Minnesota Trip, 2014, Day 1

Changes to our trip to Minnesota.  Sickness in family led us to Minnesota two and half weeks early. 

May 29, 2014, Thursday

We left home at 530 am and arrived at our hotel in Provo, Utah at 750 pm.  We put on 640 miles with a gas mileage of around 36.5 mpg with Hondo CRV.  Good weather and good roads…14 construction zones on Highway 15. 

Light McD’s breakfast, great turkey dinner lunch in St George, Utah at our usual first stop at the Cracker Barrel, great food.  Dinner here at the motel that we made ourselves from the ice chest.  Our hotel is outstanding for $68.00. Right on a river with mountains in the background. 

 

May 2014, San Diego Day 4

Homeward bound.  The cool weather and the firefighters have the set fires pretty much under control.  Nice drive home in right around 3 hours.  Great trip. 

 

May 2014, San Diego Trip, Day 3

Luke, Marisa, and Alex’s condo building near downtown San Diego.  Nice place to live in really nice weather year round.

Church this morning at the Rock Church.  Five services at the main church which Luke attends.  Long day for him.  Risa took us up to Cabrillo National Monument and in spite of the smoke from fires, it was a beautiful sight.  Mother and daughter enjoying each other’s company.

Nice afternoon nap and a long walk,  Leaving for home tomorrow.  Nice trip. 

 

May 2014, San Diego Birthday Trip, Day 1, 2

Risa’s B Day and with the kids now in California for the very first time in 8 years, it was time to visit them and celebrate.  Celebrate a birthday and tour San Diego.

DAY 1

To San Diego by car.  186 miles.  Gas $4.06.  It was a Friday noon when we backed out of our drive way and stopped at one of our local fast food restaurants and split a patty melt and fries.  You heard the word split as that was more than enough for us even though we could have eaten the whole thing.  Gotta be good once in a while. 

We expected bad traffic on this trip but not the way it turned out.  Very light traffic through the Antelope Valley, moderate traffic through San Bernardino area and and that continued all the way into San Diego.  Going out of San Diego was a different story.  Forty miles of bumper to bumper going north for the poor saps. 

The 40 miles were filled with smoke from the 10 brush fires around San Diego.  The green’s were screaming global warming but now it is coming out that at least eight of the ten were set.  Must be global cooling of some one’s brain.   

Risa had big steaming bowls of tortilla soup waiting for us when we got there.  Not a bad day at all considering that all of our driving was in infamous SoCal traffic. 

DAY 2 

The kids live in a condo near the heart of San Diego just below UC San Diego close to their work.  It is surprisingly quiet there but not as quiet as our foothill hide-away in the Antelope Valley.  However it close to everything.  Breakfast on Mission Beach at the Mission Restaurant.  The Pacific ocean on one side…one block and one block on the side the San Diego Bay.  Not a place to be if a tsunami comes in but.great food!

The girls take off shopping and a snack at a French Bakery in downtown and the guys load up the bicycle’s and a 12 mile pedal to the embarcadero.  Two hours touring the “Surprise”, “Star of India”, and two WWII submarines. My eight year old grandson put me to shame!

Then the Birthday Dinner.  We all met at home, got cleaned up and headed out to the Cheese Cake Factory.  Immediate seating at 4 p.m. on the patio with 72 degrees and a cool ocean breeze.  What a life.  Good food and service.