June 23, 2002

the vacation

“Hey, amigo… check it out we have T-shirts, sunglasses, Cuban cigars… no? Viagra?”

San Diego was beautiful, Tijuana was a great experience and Grandma turned 29 for the 51st time. We did pretty much everything I wanted to do. Here’s a rough sketch:

Saturday: Myself, the misses and sister-in-law arrived in San Diego around noon after a brief layover in Salt Lake City. Crystal clear day all over the Western States and I had the window seat. Mom (in-law) picked us up at the airport and just as we had suspected began “the great tour of California” for us. Explaining all the way to Grandma’s how California works the way it does- “oh, and now that building over there - that’s where…” I laughed, the girls cringed. Finally got to see Grandma’s house. It was everything and more. Walked down to the beach and splashed around, but didn’t really get in. That night we had dinner with a good portion of the family. Had the hottest peppers I’ve ever eaten and didn’t find them all that hot.

Sunday: Everybody (except for Grandma) in the rental van for trip to Old Town. We walked around and checked out the city that most of my in-law’s relatives helped found. Really very interesting. A weird thing was happening… my father-in-law was talking to me, making jokes and being very pleasant. This was a bit of a new thing. Shocking, but again - very pleasant. After the bro-in-law took us on an extended tour of the city (“waddya know, that leads us right back to where we started!”) we headed back to Grandma’s and then for the beach. I got in. Past my waist. This was a first. Turns out I really like swimming in the ocean. It was starting to get dark and I had to take off my glasses to get in but I saw this triangular black things in the water with long tails. The only reason I noticed the first one is that I felt something brush against my foot. We checked with the local David Hasselhoff and found out they were in fact stingrays and we should shuffle our feet to avoid a sharp pain which would pretty much disable us for about a week. Cool enough, back in the water.

Monday: Spent the day at the mall in Carlsbad, rode the bus around. Went to the beach, went to diner at the Olive Garden.

Tuesday: Went to the beach then the pool. Got majorly sun burnt. It was the first time in probably fifteen years that I actively stayed in the sun for the purpose of becoming tan. It was San Diego, I felt I had to.

Wednesday: We got up early to take one of my sister-in-laws to the airport then we (other sister-in-law, the misses and myself) carried on to Mexico. We arrived about 9 o’clock in the morning so the streets were pretty slow. Only one little girl tried to sell us Chiklets, I was expecting thousands. My sister-in-law is sixteen, looks a bit like Natalie Portman and takes after her older sister when it comes to modesty. Needless to say there were a few times where I thought that I was going to wind up severely injured because my wife was going to pick fights with all the amigos who kept looking at her little sister. After doing some bartering for a painting and sandals we made it back to U.S. soil just fine.

Thursday: Nothing too exciting. Chilled around Grandma’s. Took the plane back home.

Friday: Discovered that the internet had been disconnected.

posted @ 10:02 AM

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