Gigi's Perspective

Hey everybody, Gigi here.



       Before I begin telling y'all about the trip, I want to acknowledge my parents, this has been one of the best summers ever, and I want them to know that. It has been an adventure going to Boulder, Colorado, then Moab, Utah, and Grand Canyon National Pk., Sequoia National Pk., Los Angeles, California, and finally San Diego, California. This trip has been especially fun with the oversized-van! Well, get ready, you're about to read about the best Summer ever experienced!

       It all started in Boulder, Colorado. We stayed at our cousin's house, and man, it was FUN! We have three cousins, Ruthie, George, and Townes. (10, 8, and 5). I hung out with Ruthie, 'cause she's more my age. While we were there, we walked to town, camped outside, and swam at the local pool. We also hiked, went to a candy store ;), and played outside. Over all, I'd say Boulder was AWESOME!

       Next stop, Moab, Utah! Driving to Moab was like driving on Mars! We stopped about a million times to take a billion pictures! One morning we got up really early to go........drumroll please............RAFTING! It was really nice because the water wasn't too cold, but it felt good if you were in the sun all that day.

       The next place we went was Grand Canyon National Park.  I think you should go there at least once in your life to see all the amazing views. Later the night we got there, we went *STARGAZING!* 

       The next day we landed in Los Angeles, California. We ate at " Rock Sugar" that night. (Panasian food). In the morning we did a star tour. We got to see Justin Beiber's, Gwen Stafani's, Katy Perry's, Ryan Seacrest's, Bruno Mar's, Zac Efron's, and many more houses of famous people. 

       We left LA and drove to Sequoia National Park were we explored Crescent Meadows. It was like we were in a fairy tail! The views were Beautiful!! We stayed at a house there were two cats greeted us daily.

       Finally, we made it San Diego, California:). It was amazing!! We got to see seals in their natural habitats!! But sadly after a few short days, it was time fore the girls to fly back. It was hard to say goodbye, but tomorrow we will see them.

       Over all, this trip was an action-packed, fun-filled, and wonderful trip, and I can't wait for the next one! :)
                                             - Gigi Clements

Ocean Fun - Two for One

I've broken one of our blogging rules by failing to blog yesterday and thus making it up with a double blog today.  Hopefully, I'm not to old to forget the salient points from yesterday and today.  The pictures are always great reminders by the way.

In a nutshell, we've spent a lot of time at the beach the last two days.  After giving the kids a taste of Pacific waves at the end of their first full day in San Diego, they put going back to the beach at the top of their list yesterday.  While Donna and I might be interested in exploring the historic gas lamp district or checking out Coronado island, the kids would have none of it.  We had to get back to the beach yesterday before doing anything else.  

Because the shores are pretty rocky in the La Jolla area, we decided to try the Mission Beach area which is a more traditional wide, sandy beach. 

Although we lathered on 30 spf and higher sunscreen, we still got too much sun after spending 2 1/2 hours in the early afternoon sun.  The kids had a blast on the new boogie boards that we will need to add to our cargo on the way back home.  We decided to pack it in in time to catch low tide at Bird Rock which is just offshore where we are staying.  During low tide, you can walk out to Bird Rock and check out the tide pools around the rock or just climb.  It is a very rocky and at times slippery walk, so we had to be pretty careful.

On another rock just a little north of Bird Rock, we saw our first seals of the trip.

Donna and I finally made it into the gas lamp area of downtown last night as we all enjoyed dinner at a sushi restaurant and then made it to Donna's favorite yogurt place - Pinkberry - for dessert.  We have gone to great lengths on this and other vacations to visit Pinkberry when it is available.

Today started out as a lazy day.  Donna and I were lamenting that it was our last full day.  While we have been gone for about 2 weeks, and while I'm sure it will be great to be home in our own beds soon, this has been such a great trip and full of new adventures and learning about our great country.  It's also been such a great time of family bonding.

