San Diego, part 1

Off to San Diego!  Someone is excited!!

San Diego is an easy (albeit rather ugly) 5 hour drive from our house, and it boasts temps which are 20-30 degrees cooler than ours in the summertime.  Sold!  

We hit the road right away Friday morning and were there by lunch time.

My friend Allison was also taking a road trip with her family this summer, so we geniuses swapped a bunch of car-appropriate toys.

Some of the ugly.

 Getting closer!

And then there was this!  Ahhh, I love the beach.  

Pacific Beach was only 1.8 miles from our apartment for the weekend.  We found it too crowded for our beach enjoyment (opted for Coronado Island, coming later), but the boardwalk was wonderful that afternoon.  Being out there, I kind of realized that, with the exception of swimming, we (like everyone else in Phoenix) have been pretty cooped up indoors this summer.  We hadn't just taken a long walk in months -- something we used to do even in the MN winter.  It felt soooo good to be out!

Walking out onto the pier.  I could have stood there and watched the surfers all day.

The seagulls are bigger than our dogs...

After a long time outside, we headed to the apt for dinner.  And Nolan enjoyed his first-ever puffed Cheeto.  Steph would probably say his life was now complete.

 *****

The next morning (Saturday) we woke up to a high of 68 and partly cloudy.  Pinch me.

I was eager to hit the beach, buuuuuut we knew Nolan probably wouldn't last there all day long...  So we opted first to go to a playground -- and our host had left us a couple of coupons to the Natural History Muesum (something which Mikel in particular always loves), so we headed downtown.

Thanks to me, our "Planned Days of Visit" to "Brought Bottles of Sunscreen" ratio was 2:1.

Vacations sure have changed.....  Also worth noting is that Nolan is currently obsessed with elephants -- though he calls them "daddies". ???  Weirdest case of word confusion ever.

Wanting nothing to do with the toddler-sized play structure, he made a beeline for the big kid gear.

Loving the green-ness...

Mikel is, of course, a great dad all the time, but it's never more evident than on a playground.  He makes it 10X more fun!

DIZZY!

Walking to the NHM from the park took us through this lovely little art district which boasted booths and classes.  One of the vendors told us they were anticipating a wedding being held there later that evening.  Can you imagine??

National Geographic currently has is a special "Real Pirates" exhibit at the NHM, so this nice pirate wench greeted us at the door with some pieces of eight.

Ahoy, matey! 

Photos weren't permitted in the exhibit, but it was really spectacular. It held over 200 artifacts, including cannons, swords, coins, gold, and jewelry, recovered from the first authenticated pirate ship discovered in U.S. waters (named the "Whydah").  The Whydah transformed from a slave ship to a super successful pirate ship before sinking in a storm in the early 1700s -- at the time of which she apparently carried the bounty from more than 50 captured ships, and was said to be making her final voyage home where the captain's young love was waiting for him.  

Of particular interest was a life-sized replica of they ship with "typical" scenes displayed in the rooms using entirely too realistic-looking wax figures (including making weapons and a doctor performing an amputation -- yeek).  Also a huge, overflowing display of the actual coins from that ship, or what you think of as "pirate treasure".  And for the curious.... pirates apparently didn't usually bury their treasure.  They were too busy squandering it once they got to land.  :)

So there's your NatGeo lesson of the day.

Again with the "daddy"...

Up next: Coronado Island.  Finally!!