Unsetting the Sun

I gunned the engine on Todd’s car, racing to the peak of the Newport Bridge. The sun had just set, but I hoped that the gained altitude at the top of the bridge we’d see just a sliver of the newly set sun over the horizon.

“You did it!” Todd cheered from the passenger seat. “You’ve just unset the sun.” I clapped for a second then replaced my hands at 10 and 2 on the wheel.

It was a perfect ending to a perfect day. We’ve just celebrated our 12th Valentine’s Day together. We were drowsy from the weight of the Mexican food in our bellies and from the day’s activities.

The day started off with a fresh batch of heart shaped pancakes I’d made. We ate them in bed and let the dogs have whatever we couldn’t finish. Valentine’s Day is a family affair in our house, after all.

Before we knew it we were in the car and crossing over Narragansett Bay on the Newport Bridge. We arrived at the horse barn were soon we saddled onto our horses and headed for a ride on Third Beach.

It was a wonderful ride, but I’ve discovered that I really don’t like it when horses trot. It’s bouncy and jarring. It’s hurty where my butt repeatedly slammed into the saddle. Galloping, however, is great. The horse gets into a smoother rhythm that doesn’t send me bluntly bobbing up and down on the hard leather saddle.

Todd had a much better time on this ride than he did on the one on South Padre Island on our honeymoon. The last horse left in the barn was a young stallion that had been broken for about five minutes. Long story short, his horse pestered another horse into kicking him square in the chest. The force of the kick sent Todd’s horse, with Todd on the back, sprawling sideways on the beach. From there the ride went downhill.

Today, however, Todd and his horse—Jenny—were the best of friends. She listened to his commands, she did not ever send them ass over teakettle. He rode in front of me while I watched from behind. I watched him move up and down in his saddle while trotting and listened to him talk to Jenny and remind her that she’s a “good girl.”

He looked over his shoulder at me with a big smile on his face, and I could tell that my Valentine was having a wonderful ride.

This is quite possibly the best picture of Todd I've ever taken.  Happy Valentine's Day, Love.

You Know What I Love About Water Parks?

I love the rides, but water parks aren’t ALL about the rides for me. I love the easy access to junk food, because who doesn’t love instant access to dippin’ dots, or waffle cones oozing with frozen deliciousness. But it’s not just the ice cream either, and I can’t believe I just wrote that. I love ice cream. A lot.

It’s the people watching. I love people watching. And what’s great about going to a water park on a sunny day is that I can check out people all day long and nobody knows it because I am wearing sunglasses. Checking people out at an indoor water park is a lot harder. Nobody wears sunglasses at an indoor water park; I have to take care to keep my ogling subtle.

All day long at a water park I am surrounded by half naked people, and I am constantly fascinated at how each person I see has a unique shape. You could put two women in an identical bikini in the exact same size, and it will look different on each one. So, yes, I do stare at people at the water park. And it probably makes me look weird and pervy. But really, I am admiring the art of the human body and not only the sexual aspects of it.

Speaking of art, another thing I get to see at water parks on most of the half naked bodies are tattoos. Lots and lots of tattoos. Every time I go to a water park I am constantly amazed at what people were willing to permanently etch onto their skin.

At Schlitterbahn in San Antonio I saw a man with the Ford logo tattooed onto his back. This dude liked his truck so much he got the swirly Ford cursive name on the blue oval tattooed across is back. There was no registration or trade mark on it, so I wonder if the company can sue him now? I didn’t see anyone with a Toyota or Honda logo on their person, and really wish I had so I could see Toyota tatt man and Ford tatt man duke it out.

At Six Flags in New England I saw a man with the entire cast of the Simpsons tattooed on the small of his back. Dude liked the cartoon, so he got it inked in. Every single character too.

At Wet N Wild I saw a man with a Care Bear on his shoulder. Ooooh, manly!

At Kalahari I saw a man whose arms were covered in various tattoos. On his forearm he had a bottle of booze next to a naked woman. Beneath them a ribbon swirled, on which it said “Stewed and Screwed.” Classy! Dude will never regret that one, I’m sure.

