San Diego Trip Recount - **Finally**

[azraelz_angel]

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San Diego Trip

Here be random notes, none of which are really interesting, interspersed with random pictures. Enjoy!!

WEDNESDAY

Up at 6 a.m. – ugh, so not fun!! Out the door to the airport by 7:30. Honestly not all that bad, but still.

Um…did we forget we were headed to Baltimore during morning rush hour, why yes, yes we did. Horrendous morning commuters. Horrendous.

Got the airport with time to spare and we ended up in the right terminal location. Shock me, shock me. Yes, travel between Sara and I is usually crazy and usually we end up where we aren’t supposed to be.

The plane was held up for 16 passengers – their previous flight was running late. Boo Southwest.

However, despite the minor delay Southwest redeemed themselves by getting us into San Diego 25 minutes early! Woohoo Southwest.

5 hours on a plane is not fun. The end. Period.

I did meet an awesome and relatively cute guy on the plane ride out to San Diego. I had picked up my brand new spanking copy of Kim Harrison’s The Demon Outlaw Wails and had every intention of reading for the next 5 hours of flight, but it instead I conversed. He noticed my book and mentioned that he was a fantasty / sci-fi writer himself and that he was working on a fantasy-realm comic book. I kept my complete dorkiness to myself and did not admit that I wrote fanfic. I have a hard enough time telling my best friends – telling strangers is a disaster!!

Turns out the guy owns/runs/works in this bamboo clothing store in Portland, OR. I’m not sure how that works. And I haven’t really bothered to google it. I’ve never even heard of making clothing out of bamboo …

The only thing that was a little weird about the guy, and it wasn’t even that weird, is that he had booked a flight from Portland (where he now lives) back to Baltimore to visit his dying mother (cancer I believe) two months ago. He’d been making several trips out to Maryland over the past year and a half and this was another one of his scheduled trips. And his mother ended up dying on the weekend that he was home. *whimpers* He seemed okay with it, had accepted it was his mother’s time, but thought it was weird that she died the exact weekend he had been able to fly home.

And because I *must* report all things Supernatural related. This British woman, who lived in the States, was sitting behind me. And the guy next to me was wearing a Battlestar Galatica shirt and she mentioned that she loved that show. And she loved Buffy. And then we were all talking about new shows, and I mentioned that Supernatural had replaced Buffy for me. And the freaking British woman loved Supernatural too. She said she couldn’t decide whether she was a Dean or a Sam woman – she just knew they were both really hot. Hahah!!

Dude, blue_icy_rose, I flew over you!! Well, I really flew over your state of New Mexico but I did comment to my friend that you lived somewhere down there as we zoomed overhead.

San Diego

So, obviously we landed. If you’ve ever been to the San Diego airport you will know you feel like you are able to land on the middle of all these houses and buildings – cause the airport is heavily surrounded.

We ended up staying at the Mission Valley Marriott, nice but the rooms were a little small for a Marriott (in my humble opinion). Of course, we had to stay in this particular hotel because they were the only hotel that would honor the government rate, because Sara is an army contractor and was there on official government business. And the little front desk manager was not happy and was pretty adamant about how he was not going to honor the rate because Sara is a contractor, never mind that she was there on official business. Fortunately things worked out and she was charged the government rate. Boo Marriott. I mean, I get it, I do. I certainly do not want to abuse the system and I know there are people that take advantage, but we weren’t them, not even if we were dressed in sloppy clothes and looked rough from a 5 hour plane ride. I was honestly a little worried that we were going to be without a hotel for our trip – a scary thought when you have just landed across the country.

Alright, moving forward… We ended up walking a couple blocks from the hotel and found food and civilization in the middle of what I was horribly assuming to be a business park of doom. Seriously, when the cab brought us in, I thought I was going to starve to death because there was nothing to eat and hell if I was paying $13 for a cold continental breakfast from the hotel.

