Tuesday, March 2, 2010

California

Because it looks like this...
today...I'm already home from work. We ended up closing the church offices at noon. So, I headed over to the grocery store (since I hadn't been in way too long), got some groceries and came home. I've got beef stew in the crock pot and brownies in the oven...now I have time to sit and upload all our pics from California. By the way, in case you're curious about the current weather situation... Last night the forecast was for 1-3" mostly around Hendersonville and near the NC/SC line. However, we are already at 7" here at our house. CFA is closing at 3, so hopefully John will be home before too long. Anyway, on to Cali.

In case you are like me, you want to know what things look like...even little things like the store where John was working. Well, here it is...
It was quite swanky. I love the stacked stone. Also, the front had this fabulous pergola with some outside tables underneath. Is that not so cute? There was also a pergola in the back near the drive-thru; it helped to cover up the area where pallets were dropped for orders...and I'm pretty sure there was a dumpster in there. Either way those things were neatly tucked away leaving quite a nice store.
John really enjoyed his time at this store. It certainly is different than the store he is at currently. It has a lower volume of sales, but it was very good experience. Monday was a stressful day for them; they had several large orders to go out, a big promotion going on, and in the midst of the busyness the lady who does restaurant grading walked in. Again, good, albeit stressful, experience. :) There were some very good people that John got to work with there. I met a few of them on Friday. (By the way, for those of you who didn't know...John went out there on Friday, the 19th; I flew out the evening of Wednesday, the 24th, then we came back together on Sunday, the 28th.)
The day I came to visit at the store was pretty funny. I got there at about 1 and there was a line at the counter. As yall know I have quite a perfectionist, critiquing eye...so I just sat down and watched how things went. I noticed the woman at the counter was taking her sweet time, which we don't necessarily love. We like for customers to be served in a timely manner with quality service. A few minutes later John came from out of the back (to the rescue) and quickly, efficiently, and with much kindness, saved the day. Ha...actually he just got the line down very quickly; he's so great! Whenever there was a lull I would go up to the counter and we would discuss how things were running that day, then when someone came in, I'd sit down and let them order, then back up, etc...this happened a few times. So, a little bit later I went up and ordered and John introduced me to some of the people there. Immediately this girl says, "Oh, I was just talking about how John was flirting with you!" So...we were the source of gossip around CFA that day. Ha!
Well, on Saturday John got off at about 11, so we packed up our things and headed toward San Diego (where we would be staying that night). We ended up driving on the PCH along the coast for most of the trip. This was my first look at the Pacific Ocean. Pretty.
Here is another shot. Saturday was pretty rainy, this was a brief break in the weather. On the trip down I was surprised at the geography of the area. There were so many areas that we passed that looked much more like I picture Guatemala to look. (Yes I realize we were in close proximity to Guatemala, but given I'd never seen either, I wasn't sure what to expect. I'll let you know in April what Guatemala looks like). Either way, it was very pretty...mountainous.
Our next stop along the way was Torrey Pines...this made John very happy.
He would have absolutely loved to play there, but it wasn't in the cards this trip. We decided that we would definitely come back one day and he would get the opportunity to play there.
Just past the golf course we came to this point, where people hanglide. You can see that the rain caught up with us again. It was super windy up there.
This area is called La Jolla (La Hoya for those of us who don't pronouce Spanish words that well). Pretty views.
Then we got to our hotel in San Diego, checked in and went out to dinner. We went to a place called The Fish Market. We ended up getting fabulous seats right on the water. We opted out of dessert at the restaurant, deciding we would find some San Diego-y place to get something sweet. Thanks to our handy-dandy GPS we stumbled upon a place called Extraordinary Desserts. Oh, were they ever. It's more than a bakery...more like a restaurant for just desserts. Honestly, does it get any better than that. And everything was so beautiful. Well, apparently this is the hot place to be, they were so busy, so we opted to get ours to-go. Here is what we got, although I'm certain the picture doesn't do them justice. Toasted Caramel Cheesecake and Chocolate Macadamia Torte. Everything had glorious flowers on top.
So, that would have been our entire trip to San Diego. You see, we had a 7:45 flight on Sunday morning. We got up at 4:30, got ready and took a cab to the airport, waited entirely too long to get through security (that place was out of control). Then, we finally got to the gate, we found out that our flight was overbooked. So, we volunteered to get our flight bumped. They gave us free travel vouchers, so get to take another trip. Yay! And we got to go hangout in San Diego for a few more hours. We talked about what to do and reasoned that it made the most sense to 'splurge' on getting a cheap rental car for the day. (We knew how much the cab was...and it just made sense to get a car). Plus, we were also given meal vouchers for the airport, because we bumped our flight, so we wouldn't have to pay much for food. On the way back to the rental place this guy told us we had to check out a few places, so we did. Our first stop was Sunset Cliffs Park.
Isn't it gorgeous? The weather was absolutely fantastic on Sunday.
Then we started to head up to Cabrillo National Monument...but you had to pay to get in. So we decided to just look around at all the cool stuff on the outskirts of the park. Here is the view.
There was a Veteran's Memorial there...the tombstones went on and on. It was similar to Arlington...rows and rows that were perfectly straight no matter which direction you looked. Just when we were wondering who was buried there, we came across this tombstone. It seemed to be military that served in several wars: Korea, World War 2, and Vietnam...and their families. This one tore at my heart.
It was pretty hazy, but this is the view over the bay. Apparently Mexico is just on the other side of that bridge.
That is the naval base at the edge of the bay. What a great place...that you can be at the ocean and have the mountains that close. Love it.
Then we headed back down to the bay. We started to go on to the USS Midway, but it was a pretty hefty ticket price, so we opted out; instead we walked along beside it.
After this we went to one more outdoor shopping area and walked around for a bit. It was so nice to get a little more time in San Diego, and with good weather. All in all it was a good trip. We're already looking forward to our next one!
I apologize for this being so lengthy, but wanted to include as much as I could since some of you have been asking.

1 comment:

  1. Pictures are awesome, so glad it was a fun trip. Can't believe you have more snow - a winter to remember.

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