Todd and I struck up a conversation with a man in a hot tub at a ski resort once. He had some Asian characters tattooed on his forearm. Todd asked the guy what the characters meant, and the guy rattled off a bunch of things like “Strength, wisdom, integrity… blah blah blah…”

“So, how do you know it doesn’t say ‘American asshole’ on it, or something?” I asked, not being able to contain my inner smartass. Who am I kidding? There is nothing inner about my smart ass. It’s out there in front, snickering at just about everything I see. But I am always suspicious of things written in languages I don’t know how to read. (When we bought Sabine, her name was Tara Vana. Supposedly that means “Crazy Man” in Tahitian. But I know it actually meant “Loser American Dickweed.” That is the only thing that “Tara Vana” could possibly mean.)

The man chuckled and said “Well, I looked it up on the Internet before I got them done.”

Todd and I looked at each other, and I could tell we were both thinking the exact same thing, my inner smartass shut her trap before saying,“Yeah, because everything on the Internet is true, right?”

Kalahari

In the last few years we’ve come to consider ourselves water park aficionados. We tacked on a week to our honeymoon so that we could go to San Antonio, TX to visit Schlitterbahn—the nation’s largest outdoor water park. (Then we visited Schlitterbahn’s sister park on South Padre Island, TX too.) We’ve been to Wet n Wild, Six Flags New England’s water park, Six Flags Atlanta’s water park, Aquatica, Discovery Cove, Blizzard Beach, Six Flags Great Escape Lodge in Lake George, NY, and a few more I can’t recall at the moment. Before I knew Todd, I’d been to Action Park in New Jersey as well.

At Christmas Todd surprised me with a trip to Kalahari, located in the booming metropolis of Sandusky, Ohio.  Kalahari is the largest indoor water park in the nation.  It has a dozen or so rides, one of which is a water roller coaster that was clearly designed to mimic Schlitterbahn’s Master Blaster. There were two funnel rides, one was a tube ride, the other was a slide that ended in a funnel. There were rides on which we had to ride a mat, and there were others that we just rode on our butt. The park also included a giant wave pool beach under a specially designed ceiling that allows UV rays to penetrate so that park visitors can get a suntan while playing in the waves.

The only thing I didn’t like about this park was that the rides were all in complete darkness. The tubes were constructed of opaque fiberglass that didn’t allow light to penetrate. As a result we did not have a sense of where we were going as we slid down the tube. I’ve come to appreciate this variety at other parks, when only a few of the slides are in complete darkness. The innate thrill of not knowing which way the tube will bend, and whether I will be dropped down a steep incline at any given second, is an exciting change from sliding down the tube in the sunlight.

However, every single ride in complete darkness creates an unsettled queasy feeling, especially when riding backward. Toward the end of the first day I started feeling motion sick because my eyes could not detect motion in the dark, and conflicted with my body which clearly detected motion. I do not get motion sick. I am the kind of girl who can ride 7 different roller coasters in under 3 hours and still eat a funnel cake at the half way point. I am the kind of girl who remains at the helm, beer in hand, in 8-10 feet waves hollering at the heavens “Is this all you’ve got??” while my husband “feeds the fish” off the back of the boat. He gets motion sick. I do not. Yet, over the weekend I got my quease on while riding in complete darkness at Kalahari.

But there were other things going on a Kalahari that took the edge off the queasiness.  We headed over to the spa and took in a deep tissue couples massage.  We took advantage of the opportunity to play with a 9 week old Bengal tiger cub.  Twice.  We rubbed her belly while she tried out her baby tiger roar on us; the only response she received was 'Awwwwwww!'  We went to the hot tub bar, bellied up and received our fancy tropical drinks while soaking in a hot tub.  Then we carried the drinks outside--and that was the only time we'd been outdoors for the entire weekend.
But other than the complete darkness, I would totally do Kalahari again—maybe next winter to beat the February cabin fever.

