Leaving on a Jet Plane

On Tuesday after a glorious and busy week I took Jennifer (my youngest daughter) and her boyfriend Paul to San Diego International Airport for their return home trip to Wisconsin. I had not seen them since the end of October, when I headed south for the winter. It was so nice to spend quality time with them again. But as always it’s hard and sad to say so long till next time, when once again we can get together. As I mentioned this was a glorious but very hectic week, doing all the touristy things and enjoying the nice weather. This will be a photo highlight of some of the things we did in places we visited. Many of these are things that I’ve done for the first time in the area, purposely having save them for their arrival. Every day we did something exciting and fun things, making for long but memorable days. Jennifer is the type of girl that will keep going and wants to get the very most out of her time went on vacation. She had me and Paul tired out by the second day, we put about 7 miles walking each and every day. I know this because Jennifer has one of those fancy watches that tell you how far you walked any given day. The highlights here will not necessarily be in the order that we did them, but that is really not important. Here’s a photo of Jennifer and Paul with the San Diego skyline in the background. On the first full day when we awoke, they were calling for rain and it was overcast. So I suggested we had in the La Jolla and check out the park and visit the sea lions. Here’s some photos as we enjoyed the beautiful coastline and all of what nature has to offer. After spending some quality time and having a wonderful lunch we headed back in to downtown San Diego. And with it still being off-and-on overcast and a little on the cool side. There was still a call for rain but we never did see any. We decided to take in a couple museums. First we went to the Midway Aircraft Carrier Museum right down on the bay. A few years ago I had been on an aircraft carrier Museum in Charleston South Carolina. I believe it was the same class as the Midway, both of them dating back to World War II. These ships are very interesting and we had a great time exploring. Paul checking out some of the aircraft on the decks.

Jennifer got the practice her flight deck skills of directing the planes. And me and Jennifer just happy to have quality time together.

Jennifer with her new guy, its funny women all seem to like men in uniform. After our time on the Midway, we headed down the road a little ways the Maritime Museum. This consists of several different types of sailing vessels to explore. There’s a sailing scooter the Star of India. Deemed the oldest active sailing ship in the world. It’s a three mass steel hauled schooner that was built in the mid-1800s. It had sailed all over the world lastly being used is a salmon fishing vessel in Alaska. We got to go on a couple different submarines, a “Cold War Russian Sub” and a more modern “US Sub” decommissioned in 2007. Here Paul is on the deck of the USS Dolphin.

There is a reproduction of the 1500 Spanish Galleon used by the Explorer (Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo). The first European Explorer to sail and discover the Western American coast. He was the European Explorer who first discovered modern-day San Diego.

 Jennifer lounging on one of the beautiful wood benches on the passenger ferry. Me and Paul checking out some of the artillery.

Another fine sailing vessel still used today for teaching the skills of sailing, with the Russian sub in the background. Unlike Paul, Jennifer loves to pose for photos. On other day we spent a busy full day at the San Diego County Zoo, checking out the lions, tigers and bears. Got to see the giant pandas, San Diego Zoo one of only four in the United States that has these beautiful animals. Got to see some cool gorillas. Lots of beautiful birds. These little guys were so cute as they watched the construction going on in the background. 

And I could go on and on with lots are beautiful photos , but I will not bore you here. Just one  more of the kids in the beautiful gardens.

On another day we went on the whale watching cruise and got to see a few. But we did get to see as many as I did when I went by myself a few months earlier. They now on their way northward bound and are a little more spread out and often harder to find. But it was a beautiful day to be on the water and we all got a little sunburned. Here’s a photo of me and Jennifer as we headed out of the harbor. A few photos of the whales we did see. A nice shot of the lighthouse on the point as we come back into the harbor. We spent another fun filled day at sea world, got the some beautiful photos of the polar bears.

Jennifer got to ham it up a bit. Got to see a nice killer whale show. It is something to see how high they can jump. Giant aquariums full of beautiful fish and sea turtles.

Another day we went to the San Diego Zoo “Safari Park”. This is a park separate from the county zoo. It is in a much larger area set up to be like an African Safari. I enjoyed the relaxed more opened feel this park even though it had a small a variety of animals. It felt like you were on the wilds of Africa. You could pay extra and go on a Safari ride that would take you right up and feed the giraffes. On other days, We spent time at the beach. We get the check out the sand castles at Del Coronado Hotel a beautiful old hotel opened in 1888. Spent time at Balboa Park, where Jennifer checked out some of the sculptures that the kids play on. She still just a big kid at heart, Paul admiring another sculpture.

Jennifer being a beautiful butterfly. One of Jennifer high on the bluffs with San Diego in the background.  As you can tell I think they had a pretty good week, I know I sure did. Well that’s it for now. I have one more week to work here at Potrero. Get all my chores done, cleaning and packing up so that, I can start my vacation time. From here I will be heading up to Santa Barbara, CA, to spend three or four days exploring. And then I will be heading up to the San Francisco area for two or three weeks. My sister Bonnie will be coming to San Francisco for the better part of a week. So we will be doing a lot more touristy things than. So lots more adventures to come (stay tuned). I do not have any work camp jobs scheduled until June. So I’m looking forward to some serious exploring of northern California and Oregon. Take care and safe travels to all, Rick 🙂

 

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