San Diego has this awesome section called the Gaslamp District. Just a wonderful place full of life, character, people, neat shops, etc. We ended up checking that out for dinner on Wednesday night. Even better we took the trolley downtown, which saved us a bunch of money rather than taking a cab.

We ended up eating at The Whiskey Girl on the patio because it was so nice and beautiful and in the 60s!! It is your typical American Bar & Grill, nothing too fancy, but it worked. We were going to eat at the Gaslamp Strip Club but there was over an hour wait and we were both starving. I have to laugh just a little because I saw the Gaslamp Strip Club advertised on Rachel Ray’s Travel Guide show a couple days before I left for San Diego.

So, at dinner, we are minding our own business on the patio and this homeless guy walks up to us. Now, the patio is fenced in with an iron-wrought fence, but it is only like waist-level and we were sitting right up against the fence closest the foot traffic. So the guy is nice, and approaches Sara because she is facing him and I’m back to him, and asks for some money. Again, totally nice about it. And when Sara says that she has no money, he said “Fuck you Bitch!”

WTF? Seriously? He went from nice homeless dude to angry fucker in a nanosecond. With that attitude we sure as fuck weren’t going to give him a damn thing.

So it kinda ruined our evening. Because Sara was freaked out because he left but left in the direction that she wasn’t facing, so she was kinda terrified he was going to come back and stab her. So, I kept an eye out, thinking that he wouldn’t come back. Well, I was wrong. I spotted him coming and told Sara just to get up and leave the patio, I was fine, with a bunch of other people around, and she was the one that he had verbally attacked earlier. But Sara didn’t want to leave me, so she just stood up and moved away from the fence. The guy had a takeout container in his hand, so he got money from somewhere, and he had food stuffed in his mouth when he stopped next to our table and proceeded to cuss out Sara *again*…though we couldn’t make out what it was around the food in his mouth. Ew. WTF?


Thankfully when he walked by the third time he ignored us completely.

I was genuinely surprised by the sheer amount of homeless people San Diego had. During dinner there were at least half a dozen homeless people walking up and down the street. Most of them didn’t say anything. There was one guy that was nice and kinda mute, but after the horrific experience we had with the first one, we weren’t really feeling any of them. When we were waiting for the trolley on the way home, we watched a homeless person dig through a trashcan and pull out several boxes. There wasn’t anything for him/her to eat, so they put it back in the trashcan, but it was really, really sad to watch.

I have mixed emotions about the homeless. And I know that will probably make me seem like a bad person, but I’m really trying not to be. I truly understand that they can’t just go get a job. Seriously, you can’t expect someone living on the street, eating out of a trashcan and stinking to high heaven, to walk into an interview and get a job. It isn’t going to happen, and those people that think the homeless just need to stop being lazy and get a job irritate the hell out of me. But it is so very frustrating when you have homeless people that are aggressive and angry and threatening for absolutely no reason.

It turned out to be one long ass day, starting at 6 a.m. EST and ending at 1 a.m. PST. *whew*

And we had a theme song for the day, Sarah’s Silverman’s “I’m Fucking Matt Damon”

Random pictures for Wednesday:


Me, the dorky dork I am, in the hotel bed reading “The Outlaw Demon Wails” after we’d settled into the hotel. It was so good I didn’t want to put it down and Sara was unpacking and doing other things so I snuggled under the covers and started to read.


Me at this neat water fountain – this place was a block away from the hotel. It is this little village-ish place. The café where I got breakfast each morning was there, and they had apartments, the trolley stopped there, and they had gyms, Curves, dry cleaners, internet access/business centers, wine stores. It was neat.


Sara at the water fountain too. She is smart and turned to the side – and looked hot!!


Sara and Me. I’m not sure exactly where we took this – probably on the trolley cause we are dorks, but it is cute and I liked it.

End Wednesday

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THURSDAY

I think the best part about going out to the West Coast is that you can “sleep in” for EST and still get up hella early for PST!!! That was awesome. Sara set her alarm for 7 a.m. to get up and ready for the meeting, but yeah, she was up and ready before the alarm even went off. Crazy. Not me though – I just lounged around like a lazy person. Hehe.