Everyone was feeling the effects of the sun from yesterday - thankfully no one burned too badly though.  We decided to go check out La Jolla Shores in street clothes.  It's my understanding that it was considered a top 10 beach in the world by one publication.  The term "beach" is used somewhat loosely here as it is very rocky with cliffs and rocky shorelines, but there were a couple of beach areas.  It is also renowned as a diving park.  In addition to the many seals sunning themselves on the nearby rocks, we saw some swimming amongst the people snorkeling off the beach.  This truly is a stunning beach and well worth going just to watch all the activity.

The kids decided they wanted to have one last foray into the ocean and that they had not yet reached their sun limit, so a little later this afternoon, Donna and I decided it might be good to try the beaches on Coronado island.  I don't believe Coronado is truly an island because it has a long thin stretch of land that connects it back to the mainland south of San Diego and not too far from the Mexican border.    We actually drove this thin stretch of land all the way south to Imperial Beach.  This beach was just as good as Mission Beach in my opinion but not very touristy or crowded.  It was actually easy to find parking right by the pier whereas on Mission Beach the day before, it probably took us about 30 minutes of driving around to find a spot that was, incidentally, a very long walk to the beach.

I finally decided to swim today.  The water wasn't as cold as I feared.  It was I'm sure just a typical surf, but some of those waves were doozies.  I'm glad that my kids were for the most part content with catching the already crested waves near shore rather than catching them in the surfing zone where they were breaking.  There was a pretty strong side current today that was a little concerning, so I was relieved when we decided to call it quits.

We ate at El Topatio for some run of the mill Mexican food at Imperial Beach and then drove back for one last look at the famous hotel on Coronado island.  Then it was back to the condo to begin our packing for the trip home.





Runcie and I will be dropping off the girls at the airport around 8:00 - 8:30 and then we will be on our way home the old-fashioned way . . . we will be driving back.  We plan to make it to Tombstone, AZ tomorrow to check out the OK Corral.  We will miss the girls terribly but are looking forward to some guy time where we can do some guy stuff and actually listen to some guy music, etc.  The first couple of days will probably feature Wyatt Earp and then William Bonney aka Billy the Kid history and stomping grounds.

It's a Jungle Out There...

On Tuesday morning, I got up early and went for a run.   Running in a new city is always exciting; seeing new sights and taking in the personality of a town makes a normal run more of an adventure.  What I found most interesting were the varieties of trees and plants that look nothing like anything I would see at home.   Check it out!!

An entire lawn full of these

 Palm Lined sidewalks 

Hibiscus!

Returning from my run, I fixed breakfast for the family, and before we knew it we were out the door and on our way to the San Diego Zoo Safari Park.   We were all pretty excited to experience all this famous zoo offered.  

One highlight of our day was the unexpected "Lorikeet Landing" which is an outdoor enclosure that housed a flock of Lorikeets.   We bought tiny cups of some kind of bird drink -  if you were lucky the birds would drink from it.  

Surprisingly, the gorillas were a bit aloof....

Runcie measuring up to a gorilla... I see some similarities... Haha

One of the highlights of our visit was the Safari Tram.   What made it even more exciting is summer means "Baby Season" so we were able to see some really cute animal babies...

The baby giraffe had to do widen her front legs to get a drink of water... also see baby rhino in back ground.

Leaving the safari park by mid to late afternoon gave us just enough time to come back to the condo and get changed into our swimsuits and head to the beach.   I'm so thankful I brought my good camera with me!   Something about sunlight and water and kids make a fantastic combo for photography...   Here are some pics from our evening...   

Elizabeth and Gigi

All four of our kids

Runcie bodysurfing a wave with E and G

G, E, and R

E, G and Runcie

Elizabeth being Elizabeth, Gigi and Runcie

Elizabeth and Gigi

Elizabeth's feet and Runcie

Francey building a castle

Sweet Francey

After looking at the pics, we all decided that Elizabeth was the most expressive in our pics... We had a good laugh.  :)

Coming to the Home Stretch - San Diego

This trip has been really therapeutic for me (Runcie).  I have so enjoyed spending so much quality time with my family . . . not just the brief periods at the beginning and end of a typical work day . . . but the all day experience.  Taking a two week trip has also allowed me to clear my mind of work related things and truly enjoy exploring this world with them . . . what a gift from God.  I'm glad I work for a company where there is a family oriented culture.

