by Pa Rock
World Traveler
Patti and I are completing our second full day in San Diego. So far the trip has been anything but dull.
Our flight from Kansas City yesterday at oh-dark-thirty made it to California on time and without incident. However, San Diego was fogged in so our pilot, wanting to show us some of the high points of the state that tourists often miss, headed north to the Los Angeles area where he parked our plane at the airport in Ontario for an hour or so. We eventually made it to San Diego and were on the ground and out of the plane by nine-thirty in the morning.
Twenty-six people on our flight were heading on to Hawaii that day and had to run to make a connecting flight. That was a small victory for Patti and me because our flight to Hawaii was forty-eight hours into the future.
We picked up a rental car and I prepared to show Patti my superior knowledge of the city of San Diego (population 1.3 million). It only took me two hours to find the Navy Lodge where we were staying! After unpacking and settling in for a few minutes, we headed out to explore the city, and I quickly learned that I was not the expert on the local highways and byways that I thought I was. Eventually we gave up the quest to find the Coronado Bridge, a structure so immense that we spotted it easily from the air as we were flying in, and pulled into an IHOP to chow down and regroup.
While we were at the IHOP I asked a young sailor at the next table about how to get to Coronado Island (which is, in actuality, a peninsula). Not only did he look it up for us on his cell phone, the uniformed lad wrote up detailed directions on how to get there!
On Coronado I showed Patti the beach where my daughter, Molly, married Scott eight years or so ago. We also walked through the famous Del Coronado Hotel (Where "Some Like It Hot" was filmed) and strolled the hotel's beautiful grounds. Later we drove down to my favorite California city, Imperial Beach (the locale of the short-lived Showtime series "John from Cincinnati"), and then returned to the Navy Lodge.
I have stayed at Navy Lodges on several occasions and the experiences have always been great. As a card-carrying retired (oxymoron alert) military civilian, I am entitled to stay in those facilities if rooms are available. Normally when in San Diego I stay at the one on Coronado, but this time there were no rooms available at that facility, and they booked us into one at the Naval Station in San Diego instead. The experience, so far, has been a bust.
I am blogging from a hotel for service members across the street from where we are staying because the wifi at the Navy Lodge has been down since we arrived. Yesterday after two phone calls to their world-wide help center I was told that the service must be temporarily off-line and to try again later. This afternoon I called again, and this time was told that the service is down for an undetermined amount of time due to maintenance being conducted on our building.
Now, please bear with me as I expound on that building.
When we checked in, the sweet ladies at the desk (located in another building) failed to tell us that our room was on the third floor and there were no elevators! I'm spry and can make it up three flights of stairs - eventually, but it's no cake walk when dragging luggage for a two-week trip!
The Navy Lodge rooms that I have stayed in before have been exceptionally nice. This one failed that test.
Then, this morning, after crawling out of bed at a healthy 7:00 a.m. I was surprised to find that there was no electricity. I called the desk to inform them that our power was out, and the sweet lady who answered the phone told me that it was a planned outage due to building maintenance that would last from 7:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. After voicing my polite irritation about not being told about the "planned" outage when we checked in, the lady assured me that there was a sign posted (somewhere) on the outside of the building. When I suggested that a rent rebate might be in order, she excused herself to talk to her supervisor and then returned to the phone to say that a rebate would not be happening.
There were no windows in the bathroom which made shaving and other daily ablutions quite challenging. Fortunately Patti, ever the Girl Scout, packed a flashlight!
As we headed out this morning I stopped by the desk and picked up a customer comment card. They know why.
But, all of that craziness aside, we had a wonderful lunch with dear Aunt Mary and my cousin Linda and her husband, Dave. Mary is ninety-two, whip-smart, and as bouncy and vibrant as a nineteen-year-old. She recently became a great-great-grandmother when Linda's granddaughter gave birth to twin girls.
Linda told an hilarious story about our grandmother, Hazel Macy, killing and cooking chickens at their home in San Diego when Linda was a little girl! I will write it up for the family history. I especially don't want to forget the part about the headless chickens flopping around in the yard and smearing the family's rosebushes with blood and feathers!
Cousin Janet was ill today and could not join us. She missed a long and fun-filled lunch. Patti seemed to hit it off quite well with my California relatives.
Tomorrow we board an early flight to Honolulu. Heading out to the fiftieth state on an airline named after the forty-ninth!
Safe flights and happy trails!