I had a wonderful little breakfast at a café we had found on Wednesday that was a block away from the hotel. They had a delicious bacon, egg, and cheese on a toasted English muffin. Seriously that is heaven for me.

So, I had my breakfast sandwich, a cup of yummy coffee, and sat on the patio in the warm sun and read The Outlaw Demon Wails. I bought that book Tuesday when it came out, worked on it on the plane on Wednesday and then finished it completely Thursday. Vacations with nothing to do but read and relax are freaking awesome!!

For dinner I met Sara back downtown in the Gaslamp District and we were the first people waiting at the door when the Gaslamp Strip Club opened for business. And I know I mentioned it earlier, but given the name I might want to explain (in case you didn’t follow the link). It is not a strip club, it is a ‘grill your own steak lounge’, where yes, you grill your own steak. Talk about making out like lunatics. They don’t need cooks in the kitchen, they just have the poor customers stand over a grill and cook their own $23 fillet on their own.

<<<>>>

They have these naked pictures of women hanging all over the walls, but we decided to take a picture of the woman on the window.


And here, I had the brilliant idea to try to get the flash to come out right on her nipple, but according to Sara it was harder than it looked. Sara did come damn close didn’t she? And what, don’t look at me funny, you should all know I’m not right in the head.


Me grilling, looking like a fool! I had to pull my hair back for fear it would shrivel and burn from the heat of the grill.


We forgot about the toast. Boy did we forget about the toast. We didn’t even realize it was burning until we smelled smoke and saw the flames start. I don’t think we should be allowed to grill our own food ever again.


Sara thought it was hilarious that I eat lemons. And despite the fact they are sour and make me make funny faces, I love them. So, Sara took a picture. It doesn’t look that bad but that angle makes my forehead look huge!


I look like such a bum next to Sara when she’s all dressed up for a conference.

Random – Sara had this crazy idea that started a few days before we went on this trip that we should get best friend tattoos. I think she was partially serious and partially not, but I went with it. However before ya’ll get excited and want to see pictures, it didn’t happen. She teased me and said we would, but we never did. She wants to get a fairy and I’m perfectly fine with that, but I want a bad ass fairy and I think she probably wants something a little kinder and gentler.

I’ve been trying to talk her into getting a tattoo for years. This is the closest we’ve come and I’m excited that we actually might be moving toward something in the next decade!! *grins*

Ooooh – I picked up a gift for exposed1. It is an early baby gift and the minute I saw it, I thought of Lisa. And you know what’s bad – when I was jotting down notes about my trip in my journal I wrote “exposed1” rather than Lisa and translated. I need to step away from LJ I think. Anyhow, it is a secret. It has been mailed and hopefully it will get to Lisa in a reasonable amount of time. I’m already worried because it has been awhile and she hasn’t gotten it. It will break my heart if she doesn’t get it.

Random shot from the store I got exposed1’s gift in:

Sara and the Lion – ROAR!!

End Thursday

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FRIDAY

Yummy egg sandwich for breakfast again! Seriously, the cheese that they use on these sandwich is amazing. And they pepper the hell out of the scrambled egg that they put on it and normally I would think it is nasty, but it works and I love it.

I spend hours - hours - working on my Sweet Charity John/Dean/Sam fic. I managed to get it most of the way complete – minus the final sex scene, which is the centerpiece of the story. EDIT: You can see my completed Sweet Charity piece here: Dean’s Dirty Desire

Then because I had a whole exhausting *snicker* day of writing and lying about, I took a nap for about an hour before Sara got back.

Dinner was another first for me. Seriously, this whole trip was about doing things I’d never done before. Never been to the West Coast, never been on a plane for that long, you name it. Sara and I walked over to a mall that was about six blocks or so away. And we had dinner at In-N-Out Burger.


