25 Hours In San Diego

Max and I just returned from 25 hours in San Diego. Why the short trip? Max's buddy from grad school was getting married and we wouldn't miss it!

Our trip started off at Phoenix Sky Harbor mid-morning with a Steve Nash spotting. I have to say I was very proud of myself for recognizing him. I'm only able to identify about three basketball players (and two of them only because they are married to Kardashians) so seeing him was perfect. He was in front of us going through security and requested one of the pat downs instead of going through the new scanner. Of course seeing him go through security brought up lots of questions. Shouldn't he have his own plane? Or be flying private? Is he really taking a commercial flight? There was a group of women also trying to figure out if it was indeed him. I heard them commenting on his (lack of) height but I'm pretty sure he's on the short side for being a basketball player.

Max and I arrived in San Diego after just 45 minutes in the air and checked in at Hotel Indigo, a great modern hotel downtown.

The bride and groom had left little goodies:

What sweet touches! (I should have used the sunscreen because I ended up with a pink nose after our day in the sun!)

We lunched in the downtown area.

Fish Tacos for me!

After lunch we took the trolley over to Navy Pier to visit the maritime museum on the USS Midway. The vessel was commissioned in the 1940's and was named after the Battle of Midway, which was fought near Midway Atoll. Max has actually been to Midway Atoll for part of his grad school duties. It was this tiny island in the Pacific that the Japanese planned to occupy after the attack on Pearl Harbor (luckily their plans were intercepted and the Navy was ready). The island has been used in the past by the military for gaining intelligence (it was an underwater listening post for tracking Soviet submarines in the Cold War) but is now a wildlife refuge with much of the equipment just left behind.

On the flight deck of the USS Midway:

Max had been to the USS Midway museum once before as part of a group who rented out the entire vessel for a conference. He has a photo from that day snapped in this very same spot in front of a display made by one of his previous employers.

The hubs was my own personal tour guide : ) I was fascinated by this jet engine. Looking inside, Max showed me that there are layers and layers of blades, which create the great pressure build up (I had never before thought about how they worked!).

While out on the flight deck, we spotted this hovercraft. Seeing one in person was wild!

We were just in time to see the Coast Guard do a practice Search and Rescue demonstration.

The helicopter actually dropped someone in!

The flight deck was full of awesome planes and weapons which my hubby knew all about. I especially liked seeing the heat seeking missiles. Did you know that there is an infrared camera on each one, and that's how they do the actual seeking? Very neat! The hubs teaches me oh-so much ; )