World Traveler
Patti and I are completing our second full day in San Diego. So far the trip has been anything but dull.
Our flight from Kansas City yesterday at oh-dark-thirty made it to California on time and without incident. However, San Diego was fogged in so our pilot, wanting to show us some of the high points of the state that tourists often miss, headed north to the Los Angeles area where he parked our plane at the airport in Ontario for an hour or so. We eventually made it to San Diego and were on the ground and out of the plane by nine-thirty in the morning.
Twenty-six people on our flight were heading on to Hawaii that day and had to run to make a connecting flight. That was a small victory for Patti and me because our flight to Hawaii was forty-eight hours into the future.
We picked up a rental car and I prepared to show Patti my superior knowledge of the city of San Diego (population 1.3 million). It only took me two hours to find the Navy Lodge where we were staying! After unpacking and settling in for a few minutes, we headed out to explore the city, and I quickly learned that I was not the expert on the local highways and byways that I thought I was. Eventually we gave up the quest to find the Coronado Bridge, a structure so immense that we spotted it easily from the air as we were flying in, and pulled into an IHOP to chow down and regroup.
While we were at the IHOP I asked a young sailor at the next table about how to get to Coronado Island (which is, in actuality, a peninsula). Not only did he look it up for us on his cell phone, the uniformed lad wrote up detailed directions on how to get there!
On Coronado I showed Patti the beach where my daughter, Molly, married Scott eight years or so ago. We also walked through the famous Del Coronado Hotel (Where "Some Like It Hot" was filmed) and strolled the hotel's beautiful grounds. Later we drove down to my favorite California city, Imperial Beach (the locale of the short-lived Showtime series "John from Cincinnati"), and then returned to the Navy Lodge.
I have stayed at Navy Lodges on several occasions and the experiences have always been great. As a card-carrying retired (oxymoron alert) military civilian, I am entitled to stay in those facilities if rooms are available. Normally when in San Diego I stay at the one on Coronado, but this time there were no rooms available at that facility, and they booked us into one at the Naval Station in San Diego instead. The experience, so far, has been a bust.
I am blogging from a hotel for service members across the street from where we are staying because the wifi at the Navy Lodge has been down since we arrived. Yesterday after two phone calls to their world-wide help center I was told that the service must be temporarily off-line and to try again later. This afternoon I called again, and this time was told that the service is down for an undetermined amount of time due to maintenance being conducted on our building.
Now, please bear with me as I expound on that building.
When we checked in, the sweet ladies at the desk (located in another building) failed to tell us that our room was on the third floor and there were no elevators! I'm spry and can make it up three flights of stairs - eventually, but it's no cake walk when dragging luggage for a two-week trip!
The Navy Lodge rooms that I have stayed in before have been exceptionally nice. This one failed that test.
Then, this morning, after crawling out of bed at a healthy 7:00 a.m. I was surprised to find that there was no electricity. I called the desk to inform them that our power was out, and the sweet lady who answered the phone told me that it was a planned outage due to building maintenance that would last from 7:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. After voicing my polite irritation about not being told about the "planned" outage when we checked in, the lady assured me that there was a sign posted (somewhere) on the outside of the building. When I suggested that a rent rebate might be in order, she excused herself to talk to her supervisor and then returned to the phone to say that a rebate would not be happening.
There were no windows in the bathroom which made shaving and other daily ablutions quite challenging. Fortunately Patti, ever the Girl Scout, packed a flashlight!
As we headed out this morning I stopped by the desk and picked up a customer comment card. They know why.
But, all of that craziness aside, we had a wonderful lunch with dear Aunt Mary and my cousin Linda and her husband, Dave. Mary is ninety-two, whip-smart, and as bouncy and vibrant as a nineteen-year-old. She recently became a great-great-grandmother when Linda's granddaughter gave birth to twin girls.
Linda told an hilarious story about our grandmother, Hazel Macy, killing and cooking chickens at their home in San Diego when Linda was a little girl! I will write it up for the family history. I especially don't want to forget the part about the headless chickens flopping around in the yard and smearing the family's rosebushes with blood and feathers!
Cousin Janet was ill today and could not join us. She missed a long and fun-filled lunch. Patti seemed to hit it off quite well with my California relatives.
Tomorrow we board an early flight to Honolulu. Heading out to the fiftieth state on an airline named after the forty-ninth!
Safe flights and happy trails!
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