Sara’s meal but again, my first In-N-Out experience. Sara was so thrilled to get an In-N-Out burger.


I can’t tell you how sexy I look trying to cram that big ass burger into my mouth. So yeah, my first In-N-Out burger. Quite delicious.

So, after we were both stuffed full we went walking around the mall which was about a block away. Sara got a cute shirt for $6 to wear on her motorcycle, but I think that was the extent of the shopping.

We were going to go out and hit up a club or something in the Gaslamp District but we ended up just staying in and talking. We’ve both been busy and we haven’t been able to just talk like we used to, so it was good to catch up.

I did get a chance to find avamclean a cheesy gift from San Diego. I should have taken a picture of it, but alas I’m not that good. It was this starfish with a little shell bikini top and bottom and then a little mini-surfboard that said San Diego. Cute and cheesy. EDIT: Ava says she loved it – wheee!!

Wow, so looking back over what I just typed it looks like I didn’t do a damn thing on Friday. :*frowns* But I swear, I spent hours and hours working on my Sweet Charity fic. Writing all that porn is time consuming.

End Friday

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SATURDAY

We were up early to head into the high desert (aka Victorville) to see Sara’s family. Thankfully Enterprise is awesome and they came and got us from our hotel. Woohoo for Enterprise. Our driver was around our age and he was completely hung over. It was hilarious. He just looked absolutely miserable to be at work and clearly would rather have been sleeping.

It took us a couple hours to get out to the high desert. The drive itself wasn’t bad at all. I thought it was going to be pretty miserable but it passed pretty quickly, though most of that could have to do with Sara’s extreme driving *wink* I will admit there were a couple times I feared for my life, but alas I survived!!

Being from the Eastern Shore of Maryland, smog is something I’ve heard about but never actually seen or had to deal with. On the drive into the desert I got to see smog hanging about for the first time. And I have to admit it was kinda terrifying. World-ending and such. I didn’t like it one bit.


Shot taken on the way up through the mountains and toward the desert. There is a combination here of smog and fog and honestly it just wasn’t a pretty event to drive through.


Again more fog and smog.

It’s weird because I knew that L.A. has problems with smog and air quality, I know smog exists and is an issue, but I’ve honestly never seen it before.

Okay, we ended up meeting her father at his wife’s house (cause they were separated but getting back together while we were there). And there are honest to god dirt roads that people drive on out in the desert. Seriously, there are street signs at the dirt road intersections and everything. Oh my god – it is freaking crazy!! I took a picture as proof:


Crazy!!

Saturday (and Sunday really) was all about Sara getting to spend time with her family. It was really, really awesome to be able to see where she grew up, where she became the person that I happily call my best friend, etc. I know that might sound kinda stupid, but it meant a lot to me that she wanted me to get to really sit down with her family, to see where she grew up, and just get to know the California Sara that not many people know (as we are all from Maryland).


One of the houses that Sara grew up in. Crazy ass dirt yard.

Here is the desert mountain trail that we had to drive up to get to Sara’s Dad’s house that he’s renting (until he moves back in with his wife):



There was this fucking huge boulder in the middle of that road and her dad drove right over and it and scratched the hell out of the bottom of our rental car. Seriously, I was certain when we drove past/off the boulder we were going to see parts of the car or liquid trailing behind us. It was a miracle that it didn’t happen. Her dad just laughed and said his car went over it so he thought our rental would too!!

It was a pretty chill afternoon/evening. Her father drove us all over the place and they got to revisit the houses that they lived in (as you saw above) and then we just hung out at his place for the evening and watched an Ultimate Fighting match. I shouldn’t get as excited and pumped as I do when I watch two men beat the living hell out of one another.

Sara and I each had a couch for the evening. And because we were on a mountain in the desert it was freezing when the sun dropped and her father didn’t turn on the heater until like 5 in the morning when he got up. It was so freaking cold in their that I slept in my clothes and jacket and had the blanket pulled up over my head (and I hate sleeping with the blanket over my head!)!!