It’s Like Having a Giant Salty Swimming Pool

At first I was resistant to living in Rhode Island. I am a Connecticut native, but I went to college here in Rhode Island. When I was graduating, I was hell-bent on moving to Boston. The Boston area was my be-all-and-end-all at the time. Three months or so after graduating I woke on the floor of my very own apartment in Melrose, Massachusetts—just north of Boston. It was 1996, and I landed a job with a hot software company on the edge of the big dot.com boom that made the Boston area thrive. People my age were starting companies, getting truckloads of money from venture capitalists, and Internet incubators were fostering young companies trying to go public and make gobs of money.

That morning when I woke up I felt like a grown up. Well, almost. I was a grown up whose furniture was in a garage in Connecticut whose brother would deliver it in a few days. I was a grown up with nothing to eat in the fridge for breakfast, and walked to the bakery on the other side of the commuter rail tracks for a muffin and a juice. But I had my very own place, an electric bill in my very own name, a wacky landlord and a bitchen pad.

Eventually I hopped from that pad to another. Then I hopped from the job at the software company to one at a very-big-deal-Internet-incubator that was all the rage in 1998. And then I fell in love. At first I refused to admit I was in love, but I was smitten in a way I’d never been before. We got a place in the city, in Brighton to be exact, and I was thrilled to live there. My love had started a business in Providence, Rhode Island and commuted more than an hour each way to get to work on time. He worked late. He worked hard. I worked north of the city in Andover, MA, so Brighton was really the ideal location for us to live until we had to make some decisions about our future.

Jobs came and went. We moved out of the city to a more affordable and more sensible place just south of Boston in Norwood, MA. I took at job with an online technology magazine located in the city, while Todd still commuted to Providence. His commute was shorter, but still a pain in the ass. I took the train to work where I read, gossiped with my cousin, worked on my Masters degree and knitted on the way to and from work.

Then in 2001 the world fell apart. Approximately five minutes after the planes hit the towers and the Pentagon, I was “made redundant” as the British would say. Todd had said to me “Hey, how about you find a job in Rhode Island? I really really need to be closer to my office. We can buy a house, and it will be a lot cheaper in Rhode Island than in the Boston suburbs anyway.”

He was right. Everything he said made perfect sense. But I still cringed a bit about the thought of living in Rhode Island. After all, the letter “R” does not exist in Rhode Island. Well, it’s become reincarnated in places other than where it belongs, like on the end of words like “idea.” For example, “I have an idee-er, let’s take Andree-er’s cah.” For those of you who do not speak Rhode Island, I’ve just said “I have an idea, let’s take Andrea’s car.” Boston was still the be all end all to me. The tall buildings. The T. The lights over Fenway Stadium (even though I am not a baseball fan, it’s still cool to see) and the variety of night life, concerts, and places to go.

Now I look at my life and wonder why the hell I haven’t moved to Rhode Island sooner. I love it here. I love the proximity to the ocean. I love that I can take my boat and anchor it anywhere in Narragansett Bay and go for a swim on a hot day--which is exactly what we did on Wednesday night.

I told you the other day that we’ve bought a power boat that we can scuba dive off of. This opens up a whole other part of diving in Rhode Island that was previously a pain in the butt to get to. It has a 115 horse motor that will get us to sites fast, rather than puttering along on a heavy sailboat that goes 7 miles per hour if we’re lucky. (Don’t get me wrong, I love Sabine’s slowness! But she’s hard to dive off of.)

On Wednesday night after work Todd and I dropped the “Under Achiever” into the water at the town dock just down the road from where I work. We motored out of Greenwich Bay and into the main part of Narragansett Bay. And we did it quickly. In minutes we were parked near Hope Island in the middle of the Bay. We changed into our bathing suits and dove into the ocean off the side of the boat.

We splashed and swam, then climbed back into the boat. Todd gunned the engine, and the wind dried us. We pulled the boat onto the trailer and headed to a dinner out before 8:00.

We have a gigantic swimming pool at our disposal in the Bay. We don’t have to skim the leaves off the top of it with that screen-on-a-stick thing, and we don’t have to sprinkle scoops of chlorine into it every night like my Dad did to our pool in Connecticut. We don’t have to ask the neighbors if we can come over and use it. All we have to do is jump in.

And now I cannot imagine living anywhere else.

