until he said, “If you say that I broke the door one more time I will kick the fucking door down!” That’s pretty extreme for Lee!
They gave him a couple bandaids for his finger, and apologized but that was it. I think they should have comped our lunch. After all if Lee hadn’t freed himself what were they going to do? Call the fire department? I’m still a little steamed about it.
After our return from La Mesa it was time for our sea kayaking adventure. This was my idea, but when I suggested it I hadn’t bargained on having to get through the Pacific surf. As it came closer and closer to our turn to go out I became more and more nervous. It actually wasn’t that hard, but it was VERY bumpy! Wham! Wham! Wham! I said some nasty words along the way.
When we finally got past the surf it was fun. We saw dolphins, sea lions, swimmers (!). We kayaked over to the La Jolla caves, and even went into one of the caves, very briefly, with one of the guides in the water helping to guide our canoe and make sure we didn’t drift in too far, or hit a wall.
We kayaked a little over 2 miles total. And at the end we had to get back in through the surf. The guide said to lean back as we went over the waves to keep the nose of the kayak up and to steer into the curve if we start to turn. We tried but we ended up flipping anyway. The water was only like waist high so it wasn’t dangerous but it was still a bit upsetting.
I staggered out of the water. I was shaking and I just couldn’t stop. I thought I was cold but Dan said later that he thought I was in shock and I think he was right. I had a wetsuit on and they had warm water at the surf shop but the water felt cold to me and didn’t help. And I didn’t have any of the other signs of hypothermia. I wasn’t confused and I could walk just fine in spite of the shaking.
I didn’t really stop shaking until I got back to the hotel and got in a hot shower. After that I was fine, so who knows.
I like kayaking, but I’m not doing it again if it means going through surf like that.
We had carry out pizza for dinner. I had a couple glasses of wine. I needed them!
Quite a lot of adventures in between good meals! So happy for Dan! xoxo
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