California Love

Now that my race report is out of my head and into my blog, I can concentrate my brain on the rest of the trip to California. In as detailed a report as my memory can muster, I will try to bring you as close to our trip as possible.

I can't believe it's been 3 weeks since we got back from California, and I haven't even posted a blog about it yet! Let me rewind.

Way back last May (2010), one of my friends from college and his girlfriend moved out to San Diego, and it was at their going away party that we promised them we would come out and visit. I mean, who wouldn't make that promise? Southern California? Sign me up. This past fall, I decided to go through on that promise. Now, the way I went about following up that promise isn't a normal way of following up, but it's how I've visited Craig in Colorado, and now Dave and Nikki in California. I looked for a triathlon that would be near their place, in the time frame I was looking at, signed up for it, and then boom, I'm forced to buy place tickets! In this case, it was the Rohto Ironman 70.3 California!

Wednesday, March 30, our flight out of Boston is at 8:00am, so we were up and out of the house (spent the night at my parents so they could drive/pick us up and watch our dog) early enough to be at the airport around 6:30am. This was like my 20th time on a plane, our 2nd time flying together, but either of our 1st time with the new security features of the TSA. We chose to fly on Virgin America this trip, because I was flying out there this time with my bike, rather than renting one when I got out there (I hurt my back last time I did that), and after some researching, I found that Virgin America had the cheapest bike fees around. It was only $50 to check my bike! It was my first time flying Virgin also, and it was pretty cool. I am typically favorable to JetBlue only, as they have some of the best features I've flown with, but Virgin was pretty close! They had personal TVs on the backs of each chair, where you could watch TV, movies, listen to the radio, or play video games. For some reason or another, I had the worst luck with this, though. My TV kept freezing and I couldn't do anything! Luckily I brought along my new Kindle that Laura got me for my birthday, and my PSP. Before landing in San Diego, we had a lay-over in San Francisco, for 3 hours!! That's okay, they had a bar. After a few Long Islands, and then finally taking off again, we finally landed in San Diego around 5:00pm PST (8:00pm EST); 12 hours of traveling!! After getting picked up at the airport, and getting settled into their place, we chatted around their dining area to catch up and drink some beers.

Thursday, March 31, we had plans to head to the most famous part of San Diego, the San Diego Zoo. Dave and Nikki were still planning on working that day, so we worked it out with them that they would carpool for the day, and let us use one of their cars to get around. This worked out great, because I guess it was a bit of a ways too far to get a taxi, and it also allowed me to get up to Oceanside to register for my race on Saturday without taking out time hanging out with them. The zoo itself was amazing, purely incredible. It's everything that is said about it. Laura and I got there about 9:30 in the morning, and we were able to park within a couple hundred yards of the entrance. It was a perfect day weather-wise, 70s, nice breeze, perfect. The zoo had everything both of us wanted to see (lions for her, tigers for me). We stayed until about 2:30, and we didn't stay a tremendous amount of time at each exhibit, just walked around at a nice steady pace enjoying everything, and we still didn't see the whole zoo! It was huge. I highly recommend making this a must-see stop if you are ever in the San Diego area. After leaving the zoo, we went up to Oceanside to check out the race location area, walk around the expo a bit, and then register and pick up my race packet. It was the most organized registration I have ever experienced. Later that day, we met back up with Dave and Nikki, and spent the night grilling dinner at their apartment, and just enjoying the rest of the night.

Friday, April 1, Dave was planning on working a half-day from home, and then taking Laura and I out for a tour of the area. The whole time we were driving around, I felt like I was in a movie. Everything was so perfectly groomed, with palm trees lining almost every street, I thought every street was Beverly Hills! Our first stop was out to this place we call "Seals Beach", and it this cool little beach/cove area that was roped off because there were a ton of seals and sea lions and a bunch of their puppies lounging on the sand. It was incredible. We had lunch at RT Longboards (Boston-based pub) which was fun, because it was the Red Sox opening day and there were people all around wearing Sox gear. After lunch, we headed around to a few other site-seeing places before meeting back up with Nikki after she got out of work. We had plans to stay at her friends house for Friday and Saturday night, so we packed up to head over there. Nikki has recently been employed as an Executive Assistant, and it was at her employers house that we stayed. The house was incredible, it was mansion-esque! Everything you could imagine having in a house, this house had: a sensored gate at the driveway, beautiful landscape, 2 islands in the kitchen, 2 fridges/2 freezers/2dish washers all looked like cabinets, a living room with a grand piano, a full bathroom in every room with trees in the showers, 2 full bathrooms in the master, a really nice pool with a waterfall, 3 outside grilles (all remote controlled), a huge gas fireplace, a guest house, endless places to sit, orange/lemon/avocado trees, a tennis court, not to mention the 6 car garage was filled with a porche, a mercedes benz, an old cadillac, a range rover, and a bright red ferarri... This family was living the life! So jealous. And that is where we stayed for Friday and Saturday night.

Saturday, April 2, was the day of my race, which you can check out here Rohto Ironman 70.3 California. After the race, I was super tired, and super hungry, but I couldn't eat. I tried eating a chimichanga, but it wouldn't go down. So we went back to the house and I napped for a good 2.5 hours. Our friends wanted to go out to some bars that night, and because I felt bad that I took up so much time of the day doing my race, I tried my hardest to be a trooper and rally.

Sunday, April 3, was my birthday (happy birthday?). The race was my birthday present to myself, ha-ha. All of us planned on heading to Temecula, which I guess is the Napa Valley of Southern California, for some wine tasting and winery touring. The wineries were all one after another, and it was really cool just looking around and seeing endless grape vines in any direction you looked. We stopped at the first place and had some lunch in the restaurant, and each of us got a flight of wines to try. After that, we drove down the street to Calloway, where we took a tour of the facility (it was huge, so many barrels!), and then had another tasting; we got complimentary wine glasses with this one. Later that day, we drove down to Coronado, walked around the pier for awhile, checked out the Dr. Seuss museum, and then headed to another place for dinner. At this point, I was still not able to eat too much, and I couldn't even finish my beer. My stomach was just not feeling anything yet. I ordered lobster mac 'n cheese, and was so disappointed that I couldn't eat it that night. But I packaged it up and had it for lunch the next day. It was just another great night hanging out together, and that's all I could've asked for on my birthday.

Monday, April 4, was our last full day in San Diego. Dave and Nikki hadn't planned on taking the day off, which was fine, because I was still fairly drained at this point. They left us one of their cars again, and we just relaxed. We took our time getting going, then drove around for awhile enjoying the beautiful weather, before heading back for the last night in. This was the slowest moving day of the trip, but it was much needed at this point. Neither of us wanted to come back from California, needing a vacation.

We flew out early the next morning, said our good byes, and then just enjoyed the memories of the trip the whole flight back to Boston.