Today, we left the beauty of central California in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada's.  We drove south through groves of orange and other citrus trees, what looked like grape vineyards, corn, and many other crops I couldn't readily identify.  The mountains were always in the backdrop.  We even drove past a sign pointing toward the town of McFarland.  i wasn't expecting to see it, and we drove on past, but in hindsight, I wish we had taken the small detour because of the inspirational movie we saw about the city and a group of high school runners that lived there many years ago.

We basically retraced our drive from LA a couple of days ago, so not a lot of new things to see once we reached I-5 other than intense traffic once we got within 20 miles of LA . . . at 2:15 in the afternoon.  I don't know how the locals deal with it every day.  There are roads and highways going in every conceivable direction for miles and miles all around the city . . . and all seem congested well beyond capacity.  I wonder how they might plan the  road system if they had it to do all over again.  The intermittent hills/mountains probably made it pretty challenging the first go round.

Speaking of LA, Donna made a great point the other day about the price of fame and how ironic it is that those who seek it often try to hide from it once they have obtained it.  I have always viewed Hollywood and Beverly Hills a little negatively, partly because the culture there we hear so much about just seems so out of touch with real America.  I've also heard so much about how poorly governed California is and how they are taxing their citizens into oblivion.  That being said, I really enjoyed my brief time there, and it didn't seem to fit my stereotypes as much as I thought it would.  The Hollywood/Beverly Hills area seemed very vibrant with people and thriving businesses up and down the streets.  Just a short 2-3 miles to the West was Santa Monica beach - a completely different community with a different feel, yet also very vibrant with people everywhere on a Friday night and restaurants and pier activities absolutely hopping.  It took us 20 minutes to go a quarter mile with all of the traffic on the narrow, busy streets.  A brief drive down the scenic Highway 1 took us to Malibu, yet another completely different community in a much more peaceful and serene setting.  Finally, we drove back to our hotel in north Hollywood through Malibu Canyon Rd and then took Ventura Blvd instead of Highway 101.  (Our hotel was over the Hollywood hills at the beginnings of the San Fernando Valley).  Ventura Blvd went on for miles just in this section of town, and it was commercially developed the entire way - kind of like the busiest sections of West End Ave in Nashville except for close to 20 miles.  I didn't notice vacancies - every business seemed to be thriving.  Good for California.

Once we hit Anaheim (south of LA), it began to feel a little more modern and less congested.  The further south we went, the more it began to feel more open and like a beach community.  I'm sure it helped that we could view the Pacific for portions of our drive from I-5 the further south we went.

The blue skies were also very noticeable.  The skies in LA and even near Sequoia were hazy with poor visibility due in part to smog in LA as well as 8 different wildfires burning north of LA toward the central part of the state from what I heard.  It was so hazy, we were mostly unable to detect blue in the sky or even a cloud.  As we headed south from LA, the sky became bluer, clouds became visible, and the thermostat continued to drop (kind of counter-intuitive when you consider that you are heading south and ever closer to the Mexican border).  Since our navigation app was telling us to get off I-5 neat San Diego due to traffic, we exited and jumped on a coastal road near Torrey Pines.

We finally found our  home for the next few days - a condo right off La Jolla Blvd on Bird Rock Ave.  La Jolla is a very quaint community in N San Diego nestled on the Pacific.  After unloading the car, I was anxious to walk the few short blocks to Bird Rock to check out our ocean scenery.

walking toward the beach

Bird Rock just before sunset

View just north of Bird Rock

We walked a couple of blocks south of Bird Rock for sunset

We then discovered a recommended Mexican restaurant within walking distance

The weather is glorious.  Our walk back was actually a little cool.  The highs tomorrow will probably be in the high 70's . . . on August 2.  We have the windows and balcony door open as I write this.  We're definitely looking forward to our time here, and based on the fact that we will only be here a few days and how much we are already enjoying it, I can see another trip to San Diego in our future.

We hope to visit the animal safari and hopefully make it back to our neighborhood by mid-afternoon tomorrow where we can hopefully explore the tide pool ecosystem around Bird Rock during low tide.