There's also been some confusion with just who I am so I'll help to clear it up by explaining that my full name is Emily Parmenter but Katie and Emmie (and most Madison friends) call me Parm. So no, we didn't pick up a fourth roadtripper (if you've been following the blog you know that there's no way someone else would fit in the car) and Emily=Parm. I give Emmie a hard time in that she stole my name so I have to go by Parm but she then reminds me that she's older. I'm sticking with it since it's not her official name. She can take that one up in a future post.
On to southern California - I met up with Emmie and Katie after being away for the Fourth of July weekend in West Point, Nebraska for an family reunion and took the train down from LAX just in time to catch the boat out for a fireworks display. If you ever have the opportunity take the train down from Los Angeles, I'd recommend it as the train travels right alongside the coast and avoids all the traffic!
Katie's aunt and uncle, Leslie and David Berry, live in Phoenix and were so gracious to host us at their condo in Coronado, just across the bay from San Diego. Their daughter and budding political journalist Elizabeth was also in town to celebrate and debate the merits of various DC cupcakeries.
We were greeted with a true 4th of July cookout and then off to the boat to watch the San Diego fireworks show from the bay. Leslie recommended we bring warm jackets as it can get pretty cool on the water but as the temperature was 80 degrees outside, I thought she might just be mistaken being from Phoenix and all. The three of us looked skeptically at each other, thinking, "hey, we're from Madison. We're tough," and grabbed jackets just in case. However, Leslie won that one, hands down. I think we're losing some toughness.
Uncle David & Cousin Elizabeth on the boat, ready to deter any Osprey's angling for the boat as a suitable nest.
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Parm, Emmie & Katie on the boat
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| Happy 4th of July from Emmie & Parm |
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Leslie, Katie and Elizabeth on the boat to watch fireworks. The show was amazing (Gold Star for San Diego) and synched to music the whole time. A collective "No!" rang out from all the girls when David asked if he should turn off the soundtrack when the Black Eyed Peas "Tonight's gonna be a good night" kicked off the montage. |
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We spent our first day in Coronado lazily rousing ourselves to greet the clear blue sky and pristine beach. Leslie shares my affinity for coffee and is an excellent espresso barista. Seriously, you should set out a tip jar Leslie. We made the long 5 minute walk to the beach and promptly took to a beautiful day of playing in the ocean, sacrificing more items to the water god (sunglasses and a hat so far for the count).
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There's a large contingent of folks with connections to Phoenix in Coronado and as Katie's family (including Leslie & David) are from Phoenix, the city of Coronado has a decidedly small-town feel. We were so lucky to be invited to a phenomenal dinner party at the house of their friends on our second night in town. Robbins and Graham are a great couple who have a local needlepoint store familiar to Katie's family and interesting friends and dinner companions.
Highlights from dinner included meeting Larry, a former Navy spy in the Vietnam war who's recently published a book based vaguely on his experiences in Cambodia during the war. Larry gave us a copy of this and the children's book about war he illustrated. We also met a variety of Navy sailers and pulled out a few boating terms from our (cough) sailboat racing experience in Seattle. Graham was preparing for the LA to Honolulu sailing race in a few days and had some great stories from his days as a Naval Academy sailing coach. Emmie of course found someone from Pittsburgh (these people are everywhere!!) and launched into a local sports discussion.
We dominated our stay in Coronado by: |
- Rocking it out on a beach run
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Beach babes on the run, Katie and Parm. Note that my calf muscles took 3 days to forgive me for this barefoot run. Lesson to others - don't get too excited after reading Born to Run that you immediately launch into barefoot running.
