San Diego

This past weekend Randy and I drove down to San Diego to attend the wedding of Jaime Jacinto and Andrea Kellner. Randy works with Jaime at Children's Hospital and has become good friends with him over the past year as they have enjoyed monthly poker nights together with other guys that work at the hospital. We left Friday morning with our great friends, Mike and Abi Alaniz. The traffic was HORRIBLE! It's usually about 5 1/2 hours from Fresno to San Diego...it took us almost 7 hours! YUK! But we got there without any car problems and checked into our hotel and then left to find dinner. And then an amazing thing happened...we got to explore the city and venture out WITHOUT our car!!! Not only did we get to take public transportation (the bus stop was a few hundred feet from our hotel and dropped us in the middle of Old Town), but a tram that runs on electricity, NOT a gas guzzling bus. I cannot tell you how sad it makes me to live in a city that doesn't make public transportation an inviting option. Yes, we have buses, and some of them are even "clean air" ones. However, Fresno's transportation circuit (which right now is ONLY buses) isn't time-effective enough to make sense to our hurry-up, over-busy society. I am convinced that Valley residents would much rather drive their gas-guzzling, super-sized SUVs, than plan an extra ten or twenty minutes into their routine to save money and gas while improving our air quality. I admit, I don't take public transportation here in Fresno either. But when I'm in a big city, like San Diego, that has their public transport system figured out, I love the convenience! I lived in Costa Rica for four months in college and got in a car a total of 3 times! And every time we visit friends in Portland, or San Francisco, the buses and trains get us in, out, and around downtown! So, back to the San Diego weekend...we took the train to Old Town (that's Randy in front of a huge nopales plant in Old Town square) and found the Old Town Mexican Café, about which we'd read such good reviews online! It was a bit of a wait...but well worth it! All four of us ordered the house specialty, carnitas (roasted shredded pork), served family style with beans, avocado, tomato, onion, cilantro, and hand-made flour and corn tortillas. Serve that up with a pitcher of margaritas, and you're looking at the perfect meal (aside from eating in Mike's mom's kitchen)! It was AMAZING! After dinner we walked around a little more and found a stand where a lady was making tortillas, churros, and buñuelos (fried tortillas sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar). We couldn't help but get a churro! We headed back to our hotel for a good night's sleep! The next morning we ventured into downtown on foot to find breakfast...we ended up at Hob Nob Hill, a restaurant that's been open since 1944. The waiters wore black pants and red kitchen coats and the waitresses were in black apron-dresses. There were even chandeliers from the ceiling! But it wasn't expensive...just good, home-style cooking. After that we packed up for a trip to the beach. We wanted to take the ferry across the harbor to Coronado Island, but because of time we drove across the bridge. We spent a couple hours at Imperial Beach. Randy and I have been to San Diego many times, but never visited the beach. Although the water isn't warm, it's not freezing (like at Pismo or Santa Cruz). We didn't even bring our suits though. We walked along the surf for quite a while (it's an amazingly long beach) and sat and read as well. Too bad we weren't able to stay for another week...the last Saturday of July, Imperial Beach hosts the U.S. Open Sandcastle Competition. Now that would be cool. But we were there for a wedding...which, speaking of, we had to get back to the hotel to get ready for. Jaime and Andrea got married at the Immaculata Church on the U.C. San Diego campus. It was a gorgeous setting! We met up with another of Randy's co-workers, Megahn (pictured to the left of Abi and I), who flew in that morning for the wedding. It was a beautiful, traditional Catholic wedding. After which we headed to the Bristol Hotel for the reception...a fabulous dinner, drinks, and dancing under the cloudy San Diego skyline. The reception was on the top floor, in their Starlight Ballroom, where the roof actually retracts! So you have a straight up view of the clouds! It was such a fun night! Sunday morning we woke up, packed up, grabbed a coffee and headed north. We were driving right past Dodgers Stadium on the way home anyways, SOOO...why not catch a game? At, say, 1:10 p.m.? I mean, why waste more gas, and have to find a babysitter for a whole other day, when you're right there? So we watched the Dodgers play the Mets...and unfortunately lose 4-5 in the 10th inning. But our seats were great; the weather was mild; and Randy went home with a great story to tell (check his blog for the details)! What a fun weekend! And what amazing family and friends we have to watch our kids while we were away. We've been able to "get away" two weekends in one month! The last time we'd gotten away without kids was June of 2005! Thank you so much Uncle Ben, Auntie Christa, and especially Grandma Arlene for taking care of the kiddos all weekend! We appreciate you sooo much...and the kids LOVE being with you!