Greetings from sunny San Diego, California. The 'shift' key on my bluetooth keyboard isn't working very well, so forgive me if i'm not great with capitals - they take a lot of effort.
today is day 3 of our vacation, and so far it has been a good time. The girls and i actually left Michigan on wednesday because our flight was out of chicago and our friends Rose and Chris offered to let us stay at their house (in addition to leaving our car there for the duration). We had an uneventful drive to chicagoland, had a nice dinner and relaxed evening watching a movie, and then took a cab to the airport thursday morning without a hitch.
the time in the airport was about what one would expect; we didn't eat lunch there because we were full from breakfast, and we brought snacks for the plane, so we were pretty well set. the flight itself left about 30 minutes late because we were 1) waiting for some late arrivals, and 2) waiting for a clear runway. the pilot was funny and friendly-sounding and said he would fly at 32,00 feet so we could go faster. and we did, because despite the delays, we landed at our original arrival time at LAX. we caught an immediate shuttle to the car rental place, used the "express" servie to rent because i had reserved a car, and picked out a cute red nissan Rogue (?) hatchback, and drove away. into an hour of LA rush-hour traffic.
Thankfully, i had Genevieve navigating with my GPS, and we were tired and punchy enough to laugh our way through the traffic for the next 75 minutes or so. we are staying near San diego (el cajon) so we had to drive 130 miles after we got off the plane. The girls didn't want to bother trying to find a place for dinner, and by the time we rolled in at 8 local time (11 on our inner clocks) we were too tired to eat, so we went to bed.
day 2: i woke up around 4:30 and couldn't go back to sleep - an expected result of going to bed at 9, i suppose - and the girls got up closer to 6:30 or 7. We found a local place to eat breakfast (we hadn't wanted to stop for groceries the night before, either) which was not crowded and very good. i still have leftovers in the fridge from that. we went back to the Airbnb place we are renting, which is a tiny place above a detached garage with one bedroom and a fold-out couch in the living room. There is plenty of space for the 3 of us, though.
after that we got ready and navigated our way to the San Diego Zoo, and got there just as it opened at 9. i think it got to almost 100 degrees; even if it didn't, we were pretty hot and worn out after 6 hours of walking around the very hilly, very scenic (in two senses - beautifully laid out, and no straight way to get anywhere) and well-tended park. we declined to spend $12 each on a sandwich. we had brought out cooling towels and sun-blocking sleeves; i've never tried wetting the sleeves down before, but we did yesterday, and it was AMAZING. highly recommended for keeping cool and preventing sunburn.
There were so many cool animals. Sometimes we walked through exhibits and read all the info; sometimes we wandered by, appreciating the overall impression, and sometimes we say around and watched the monkeys playing or whatever. of course the pandas had us gawking and cooing. There weren't any babies there but the adults are so cute that one can hardly help it. The elephants were another favorite. The gift shops are always so neat - in between the kitsch, there are some really nice things, so i picked up some presents for people at home (already!).
after 6 hours we were tired so we came home. the girls hardly complained at all, even though we were all a bit grouchy from the heat and hungry for dinner. we landed at home for about an hour (and spent some of that time watching youtube videos of baby pandas) and then i headed out to get groceries. i had to go to two places to get everything i needed, and when I got home and fixed dinner it was about 7. That dinner tasted better than anything i've eaten in a while.
I feel very blessed to have the kids i have - they are good-natured and mature, as well as funny and charming. this while vacation would have a different feel if they were complaining or bickering, but they continue to get along as well as ever.
i think i will leave this hear and talk about today in another post. Thanks for your kind thoughts and prayers for us. We are having a lot of fun.
love,
wb
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