New England Aquarium Dive

Back when I owned the dive shop I got involved with all the local dive clubs. We volunteered at their events, held meetings at the shop, and kept on top of all club goings-on. One of the first things we did when we bought the shop was to host the Frozen Fin Dive on New Year's Day. We provided a free heated tent, free chowder, burgers and coffee, and blared tunes all day long. We gave out free T-shirts, we held a raffle. We entered the RI dive world with a splash.

We ended up selling the shop, but we still help out the New England Aquarium Dive Club, which operates out of Boston. Every fall they run an event at which divers can hunt for rare fish species and donate them to the Aquarium. The Club runs the event, they do the food and raffle thing too.

Last fall Todd and I attended the event, and put down a bid for a dive in the New England Aquarium in Boston. We bid prohibitively high, figuring that we'd either win or we'd help the club raise money for the Aquarium. We managed to accomplish both.

On Saturday we went on the dive.

We dove with a 450 lb sea turtle named Myrtle the Turtle. There were also sand sharks, moray eels, and a nurse shark. But what was particularly great about diving the NE Aquarium was that we were given permission to touch the animals. I scratched the back of Myrtle's neck. I ran my hands down the sides of the sharks as they swam by. I played with Myrtle's fins. I pet the big nurse shark as it dozed on the bottom. I looked out at the little kids who stood with their mouths hanging open watching us.

I've dove the tank at Epcot. I've dove the tank at the Georgia Aquarium too. But this dive, in this little 200,000 gallon tank, was the best of them.

This is Todd, making his dream of diving the tank come true.

This is me, the monkey in the zoo, flirting with the audience.

Hookey

There is something about blowing off work in the afternoon to go to the zoo. Today, Todd and I went on a private tour of the Roger Williams Zoo in Providence, RI. Though we try to visit the zoo at least twice per year, we still managed to see and do things at the zoo that we hadn't seen before.


The Roger Williams Zoo was established in 1872, and is one of the oldest zoos in the US. It's home to many rare creatures, one of which I had seen today for the first time--the American Burying Beetle. This beetle is nearly extinct, and the conservationists are working to restore the beetle's populationby breeding them at the zoo and releasing them into the wild. We got the chance to see where the beetles are being raised and to learn about how their population is now thriving on Nantucket Island.


Also on our tour today we were given the opportunity to feed the elephants and giraffes. We held pieces of pears, green beans and oranges and they were sucked from our hands by Katie, a 24 year old elephant. It's a strange sensation, as there are 80,000 muscles in the elephant's trunk. The tip of the trunk extends to enclose the piece of food as it sucks to hold the food into place. Then the trunk carries the food to the mouth. The food is held in place by the suction and by the amazing muscle control the animal has in its trunk, which surprised me. While I know that there are no teeth in an elephant's trunk, I expected there would be some in there that would help her hold onto the food. She stretched the ends of the trunk over my hands to make sure that she captured the food. We played tug with her, and she gently pulled onto the food until she managed to free it from my hands. To give you an idea of the control they have with their trunk, the zookeeper told us that the elephants have been known to unscrew bolts in their pens with their trunks. Imagine unscrewing a bolt with your nose.

Todd is feeding and petting Katie. You can see how she closed his fingers into the end of her trunk. It didn't hurt, it just felt strange.

This is Xiang, an endangered red panda. The zoo is currently looking for a mate for this panda to help perpetuate the species. I would love to see those babies, I mean, look at that face.

This is Kenya, a baby giraffe born in late December. Kenya's mom and dad, Sukari and Griffin, are in the pen with her. There is another pregnant giraffe in the pen as well, who will give birth soon.




This is Sukari, Kenya's mom. Todd is feeding her some romaine lettuce here.

Katie's teeth. If you look closely inside her mouth, above her tongue, you'll see two rows of molars on either eide.

Camels in the sun. I wonder how these desert animals are coping with the snow.

Kenya sitting. She awkwardly lowered herself over her gangly legs, and clumsily flopped onto the floor. Adorable.

Beej feeding Sukari. Griffin, the darker giraffe, is on the left. They drool. A lot. I should have brought an umbrella.

Flamingoes in the snow. How weird does that look?

