San Diego 2011

Powell Family Vacation 2011 - Destination San Diego was a blast! We enjoyed watching orcas dance, feeding dolphins, shark fishing, sitting in the warm sun and sand, exploring tide pools and eating a lot of amazing food.

Where do I begin? I guess the beginning is a good place to start!

SATURDAY: After dropping off our dogs in Missoula and totally inconveniencing my dad and Dave & Em with their care for the week we drove to Scott & Jackie's house in Spokane. Addi loves her Gingras Boys and they had a blast playing and baking together.

SUNDAY: Jackie generously drove us to the airport in the morning. We flew from Spokane to Portland, boarded a new plane and flew into San Diego at around 1 pm. Addi loved the airport experience. She looked like a seasoned traveler dragging her Hello Kitty carry on behind her!

After checking into our hotel, The Bahia Resort on Mission Bay, we jumped in our rental car and started exploring. We quickly found the beautiful area of La Jolla where we ended up spending a lot of time. For a mere couple million we too could own a bit of this paradise! It sure was beautiful. Full of fancy shops, restaurants and tan, exercising locals!

We went on a evening river-boat tour of Mission Bay.

MONDAY: Addi will be talking about this day for a really long time!!! She was in love with Sea World and would have moved into the Orca Pool! The day started out cloudy, gloomy and rainy but ended up being partly cloudy and warm. The rain clouds kept the crowds and sweat away, it ended up being perfect Sea World weather! We got there as the front gates opened and didn't leave until closing time. As we waited for all the exhibits to open we rode up the super tall, blue tower to get a bird's eye view of the park. The space ship-like orb we rode in rotated as it took us hundreds of feet into the air. As Addi caught her first glimpse of her beloved orcas from 200 hundred feet in the air, she gasped, mumbled "orcas" under her breath and put two hands over her heart. She was literally speechless with the sight of these magnificent animals. It was amazing!

Throughout the day we watched the sea lion, dolphin, pet, and orca shows. All were very impressive and very entertaining. We petted Melbourne, a baby red kangaroo! You would not believe how soft he was. Addi loved the ocean princess story that was the dolphin show. For the rest of the trip she pretended she too was an ocean princess and it was OK to get her skirt wet because of her status as ocean princess!
Addi was able to touch and feed her very own dolphin, Coco! It was an hysterical sight when the dolphin blew air out of his blow hole. Addi and the dolphin were at a perfect angle to each other that the force of the air blew Addi backwards and took her breath away! Addi cried when she had to leave her dolphin. She (and I) would have stayed there all day if the trainer would have let her.
Addi chose a very special orca stuffed animal as a reminder of her day and she hasn't let it out of her sight since we left the park!
It was a very special day for all of us. It made me so proud to watch Addison so engaged and interested in the amazing animals! She was truly touched by this experience. We possibly witnessed a life changing day for her. It was magical.

TUESDAY: We spent a lazy day on Coronado Island sitting on the beach. We enjoyed getting fried in the wonderful sun, collected sea shells, built sand castles and walked around the cute little town.
We had dinner at Joe's Crab Shack and watched the sunset over La Jolla. Addi thought it was hilarious when the waiter brought daddy a bib and that he wore it the whole meal!

WEDNESDAY: I loved this day! We had no plan and found a sign saying "Sunset Cliff Park" and drove there! We ended up in Point Loma. A wonderful hidden area that is protected by huge red cliffs. Dylan started talking with a man about his huge lab, a local man. When Dylan asked him where he was from he said, "Well, here, Point Loma. Where are you from?" When Dylan replied Montana the man's face got all distorted and he asked us how we found this place? He said it was a local place that most tourists don't know about! That made us feel good! That is the way we like to travel, off the beaten path, where the locals go! Dylan laughed because he asks the same thing of "out-of-staters" who invade his special "local" spots - who told you, how did you get here!!!

We spent hours exploring the huge expanse of amazing tide pools. Tide pools are one of my favorite ecosystems, I just love exploring them. I know, Dylan thinks it weird too that I have a favorite ecosystem, but they are amazing. We found a dead crab and fed it to an anemone and watch as it closed its tentacles around it to allow the digestive juices get to work breaking down the crab! A giant science experiment - gotta love nature! Addi was concerned with all the little hermit crabs that were out of the water. Every time she would find one all closed up in its shell, hanging on to a rock waiting for the water to return she would pick it up and drop into a pool of water! She would say, "Oh, poor crab, I will help you!" Gotta love my little nature-girl!