End Saturday

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SUNDAY

Sara’s father was up at 5! 5!! Crazy. Sara ended up coughing at like 5:15 and he was all like, ‘Sara are you awake!?!’ and she said ‘No!’ Too funny. But she ended up getting up with him at 5:45 before she just felt so bad that he was just lying in bed waiting for us to get up. I was a total slacker and gave Sara and her father an hour to bond and got up at 6:45. Sheesh, I should be able to sleep in on my vacation!

Sara took these pictures while I was sleeping and her father was dragging her around the property:



Sara and her Dad























And then I took these on the way down the mountain and to breakfast:






That is the big damn river that Sara’s Dad was so proud of. I know it is California and the desert and water is scarce, but it’s just so funny to see that as a big damn river.

I had my first Del Taco experience. Sara introduced me to the breakfast egg and cheese burrito. It was actually quite tasty though her father did seem to think she/we were nuts for wanting so desperately to eat there for breakfast.

We went to hang out with Tammy (Sara’s Dad’s wife) and her two girls for a little while before we had to head to Sara’s Grandparents’ house.

Tammy ended up giving us some funky ass directions to get to back to the main highway to get to Sara’s Grandparents’ house and we ended up in the middle of freaking nowhere on shitty ass dirt roads. Yes, our Ford Focus (or whatever the hell it was) went offroading like a champion! We bottomed out a couple times, almost took off the front bumper in a couple huge dips, but after like 15 or 20 minutes we finally found the freaking highway! Thank God!!

Sara’s Grandparents’ house is really, really nice. They live in a nice community/neighborhood and inside their house was just so big, spacious and beautiful. We ended up going grocery shopping with her Grandmother to get some items together for dinner.

And then I met up with my California boat dealer. I do boat financing in Maryland and all of our dealers (with the exception of one) are from Maryland or Virginia. Jim is our lone dealer on the other side of the country.


Jim and Me

It was really neat to actually meet him. We’ve been doing business with him for six years and never actually met in person. We’ve done all our communicating via the phone and done all the loan closings via email or FedEx. I took Sara with me to lunch and Jim brought his girlfriend Nancy.

Sara’s Grandmother made her homemade and absolutely delicious potato salad for dinner and then made a chocolate cake for Sara. She didn’t end up cooking dinner but the takeout chicken we got was yummy nonetheless.

It is kinda weird, because Sara and her family were talking and I was just kinda sitting there, zoning out and letting them caught up with one another. I’m not family, and Sara knew that she didn’t have to worry about entertaining me and catching up with her family at the same time.

We ended up spending the evening at Sara’s aunt’s house rather than her grandmother’s. That was fine because we both actually got a bed rather than having to share a queen.

We ended up getting up hella early on Monday morning – 6 a.m. to make it back to San Diego to get our rental car back by 10:30 a.m. and then board our plane a few hours later.

And yeah – I’ve already talking about Monday and the craziness that was our drive back to San Diego and then the long ass flight home and then the drive back from the Baltimore airport, so I’m just going to end this here.

I’m extremely long-winded and I’ll be surprised if most people actually made it through to this point!

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Comments

[kaylashay81]

I made it to the end!

Although Fucking Matt Damon and Ben Affleck distracted both me and my roomie (he is gay after all) for a good 10 minutes or more...

[azraelz-angel.livejournal.com]

Oh wow, so apparently I forgot to comment on these!

I'm glad that you made it all the way to the end. That is quite a feat. *hands you a cookie*

And yes, I'm Fucking Matt Damon is freaking hilarious. It is definitely distracting.

[satyrnfive.livejournal.com]

Me too! Although by the time I saw it it was on page 4 of my LJ friends page. :) Sounds like it was good times.

[azraelz-angel.livejournal.com]

Woohoo for you making it to the end.

I miss you! Where have you been? Do I need to come down there just to see you? (Which will happen in a few months anyway!)

San Diego was a blast. I definitely miss it though.