It’s Like the Last Day of School

Tonight we are getting on a plane bound for Atlanta. Todd’s birthday is in a few weeks and as a surprise I bought us a dive excursion in the Georgia Aquarium. On Monday we’ll dive in an aquarium full of whale sharks. Whale sharks! Our suitcases are packed and they’re in the car, the dogs are also in the car waiting to go to kennel at lunch time.

I can’t concentrate on anything except the whale sharks that I’ll meet on Monday. I also cannot shake the feeling that I’ve forgotten something of critical importance at home. That feeling will pass once I figure out which travel site Todd used to book the tickets so I can print out the itinerary. At the moment I not only have no idea which airline we’re flying on, but I also have no idea when the plane leaves. Our departure time is set for, roughly, some time after work tonight.

:::

Last night, while distractedly lobbing random articles of clothing into the suitcase, I had the honor of participating in Mr. Taoist Biker’s blog radio show. We talked about our family’s Christmas tradition. He talked about the Southern Christmas, and I talked about what I like to call “A Very Polish Christmas.” It was a lot of fun, and I’d like to thank my blog pal Taoist Biker, a.k.a. Bitch Taoista, for a good time last night.

In the mean time, I watch the clock and try to convince myself that it hasn’t just run backward.

The Best of Both Worlds

Thank you all for weighing in on yesterday’s Life of Dilemma post. Todd and I talked some more about it last night, and I think we’re going to do both. Kind of. Our vacation starts on Saturday 23 August, and ends on Monday 1 September. We have 10 days to play with, and there is a lot that he and I can do in 10 days.

We decided to bail on the Block Island plan. As much as we love Block, and as sad as it is that we haven’t been there for 2 years, there’s simply too much to do so that we can make that trip happen.

1. Our diesel engine eats fan belts. We don’t know why. Every mechanic we’ve spoken to doesn’t know why. The last thing we want is to be so many miles from shore and have our fan belt bite it. The stress that possibility produces would outweigh any relaxation benefit we’d get from being on Block for an entire week.
2. We don’t have any chain on our anchor. On Block Island there is a gimondo anchorage. Which is great, because anchoring is free. But if you’re us it’s not as happy of a thing. We do not have chain on our anchor at the moment, because while chain does wonders for helping to keep the boat where we left it, it’s impossibly heavy to lift by hand. And while we have a new anchor windlass in a box, we don’t have the time it would take to install it before the trip. Anchoring with a rope as the anchor line would also cause more stress than it would relieve, as we would constantly wonder if our boat will be where we left it.
   
   

At the moment our solution is to be on the boat for 5 of the 10 days. There are still plenty of places in Narragansett Bay that we haven’t been: Dutch Harbor, Allen Harbor, Westerly, etc.

Then for the other 5 days we’ll dive in some places we’ve never been. We’ll camp, we’ll hike, we’ll swim and all around rock out.

A Shout Out to Zeke

I absolutely love that the town I live in has a place called Zeke's Bridge.


Now, I don't know who Zeke was, but he must have been a nice guy if they named this beautiful spot after him. Aaaahhhh!

Even though I don't know Zeke, I am thankful to him because it was his bridge that put this smile on my labrador's face.

I've never seen Griffen happier than when he's in the water. Look at the gleam in his eyes, the smile on his lips, the overall look of contentment. Now, if he was swimming in gravy this would be a labrador fantasy come true. For now, he'll settle for the lake.

He is a coiled spring, ready to pounce.

Nemo, however, is not quite convinced that in the water is the coolest place to be when you're a dog. We threw a rock in, trying to convince him to go in after it. No dice. He throws a casual look over his shoulder, as if to say "You think I am going in there? For a rock? I don't think so. Not for a rock. For a steak bone, maybe. Maybe. We could try it, you know, just in case."

Griffen, however, will chase anything that splashes within a mile radius of where he swims.

He is so intently focused on whatever Todd was going to throw into the water. If he manages to lose track of the object thrown in the water, he will swim in concentric circles until he finds it.

You can't see it, but Todd has a stick in his hand. "Ba-ROOOOO!" says Nemo, which is beagle for "Oh would you throw it already?? I am dyin' over here!"

