Our Winter Vacation: Part one

I know, I know; I've been home a week and I haven't written about the trip to San Diego yet. Now I know I shouldn't schedule myself to go back to work the day after I get back from a trip. It's hard to get back on track! Anyway, if you have clicked over to my Flickr page, you may have noticed some pictures there. I'm going to post them here, as well as a few others.

The story really starts before we even left for the airport. As a bit of back story, I should mention that the door on Jenn's car is having locking problems. It's locks just fine, but it doesn't like to unlock so, at times, you can get locked in the car. Cool trick, huh? I had planned not to take her car to the airport for that reason, not to mention the truck is too small for our two carry-on bags.

So, as Jenn was taking a shower, I took my car to get my haircut. I couldn't look as messy as I did on our trip; it wouldn't be right. As I pulled into the parking space, I turned the car off and took the key out of the ignition...or so I had planned. The key would not come out. In the past few days before this event, I had noticed the key sticking in the ignition and planned to look into it after our trip. Actually, Jenn had trouble getting out of the ignition a few days before when she used my car to drop the kids off at school. I almost forgot about that.

Anyway, as I jiggled, wiggled, and jangled the key trying to get it out of the ignition, I was quickly losing my temper. I swore at the car for a few minutes and finally left to go back home; I certainly wasn't going to leave the car with key in the ignition. Not to mention the fact that you can't lock the doors with the key in the ignition. As I was driving home, I was getting more irritated because I realized that I needed to put the car in the garage while we were gone. As I'm sure I've mentioned before, our garage has about enough room for half of a car, thanks to all the junk in there.

I went into the house, slammed a few doors, told Jenn what I was happened, and went in the garage to throw some things around to make room for the car. After about 20 minutes I cleared a path for the car and pulled it into the garage. As I got out of the car, I realized something. Can you guess? Yep, the key came out of the ignition. I was actually a bit more pissed at first. Then I had a plan. Maybe the key was worn too much? Maybe the valet key we never used would work? Sure enough it does, and still has.

One quick funny thing. As we left the house, after saying good-bye to the kids, the dog, and Jenn's parents, we pulled out of the driveway and headed down the street. All was fine until I realized I put the old key in the ignition again. I drove up the street, out of view of the kids watching out the window, then turned the car off. Luckily, the key came out. I switched back and we continued on to the airport. Phew!

I'll skip ahead past some minor details, since I seem to be going a bit long. Also, this may be a multi-part post.

On the plane, Jenn and I were in the very last two rows, each in the middle seat of our respective rows. Fun! The guys I was sharing the row with were fine, except one guy had a major cold. He was sneezing and coughing nearly constantly. But I will say this, he was very respectful about it. When he sneezed he turned away to the window, and did the same as he blew his nose. You don't see that courtesy on airplanes anymore. I feel bad for the person in the window seat on the next leg, though.

We didn't get to see anything on the night we got to San Diego. We took a cab (50 bucks!) to the lodge, checked in, ordered up some room service, and went to bed. Oh, were both a little ticked off by one thing. Why does the USA Network not have a west coast feed? We were planning to watch Psych at 10:00pm local time. We figured that would be the correct time for it out on the coast. No, it wasn't. We were not happy.

Our first full day, Saturday, was a little on the drizzly side. We got up early, thanks to still being on Chicago time, and got ourselves some breakfast, then headed out to the course.

This show was actually taken from a balcony at the lodge. We weren't allowed to bring cameras on the course. (More on that later). Even though it started off mostly sunny, it did rain quite a bit. One thing I noticed out there; you can see the rain coming from so far away, it's hard to judge when you are going to get wet. Hint: earlier than you think.

Since it was so rainy, we didn't stay on the course long that day. We walked over to the hotel next door to get some lunch. We had to branch out a little bit. At first it was really sunny when we went into the restaurant, so I was thinking we were missing out, then the clouds showed up and it started pouring. I did get a few shots before that happened though.

The second shot was through a window, if you couldn't tell.

That night we went out to dinner at Jack's Ocean Room in downtown La Jolla. We took an eco- taxi, which was a Prius, however the guy was gunning it so much that I don't think the electric motor ever kicked in. We also got to see a large tree blocking the main road through town on the way to Jack's. It seems they really did have a lot of rain in the week leading up to our trip. They couldn't have kept up the record heat for one more week?

After dinner we walked around the area and went to Powell's Sweet Shoppe (notice the 'e', it lets you know it is old fashioned) to see what we could find for the kids. Let me tell you, if you want a wide selection of Pez dispensers, this is your place. I didn't get a picture of them, but I did get some pictures of two things I found interesting, and appropriate.

The first was Over the Hill energy drink. I though it was a good find since we were celebrating my 40th birthday. A little early mind you; I'm not there yet.

The other was bacon flavored toothpicks, because, well, this is the Internet; where bacon rules all.

That is all for now; I'm sure you are bored enough. Tomorrow; more pictures, and words. Exciting, I know.