We were exploring the cliffs and there was a section of cliff that I told Dylan and Addi to stand. The tide was starting to come in and there was a wave splashing up against the cliff. I thought it would make an awesome picture. Well, Dylan and Addi were standing there and instead of a little wave splashing against the cliff a huge wave totally engulfed Addison! It was so funny. We were thankful Addison was holding daddy's hand. The next picture of the series is Addi literally climbing Dylan! It scared her, but she recovered quickly. She finally believed me that ocean water is salty.

We ate lunch at the apparently famous In-N-Out Burger. It was really good and baby has been craving it ever since!!

We spent the late afternoon playing in the children's cove in La Jolla. It is a peaceful beach with small waves. The protective rocks are covered with barking sea lions and a large colony of pelicans (AKA Toucans!!) and other sea birds.
We sat out on a rocky point and watched the waves crash on the rocks and watched the sun set in La Jolla. Simply beautiful. Peaceful.


We drove closer to our hotel and ate and the New Zealand Bareback Bar & Grill. The food was great and they proudly served the best burger in San Diego. Dylan agreed! It was really loud as the "younger" crowd was mingling and enjoying happy hour. Addi would cup her hands over her mouth and literally shout as loud as she could, "Mamma, can you hear me?!" and then crack up! It was really funny. She enjoyed the busy atmosphere. Addi tried fried calamari and almost immediately spit it right back out!

We literally were the first people to leave the hotel in the morning and the last to get in. We usually had to search for a parking spot. We all know how Addi feels about swimming pools and even after a long, busy day she was ready to swim at 9:30 at night. We did allow her to do it a couple nights, but by this time of night the pool/hot tub area was always full of partying, loud, cussing, crazies so we didn't spend much time there.

THURSDAY: Dylan's big day of shark fishing...on a fly rod! Dylan was a very happy boy to have hooked a 100 plus pound blue shark on a fly rod. His big 'ol grin did not leave his face for days after this! It sounds like an amazing experience and I was happy he actually landed a shark. After he reeled the shark into the side of the boat the guide released the shark to be free! As a bonus he also saw three blue whales, one dead baby humpback whale (that had huge great-white shark bites taken out of it), and hundreds of white-sided porpoises who were racing the little fishing boat. He raved about his guide, Dave with On The Fly Fishing and I know he is eager to take his BFF David back with him to do it again!

Addi and I spent the day in La Jolla, shopping and playing on the beach.

We let Addi choose the restaurant for our last night out. She wanted to be "fancy" and get all dressed up - that is Addi's style! She choose a very fancy place called the Crab Catcher in La Jolla. WOW. The food and atmosphere were amazing. She has great taste or should I say expensive taste! We ate out on the heated balcony overlooking the ocean. I ordered, of course, the king crab legs. Addi ordered spaghetti and Dylan ordered the halibut. The food was beautifully presented. Simply stated, it was delicious. A wonderful ending to a great week.
FRIDAY: We had hoped to spend our last morning in San Diego on the beach, but the weather did not cooperate. Even by Montana standards it was freezing. After checking out of our hotel, we snapped one last picture on the beach.

Addison and I had never been to Chuck E. Cheese. We decided to spend our last couple hours in San Diego eating lunch and playing there. I now know one thing, you do not go to Chuck E. Cheese for the food. Oh it was terrible, but Addi eventually enjoyed the games once she figured out what that crazy place was all about.



We were all just so exhausted and a little crabby. We had a heck of a time locating a gas station to fill up the rental car. In the all the commotion Dylan broke the trunk and we had to tie it closed! We were relieved when the rental car return-airport check-in-airport security fiasco was over and we were sitting on the plane waiting for it to take off. Addi almost instantly fell asleep, as did I. We both slept all the way to Seattle.

It was a great vacation. We had a great time. We all really needed some time away with each other. Some time away of the never-ending Helena winter! We wanted to give Addi a special trip before the new baby is born. She kept saying we will have to bring the baby back!