2. Purchasing sweet California shades to replace the 15 pairs we’ve churned through on this trip. We’re now the proud owners of white Polka Dot, neon green and gold aviator sunglasses. Gold star to the person who correctly identifies the owner of each 3. Getting it in with breakfast burritos at Stretch’s café (just for you Pete)  5. Keeping our eye out for Navy Seals at the seal base – success in the next post (or failure from some points of view..) 6. Finding another gorge hotel that Katie's ready to move into asap |
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Emme & Parm at the lovely Hotel Del Coronado  You can contact Katie in Room 207 |
Emmie's been talking about visiting the San Diego Zoo since she was in the womb so it was a known fact that we'd be visiting the world famous zoo while in the city. After some intense deliberations about which San Diego attractions to visit, we settled on just visiting the zoo and forgoing Sea World this time around. After I learned that the real Shamu died in 1971 and the current ones are shams, my interest waned. Seriously, what's up with naming all the killer whales Shamu? No one's fighting for the individuality of each whale anymore? I’m adding this to the list of great American shams – it’s now up to 5, look forward to a future sham-filled post.
I received a very important email while looking at information on the zoo - one of our favorite restaurants, Noodles & Company, was launching a new promotion the next day and we had a chance to win 10 free salads each if we were one of the first 50 people to a restaurant location. As the number of emails received daily has taken a significant nosedive since leaving our job, I now pay close attention to each one and am thankful for joining Noodles mailing list.
We quickly decided that this was a sign we should take advantage of having nothing to do at 10:30 a.m. on a weekday and make a Noodles stop a priority for the coming day. The only thing standing in our way was some tight logistics with getting to the zoo in time for the primo first bus tour when the animals were just waking.
A breakdown of our Zoo/Noodles plan:
9:00 a.m. - Arrive at Zoo, purchase tickets and beeline for the double decker tram
9:15 a.m. - Take first tram around park, view wildlife awakening
10:00 a.m. - Rush for park exit, drive to Noodles 10 minutes away (crossing fingers for no traffic) and stand in line at Noodles
10:30 a.m. - Noodles opens, elbow anxious Noodlers if more than 50 people show up before us
10:45 a.m. - Order bomb summer salads
11:00 a.m. - Return to Zoo, feast on free summer salads recently obtained
12:00 p.m. - Attend Elephant Odyssey zookeeper talk (Zoo version of ranger talks = I'm there)
1:00 p.m. - See rest of zoo, yadda yadda yadda
4:00 p.m. - mandatory frozen yogurt break
6:00 p.m. - force selves to leave park before becoming too cranky and throwing someone into an animal enclosure
Any bets on how close we stuck to that itinerary? I somehow doubt that I'll surprise anyone by saying that we stuck to this schedule practically to the minute...but yes, we did. Highlights from the day:
Emmie's sheer elation at finally making to the zoo
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Our legit bus stamps at the zoo |
Katie channels 1991 at Noodles
Success! Those aren't green t-shirts, they're 10 salads each.
Meet Grandma, she's 98 years young and one of the oldest inhabitants of the San Diego zoo.
Katie scopes out a terrifying bird straight out of Jurassic Park.
Polar Bearing at the Polar Bear exhibit
Katie channels her inner seal
Too much zoo...we were wiped when Katie requested that we pose with the map
After our full day at the zoo, we headed to the lovely San Diego Yacht Club to have dinner with Leslie. The club is full of many family memories for Katie and it was fun for Emmie and me to picture Katie shorter (as she is 5'11" now) with the same mature look (she beats me in all the guess who's older games with strangers, someday I'm going to be happy about that...) wreaking havoc in the marina.
Emmie, Katie, Leslie, Parm at the San Diego Yacht Club
During our last night in Coronado we played the "how many former techy women does it take to set up a wireless system" game. It apparently takes four college educated women and multiple restarts on the router. Hmm...something's not right with this picture, but we were up and running by the end of it and the condo now has internet. I hope it's still working...how's it going Leslie?
We ended the evening by catching up with photos and watching old movies back at the condo. I promptly fell asleep after the raucous day allowing Katie and Emmie the chance to finalize details on the great adventure to come...my surprise birthday scavenger hunt!
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