Saturday, July 4, 2009

ATL-SAN

We were fortunate enough to spend June 25 - July 2 in beautiful San Diego, CA. Mary had her annual investigators meeting there, and we stayed a few days extra just for fun.

June 25 - June 29 = Meetings, meetings, meetings. But we enjoyed the company of Mary's co-workers and several great dinners together. And being in beautiful Mission Bay we enjoyed morning runs along the marina, evening walks to the beach and bunny sightings galore!

June 30 - Vacation begins! Day 1, we enjoyed a lovely morning in Mission Bay, after settling the great coffee debacle with the crappy in-room machine, we picked up the rental car (all they had left in mid-sized was a PT Cruiser, ha!) then trekked over to see the bunnies, only to find that in mid-morning just one brave bunny was out of the brush.

We drove out to Coronado and took the long way through Silver Strand, which was just lovely! We had a delicious picnic lunch on the beach, be-friended a seagull, and then toured the historic Hotel del Coronado. The movie 'Some Like it Hot,' starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon was filmed here in the 50s. Mary even recreated the famous photo of Marilyn on the beach ;)


We spent some time on the beach in Coronado watching the kids play in the surf, but after dipping a toe into the frigid 60 degree waters, opted for sunning and no swimming ;) After we'd had our fill of beach time, we drove out to Point Loma to see the lighthouse and the Cabrillo National Monument. It was a great view from up there.

Then we made our way to the Gliderport at Torrey Pines. It was getting late, but there were still a handful of paragliders out so we got quite a show. Then we turned our attention to the beach below, known as Black's Beach, but part of the Torrey Pines State Beach. We later found out that it's the last nude beach in San Diego - which explains why we saw so many 'nakes' on the beach below. Tee hee. The view from the top of the cliffs there was just amazing. We took plenty of photos, including this great one:

After dinner at the In'n Out Burger (Mary's first time!), we called it a night.

July 1 - We drove out to La Jolla for sea kayaking and a tour of the seven caves. We were on the 1:30 trip, so we had plenty of time to check out the beaches in la jolla cove first. We got to see the seals at the children's pool and bird rock and the tide pools - so fun. Then we headed over to La Jolla Kayak for our trip, met our group and guide and headed out. We had a waterproof camera for our trip so we got to take some pictures while we were out on the boat and it was great!!! Jess, our guide, explained the points of interest along the coastline and the history of the seven caves, as well as info on the marine life - from the black diving birds to the garabaldi fish and leopard sharks and of course - our favorite - the sea lions!!! We got to venture into a coupe of the caves, which was very cool. After our tour we grabbed some lunch and headed back to Encinitas to meet Matt so the boys could do a little surfing. They had a decent afternoon on the waves and we drove to Oceanside to meet Papa Joe for dinner.

July 2 - We loved La Jolla so much we went back for a second day! We were supposed to go to the zoo but were just too taken with the caves ;) We took the waterproof camera, gathered our nerves, and jumped in! We swam into the caves and got to see a ton of garabaldi fish. We had a great time and spent the rest of the afternoon walking the gorgeous beaches in La Jolla. We had dinner in Old Town and spent a quiet night in the hotel watching movies and snuggling after a cold day in the water!

July 3 - Homeward bound! We took an early morning flight and picked up the chi baby, who was soooo happy to see us again! ;)

You can see pics of our adventures here.