Our Rather Simple Yet Chaotic Life: May 2006

Finally finished putting things back together after being gone for a week. Grass was what seemed to be nearly a foot long and Lisa is just finishing the laundry. I'm gonna try to give a pretty thorough update so here we go.

We landed in San Diego around 9:00pm after spending all day in the air or in airports. Picked up our car that I reserved through priceline for $25 a day which happened to be a rental from National Car Rental. National has a pretty cool policy of checking you in and directing you to an area where your class of car is located. You merely look at the options, load up your luggage and drive off in the car of your choice. We had the choice of a Chrysler 300, Pacifica, Magnum or a Buick LaCrosse. I opted for the Chrysler 300 because we needed the extra luggage space. We had about a 15 minute drive to our hotel which was a Holiday Inn Express (the pictures are much nicer than the hotel).

We spent Monday at Sea World. Since the closed the Sea World in the Cleveland area a few years ago, we thought that this may be one of Shawn only chances to see the big Killer Whale. We also ended up making reservations for Sea World's lunch with Shamu. The food may have been the best that we had on the entire trip. My favorite was a shrimp creole type dish which I thought was strange seeing that we were at Sea World; I felt kinda guilty eating seafood at an amusement part that was built around sea life. The guilty feeling passed after the first bite. Lunch was very good but the draw was Shamu and his trainers put on a little private show for us and we were about 8 feet from the large whale.

Sea World in San Diego is pretty much the same as the one in Aurora Ohio that I can remember except that the one in S.D. also has a few rides. Shawn was amazed at the water ride and insisted on going on the ride. Shawn was so giddy I could hardly restrain him from jumping in front of the line. The excitement soon turned to fear as we rode up the first hill and then dropped down the water filled slide. If that wasn't enough, the water part of the ride ended in a dark elevator-type shaft and we were lifted up to a point that was slightly higher than the first hill of the ride and to even my surprise, the water ride turned into a rollercoaster. Not a Cedar Point type rollercoaster but a good one none the less. That ride pretty much did it for Shawn...so I thought. Overall, the park was pretty enjoyable except for the nagging 5 year old constantly asking when he was going to get a prize. The park was only open until 6 that night, so we returned to our hotel and got ready for dinner.

We decided to take a drive downtown to a shopping/entertainment area called Seaport Village. Pretty much your typical open air tourist attraction area with great views of San Diego Bay. We had a tough time deciding where to eat but finally came upon a restaurant (San Diego Pier Cafe) that was built on a pier which if nothing else would provide a nice view to relax and enjoy dinner. The food was just standard. I had fish tacos, which were okay but nothing special, Lisa had the Tilapia and Shawn a pizza. We also ordered guacamole and an order of deep fried jalapeno slices. The guacamole was mash it yourself and was just fair but the highlight of my meal was the pepper slices. I have had deep fried jalapenos that were stuffed with cream cheese before but these were merely fresh peppers sliced and then deep fried. The little boogers had some heat!

Tuesday Morning we decided to take a trip to Balboa Park. I guess I would describe it as S.D.'s version of New York's Central Park but somewhat smaller. Balboa Park also is home to all of San Diego's museums and the world famous zoo. We didn't really have much time to explore the park due to the 3 hour drive that we had ahead of us that afternoon but we did get to check out the San Diego Model Train Museum. The train layouts were very cool. Very large models of many of the areas around Southern California. Shawn again was more worried about when he was going to get a prize than exploring the model trains. Spent a little time wondering around the museum areas of the park and then headed for LaQuinta.

The three hour trip to LaQuinta wasn't too bad. The scenery along the highway was different than what we are used to seeing so it was a rather pleasant drive. We stopped about half way into our trip to reload our cash supply and to grab some food. We decided to have some mexican food at a little fast food type place that reminded us of an authentic place that we have gone a few times with Lisa's brother in Chicago. The food was pretty good. I had fish tacos again (I have some fascination with fish tacos) and they were pretty tasty. Lisa had the guacamole and a couple of chicken tacos. Much better than Taco Bell.

As we drove closer to LaQuinta, there were all these windmills along the side of the road in an area called San Gorgonio Pass. Later, I found out that the area is a giant wind tunnel between the mountains and the power generated from the 3000 or so windmills provide for about 1.5% of all of California's electrical power. The site of what seemed like it went on forever was another neat part of our drive that we did expect to see. It almost seemed like we were in a giant flower garden but instead of flowers, we were surrounded buy large 3 bladed windmills.

We finally arrived in the desert golf mecca of Southern California if not the world: PGA West in LaQuinta California. The entire development is gated and as you drive through the housing development, you would think that you were about to walk into homes that were about 1500 square feet in size but once you walked into the houses, you find out that looks are deceiving. We were visiting Brian and Kathy. Brian was part owner and VP of Engineering for the company that I used to work for. Brian decided to retire instead of taking part in the merger nightmare that resulted and landed in LaQuinta. In my opinion, he definitely made the right decision.

Brian and Kathy live on one of the courses at PGA West. A mere 3000 square foot 2 bedroom ranch style house with a detached quest house (casita) across the front court yard. The guest room is really set up like a hotel room with its own bathroom, door locks and thermostat. There are a couple of really nice features of the house not to mention the large gourmet kitchen. The entire backyard is a natural landscaped pool and hotub with a running waterfall. The entire rear wall in the family room and kitchen is glass that opens up to enable the inside to become the outside. The entire house was beautiful. And the views of the par three in the back yard with the mountain backdrop was...well I can't even put it into words.

Brain and Kathy took us to the member's clubhouse for pasta night. The food was served buffet style and was very good. We then took a drive around several of the more scenic gold holes; unfortunately it was really too dark to take any pictures.

Wednesday morning, Brian and I went golfing on the Jack Nicholas designed tournament course. This is one of the two courses that the PGA holds it's qualifying school ever other year for those golfers attempting to earn the right to play on the professional tour the following year. Walking the course would have been a highlight of my golfing life in itself but to play it, I was in heaven. I actually played pretty well too. I shot an 85, a round that included 4 birdies (that was a first for me). The temperature at the time we finished our round was near 100 but it really didn't seem to be that bad. I'm not sure if it was the fact that the heat was very dry or the fact that I drank about 2 gallons of water in a 4 hour period but I never really felt overheated.

While Brian and I went golfing; Lisa, Kathy and Shawn drove to the Palm Desert/Indian Wells area to visit The Living Gardens. The Living Gardens is basically a park that is dedicated to the animals and horticulture of the desert. They saw Coyotes, Bighorn sheep, road runners and other heat loving animals as well as plants that thrive in the desert. For Shawn, they also had a large outside model railroad display that Lisa says was the largest display she had ever seen. Shawn of course was unimpressed; just wanted to know where his "prize" was.

We took one last golf cart ride around the development and took some golf course photos before we left to travel to Anaheim. I will update tomorrow about the second part of our trip.