Thanks Zeke. We love your bridge.

San Diego, Part 3

“Mmmmppph,” I mumbled, rolling over. “Have a nice time at your conference, honey.” I said, rubbing my eyes.

“Uh, yeah. Have a nice day exploring California without me,” he smiled.

Todd went off to his conference. I put gas in the rental car and headed for the highway. My plan for the next day and a half was to head to Los Angeles to visit with my sister who lives just outside of the city.

Because I’d never been to California I’d never seen my sister’s house, and I could not wait to get there. I drove along The 5 as the Californians call it and checked out the scenery on the way. There is a portion of the 5 that runs right along the Pacific Ocean, and the view was beautiful even though it was a gray day.

An hour and a half or so after I left I arrived in Margaret’s neighborhood. Awhile ago I had Google-stalked my sister’s address on Google Earth, but from that I could only see what her roof looked like. But looking around in her neighborhood, it was exactly what I had imagined. Margaret is a great gardener, and the shrubs and flowers in her yard were very pretty. It was great to be able to spend so much time with my sister and my niece, Maya. The last time I saw them was at or Grandmother’s funeral, in 2006.

Margaret is 14 years older than I am, and we’ve always been in different phases of life for as long as we’ve known each other. She was a teenager when I was a toddler. I was only 4 when she graduated high school, and was in third grade when she’d finished college and moved back home before setting out to live in Arizona. While I was a teenager, Margaret was in her 20s and 30s, while I was navigating through college, she was navigating through the early years of marriage—then she and my brother-in-law, Bruce, adopted Maya while I was just moving out of home and figuring out how to live on my own. Before I even became a wife, she became a mother.

The difference in life stages sometimes made our relationship a bit challenging. There were times when we couldn’t exactly relate to each other—while she was going through potty training with Maya, I was restoring my first sailboat with Todd. Even though we still live very different lives I think we’ve finally managed to strike up a connection. Which is great and I am very thankful for that.

We picked up Maya from school and ran a few errands before we set out to walk on a trail in a canyon near their house. It was a beautiful walk, and I enjoyed seeing the different kinds of trees and plants. Maya showed me some coyote and deer tracks that were made in a patch of cement, and Nickel—their puppy—chased sticks and bounded through the bush.

Nickel scaling a wall before retrieving a stick.

At the end of the hike we spotted a couple scouring the bushes near the parking lot. We approached them and they told us that they had seen a stray kitten and were trying to catch it. Margaret and I climbed into the bushes while Maya directed us to the kitten from the pavement. I heard the hiss come from the frightened kitten Margaret shouted “I got it! I got it!” She scrambled out of the brush, holding a claws-beared kitten out from herself. She wrapped it up in her fleece jacket and we brought it into the car, Maya, kitten and I in the back, and Margaret fending Nickel’s curiosity off in the front.

Margaret and the kitten, just after she rescued him from the bush.

We had dinner, and discussed what to do with the kitten. They already have two dogs and two cats and Margaret and Bruce were not keen on taking in another animal. Maya, of course, wanted to keep the kitten. What ten year old have you ever met didn’t want to keep a kitten? Heck, I am not a cat person but remember wanting to keep a stray kitten when I was 10. Of course, my mom said “No way.”

“Can we keep it?” Maya asked.

“No,” Margaret would respond firmly. And on it went.

“I’m going to name him….” Maya started.

“You’re not naming him. Be prepared for the possibility that he won’t be here when you get home from school tomorrow. We are not keeping that cat.”

Then Maya emerged from her bedroom, cradling the kitten, “He was lonely,” she said. Already, after knowing the kitten for an hour or two she knew that he was lonely. You have to love 10 year old animal lovers. I wonder if they ever did manage to find a home for the cat.

My dog-nephew, Juneau, age 17.

My other dog-nephew, Nickel, age 1.

The next day Margaret and I hung out and got caught up on each other’s lives some more. Then I set out to meet up with none other than Cece for lunch. Cece had just returned to town from her corporate sponsored drunk fest, I mean company conference. Our visit was short, way too short, because I needed to leave the city before LA’s impossible traffic kicked up and she’d been away for a few days and I didn’t want to intrude on her family reunion time. She and Mister took me to lunch at their favorite Mexican place, which was incredibly good. We laughed and joked with her youngest daughter while we ate. A wonderful time, and way too short. Thanks Cece.

