San Diego Trip Report - Day 1

I am definitely the trip-planning person in our family. I like to make the reservations, create the itinerary, and make the take-everywhere folder we use on our trips. David is fine with this, and I love that, too. The extent of his involvement in the planning was evident when he asked me what airline we were flying. "Southwest," I said, and added, "haven’t you been looking at the drafts of the itinerary I have been sending you?" "Yes," he said, "but not for the unimportant things like dates and times, but only for the fun things we were planning to do." In Dallas-Fort Worth, flying Southwest means a much longer early-morning commute to Dallas Love Field Airport in downtown Dallas, rather than a shorter commute to the DFW airport, which is located in between Fort Worth and Dallas. I chose Southwest because we had two free tickets, a no-brainer.

We left about 6:00 a.m. because we just weren’t sure how long it would take us to get to the airport. Better safe than sorry. I took approximately 45 minutes to arrive at the airport, and we were through security and waiting at our gate by 7:15 a.m. for a 8:30 a.m. flight. Like I said, better safe than sorry. The other issue with flying Southwest out of Love Field is that the Wright Amendment requires Southwest to land all flights originating at Love Field to land in a state bordering Texas or in Texas. That means at least one stop before landing in California, and our stop was Austin. Our flights to Austin and San Diego were great, and we arrived about 5 minutes early, which is a wonderful way to start a trip.

Then we made our way to Dollar Rent-a-Car. I hate renting cars on vacation, but San Diego does not have a great public transportation system, and it would have meant missing out on some of the things we wanted to do while we are in San Diego, so I bucked it up and rented one. That is, I rented one after an hour-long wait in line. Every time I rent a car, I always think there has to be a better, more efficient way to get the process done. I thought the same thing this time, but I digress.

We arrived before hotel check-in time, so we drove to Old Town and ate lunch and had a margarita at Café Coyote. It was good food with good salsa, and we got in our Mexican food fix early in the trip to avoid those possible gastrointestinal issues that can sometimes happen with Mexican food and that I would like to avoid before a marathon. I started getting a headache on the plane ride, but I tried to ignore it, and continued to try to ignore it during lunch. We drove up the coast to La Jolla looked at all the multi-million dollar homes on the beach. Beautiful. It’s not too often you see a Mazerati dealership across the street from the Rolls Royce dealership, so you know the type of area we were in. It was definitely a cool, cloudy day, but that wasn’t stopping the surfers. If I had unlimited funds, I think I would definitely buy myself one of those places on the beach.

My head was still bothering me, so we decided to check in a little early to the hotel to rest for a while. We are staying at the Hilton Gaslamp Quarter, and it is really nice, especially considering I named my own price on Priceline and got it for $85 a night! Yeah, Priceline! My headache was raging even after I took a nap, but I was not going to miss our next activity – visiting David’s friend and dorm suite mate from college, Bashir Ramzy. Bashir is a fantastic athlete who is training for the Olympic team at the Olympic training center in Chula Vista, about 20 miles from downtown San Diego. We got to go through the athlete’s entrance and meet up with Bashir, who gave us a tour of all of the facilities. Man, I am glad I went, because David and I got to meet and take a photo with Deena Kastor, the 2002 silver medalist in the Olympic marathon in Greece. Awesome! She was very friendly and it made my trip! I forgot the cord to my camera to upload the photos, so I will post them all when we get back to Fort Worth.

Bashir and all the other Olympic athletes have it nice! They get to live in this beautiful place and train as a job. They are provided world-class facilities and coaches, all of their meals, housing at the site (if they choose), and so much more. Training in the perfect climate in a beautiful place; it is awesome. It was a great opportunity, and I am frustrated that I didn’t take more photos, but I just wasn’t feeling too well.

By the time we made it Brashir’s house, I knew I was going to be sick at my stomach. I ended up throwing up. Lovely. I felt awful for David because he had to bring me back to the hotel and I ended up sleeping from 7:00 to 5:30 on Friday morning. Fortunately, I think I slept off my headache (which caused my nausea) and I am good to go for Friday's adventures, as long as I don’t push myself too hard.

Despite the headache/throw-up set back, we are happy to be in San Diego and day one was definitely memorable.