America’s Finest City Delivers
Our current adventure found us flying, not driving, to San Diego to visit Darcie. At 4:30 am Tuesday, August 2nd, Terri, Dylan, Cayden, Addison and myself, piled into the Outback and headed for JFK long term parking. We had been planning this trip for months. Darcie would be our tour guide & travel agent for 9 days of fun in the sun. She worked with all her friends and connections to ensure that we got to see and experience as much of San Diego as we could in such a short visit.
Cayden’s job was to find our terminal and gate
I have to admit that I looked at our travel day including a six hour non-stop flight with a little trepidation, given the current state of air travel. I felt I would need all of my experience from years of business travel to navigate this party of five through the first leg of our adventure. To my surprise the drive to JFK, parking, air-train to the terminal, security and walk to the gate, were all pretty simple and uneventful. Once we boarded and took our seats, things changed and my heart sank. I overheard a flight attendant softly say to her colleague “I don’t know why they even started boarding…”. It wasn’t long before the Captain announced that his First Officer would not make the flight. Now, in today’s air-travel world that’s almost certainly a disaster. I thought six hour delay and possible flight cancellation. However, we had Captain “Johnny” from Delta Airlines. While we all were de-planing, he worked quickly to negotiate with the gate agents, Delta administration and the JFK tower, to locate and reschedule an incoming cockpit crew. The incoming crew parked their plane at the gate next to us and walked across the tarmac out of our site and into our plane. We re-boarded about 45 minutes later and after a short delay for ground crew, took off two hours later than scheduled. Upon landing in San Diego in the early afternoon, I thanked the pilots and crew for saving our vacation.
Addison’s job was to be too cute!
Our Tuesday afternoon was designed to relax and unwind after the long travel day. We spent the time at Darcie’s condo getting Dylan and the kids settled in and then heading to the community pool for a swim. It was nice to have the pool basically to ourselves and the kids immediately took it over. It was a perfect way for them to release the pent up energy from the flight. Terri and my accommodations are the luxurious home of Stephen and Ann Luby. They’ve just finished a remodel and the result is stunning. And of course in true Luby fashion the wine was waiting to be uncorked. The kids came over for a quick pizza party and then its time to get some shuteye as jet lag began to kick in. Tomorrow the beach…
On Wednesday morning we headed down to Silver Strand State Beach south of Coronado. Auntie Darcie really knows how to do the beach. She has all the equipment to make your visit comfortable, as clean as possible, with plenty of shade, and all the food & beverages you’ll need. Darcie‘s friend Karen brought her two boys Roy(5) and Henry(3), and the grandkids made quick friends and had tons of fun. Cayden and Roy spent hours romping in the surf. Addie and Henry played together in the sand making sand castles and burying Dylan. What kid hasn’t buried their dad on the Beach.
By mid-afternoon we had enough beach for all and packed up the gear, rinsed off, and headed to Karen and Chris’s “Compound”, just north of Imperial Beach. The Compound has an acre of fun for all. The grandkids really loved meeting the chickens, goats and tortoises. and played endlessly in Roy and Henry’s exciting and educational environment. Cheeseburgers were the call for dinner, which was the perfect compliment to a day at the beach. We had a great time sending the four kids on treasure hunts throughout the back of the compound. At dusk Chris lit a big fire in the firepit and we relaxed for the rest of the evening with fire and an “on fire” sunset. What an amazing first full day in America’s Finest City.