I headed back to San Diego and chilled out a bit before Todd returned to the room. That night there was an event for his conference at the WaveHouse. Free food, free drink, a live band and surfing demonstrations on these giant artificial waves. I got the chance to meet some of the new friends he’d made, and Todd’s vodka and grapefruits were going down pretty easily that we had joked about having to use a luggage cart to get him back to the hotel room. The surfers did these elaborate jumps, the band played a ska-beachy kind of sound—a perfect complement to the free food and booze.

The next morning, bright and early, we returned the rental car and headed to the airport and jumped on a plane headed for reality.

San Diego, Part 2

Monday Todd rolled out of bed and checked the schedule for his conference—you know the reason why we went to San Diego—and saw that he didn’t have any sessions he needed to attend. Again we had the whole city waiting for us, and we had to decide once again what we would do.

We got into the car and headed for the San Diego Zoo. There was no way to fully prepare for the vastness of this zoo. We had seen billboards along the highways in San Diego advertising the zoo that had a fictitious character with a lion’s head and wings on it. The caption read “If it doesn’t exist, we don’t have it.” Boy was that the truth. The San Diego Zoo is an overwhelmingly large place. We spent the day walking around with our mouths hanging open. It’s been a week since I was there and I am still having difficulty putting our experience at the zoo into words. I mean, I could spout out some boring nonsense about how the animals’ habitats are beautiful, and blah blah blah. But it’s so much more than that, and I keep trying to find ways to illustrate how amazing the zoo is, and why seeing the pandas literally brought tears to my eyes—but I cannot seem to do it justice. Let me just show you the pictures instead.

Hippo grin

I wish I could have asked this gorilla what he was thinking.

This is my favorite picture from the zoo.

I could have stood there and watched the pandas all day. I could have also sat there and watched the gorillas all day. And I could have watched the hippos all day too.

After the zoo we headed over to Coronado Island. We drove around the island, trying to find a very Beej and Todd activity. We aren’t satisfied with spending an afternoon shopping and we spent the day sight seeing in the zoo—what are the other options on Coronado? We drove by the docks and saw a boat rental company and the answer came to us. We rented a power boat so we could cruise around in the bay for a little while.

We headed out of the Bay and into the ocean just so we could reach out and touch the water—I haven’t touched the Pacific Ocean since I lived in Australia, and I don’t think Todd has ever touched it at all. On our way out I noticed something sitting on the navigation buoys. I pointed it out to Todd and he steered the boat closer to it just so we could see a seal dozing on the buoy. I oohed and aahed over seeing a seal in the wild, and how much better that is than seeing one at Sea World or at the San Diego Zoo and then got back on course for the ocean again. We motored on, and saw even more seals on the next buoy, and even more on the one after that. I think at one point we had seen close to a dozen seals piled up on one of the buoys, including a few baby seals.

We motored out just beyond the point and shifted into neutral. We reached our hands over the gunnels of the boat and dipped our hands into the Pacific Ocean. I tasted the salt from the water on my hands, and touched the water again. We headed back to the dock and returned the boat, keeping our secret of bringing the rental boat out of the bay for those few moments.

We got back into the car again and headed to La Jolla to visit my cousin Anna, her husband Greg and their children Max and Sam. We did dinner with Anna while Greg cared for the boys. On the way to dinner Anna gave us a walking tour around La Jolla, and brought us to a beach where at least 70 seals were dozing on the sand just before the last bit of sunlight died out.

In keeping with my obsession with taking pictures of the underside of bridges, this is the bridge between San Diego and Coronado Island.

Here are the seals dozing on the navigation buoy.

This is Todd, just after we dipped our hands into the ocean.

San Diego, Part 1

“Hey Dad, it’s me. I just wanted to let you know that we’re at the airport and we’re heading out to San Diego for a week.”

