I feel a little silly that I got to the San Diego airport almost two hours before my flight. I like to get to the airport early so that I have time to walk around and look at things, get a latte, maybe buy a book. But here at the Southwest terminal there are a grand total of two gates, and exactly two places to buy anything, neither of which is a bookstore or Starbucks. And only about a hundred feet to pace around in. Seems like a good opportunity to catch up on my blog.
I have been in Oceanside, California for the past five days, enjoying the 7th reunion of the group of women who rode the southern tier (San Diego to st. Augustine FL) in 2005. And what an amazing group of women we all are! Sarene, our youngest, and our host for this reunion, is now in her late 30's, has gotten married and has two incredibly cute kids. How she managed to put all this together while taking care of a first-grader and a toddler is quite beyond my imagination, although I'm sure her mom, Joanna (who also rode with us) helped. Our oldest, Glenna, is now 81 but still going strong, biking just fine. And yesterday we joined Betsy and Gil on Dog Beach (where we dipped our rear tires in the Pacific back in 2005) for their wedding ceremony, officiated by Kathy, who has been living nomadically out of a motorhome with her husband for the last seven years.
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| Elsa, dancing in our courtyard, which most of our rooms opened onto |
I think we all agreed this was our best reunion so far. Our accommodations, oh, our accommodations! We stayed in a private, gated community called St. Malo, right on the beach in what I'm sure must be a multimillion-dollar home. Seven bedrooms and about as many baths, a real cook's kitchen, plenty of space for us all to gather, and out-of-this-world sunset views. Bikes, helmets, wet suits, and boogie boards were all supplied for us, in addition to more food and drink than we needed, for sure. Although similar homes in this community can easily rent for $1000 per night or more, thanks to sarene and Joanna's family, we got all of this for $150 apiece.
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| That's the ocean out there at the end of the walk |
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| View of our house from the beach |
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| #6 St. Malo |
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| Chef Claudia, surveying her kitchen domain |
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| St. Malo Courtyard |
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| Kathy enjoying the living room |
Then there was the food. The first night was a catered authentic Mexican dinner. Later, Magnificent chefs Claudia and Linda cooked for us. I tried to stick to my Weightwatchers plan, but I ran out of points a couple of days ago....
After settling in late on Friday afternoon, I was off for a walk on the beach, cut a bit short by the 5pm sunset. Sarene had lots of fun stuff scheduled for us to do, and Saturday was a tour of the Leo Carillo ranch. (Leo's claim to fame was as Pancho, sidekick of the Cisco kid.) Several of us elected to stay on the beach in lieu of the tour; I fell asleep in the sunshine and woke up two hours later with a nice one-sided sunburn.
One morning (i've lost track of which day was which) most of us did a nice 20+ mile bike ride on a local trail, and for me anyway, this was followed by another superb nap in the sun, covered this time.
One day we took a tour of the Gem Institute of America. I will let the pictures tell most of the story, and only say that now I want to go back there and become a gemologist. (This feeling will likely pass.)
To get into
To get into this place we had to pre-register, (did they run background checks?) and wait in line at a guardhouse to have our ID's checked. One can understand why.
One night, much to our surprise and delight, Jim (Joanna's husband) showed up with his excellent barbershop quarter in tow. Great concert, guys!
Of course we also had plenty of free time. I did a 30 mile ride down the coast one day, but couldn't pry anyone else away from the beach, playing in the waves or just hanging out.
Then there was the wedding on the beach, at the very place where we all met each other 8 years ago.Many of us were in tears. It wasn't quite "official", as they weren't getting the marriage license until th following day, but Betsy and Gil agreed that 11/12/13 would be their real anniversary, after their 25-year engagement. Sadly they still cannot get married in their home state of Colorado.
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| Betsy and Gil, with Kathy officiating |
Before this trip I had been feeling really burnt out on travel, having only been home from a month in Michigan for about two weeks. I had even briefly considered just canceling this trip. I am so glad I didn't!
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| An artsy shot of some seaweed on the beach |
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