“Really?” he asked. “You have to go to Point Loma,” he said. “Just drive until you run out of road then look at the view. If you look to the south or the west, all you can see is ocean. Then you look to the east and you can see all of San Diego and Coronado Island. Please go there, it’s great.”

He was right. We went to Point Loma first thing on Saturday morning. It was a bit hazy, but we could see all of San Diego. After that, we asked ourselves the question we always ask each other when we are traveling “Which of the 5,000 fun things are we going to do today?”

Here's a ship coming in through the haze, taken from Point Loma:

After Point Loma we hopped in the convertible and drove up the Pacific Highway for a few hours. In the excitement of being in a new town, neither of us thought to bring either of the two bottles of sunscreen I bought prior to leaving Rhode Island. We both ended up burned after the day was up.

Here's Todd in our hot ride, pre-sunburn:


We drove to a beach near Carlsbad, and waded into the ocean, we stopped in Encinitas to poke around in the shops and to get an ice cream.

These are rocks on North Ponto Beach:

Here's the view of the beaches near Carlsbad, and an inadvertent self portrait:

When we returned to San Diego we decided to check out the Cinco de Mayo celebration in Old Town. We took a taxi there, planning on taking advantage of the many margaritas being served, but I have a chip and salsa problem. Really it’s an addiction. If you put a plate in front of me I will eat and eat and eat and eat them until I make myself sick. I filled up on chips and salsa, and was too full to drink anymore. I have issued a chip and salsa moratorium in our house until I can attend a few meetings and get this addiction under control.

I don't know what this guy was doing, but it looks like he just peed in the server's station at the restaurant where we had dinner:

The Mexican food in San Diego, as you can imagine as the city borders Mexico, is spectacular. Even the crappy little roadside taco stands are gourmet compared to what you'd get here in Rhode Island. We went on a week long taco bender, and I am still recovering.

Sunday morning we woke up and asked the “Which of the 5,000 things are we going to do today?” question. We decided to rent jet skis at Mission Bay for an hour. We got on the bikes and rode through the no wake zone until we arrived at the speed zone. I gradually acclimated myself to going faster and faster until eventually I managed to ride it full throttle. I watched the speedometer climb though the 30s, then the 40s. It hovered at the high 40s, and then ticked over to 50, then 51 and finally 52 miles per hour. I strained to hold onto the bike, and felt my cheeks flap in the breeze until I released the throttle and felt the wake catch up to me as I slowed down.

We ditched our wet bathing suits in the trunk of the car and headed for Sea World. The weather began to drastically cool down, and we bought some fleece sweaters from the gift shop. We took in the Sea World attractions, but the one that amazed me the most (not that dolphins jumping into the air isn’t amazing, because really it is incredible) but the Pets Rule show was spectacular. Sea World had rescued 50 some odd dogs, cats, birds and even a pig from local shelters and trained them to do this incredible show. They had cats scaling the underside of the high wire, dogs playing jump rope, birds flying here and there—all on command. I have never seen anything like it. And I would love to say that my dog is trained to open the fridge and help himself, but sadly he came up with that one all on his own.

Here's a cat that is scaling the underside of a highwire. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen a cat do and I wonder how on earth this cat was trained to do this. It's not like you can say to a cat, "Seriously pal, trust us. You won't fall. Just hold on with your paws like this..."

If you've never seen dogs jump rope, now's your chance:

We took in a few more of the exhibits and then headed for the Shamu Rocks show after dark. It’s the usual enormous whale hijinks but it is set to music and a light show. We ended the day watching the fireworks over Sea World, contemplating the 5,000 activities we will have to choose from on the next day, and the remainder of the week.

Only the Heartiest of Rhode Islanders go to the Beach in the Winter

Yesterday Todd had some work to do in Newport. The dogs and I tagged along for the ride, and we all went to Second Beach for a walk and occasional toss and fetch of a frisbee. The boys love the beach, and we haven't taken them there nearly enough this winter.

Here are Griffen and Nemo fetching up their respective frisbees:

Nemo daring to get his paws wet:

Todd and Griffen walking on the beach, Griffen scarcely able to contain his inner water dog at the site of the surf:

Griffen swimming with his frisbee:

Nemo prints:

Todd:

Me: