On Christmas Eve, our nephew Brooks picked us up at the San Diego Airport following an on-time, non-stop flight, so it really couldn't have been easier.
Warmer than the California weather are the welcoming arms of our family, and that was the primary lure.
My sister Darlene served a delicious Prime Rib Dinner accompanied by mixed grilled vegetables, Hawaiian bread roles and potatoes, served in such abundance that more than twice our number could have been fed. Needless to say, we easily made a second meal of those leftovers that were just as tasty as a second meal.
We enjoyed other dinner feasts centered by a roasted ham one day and spaghetti with meat sauce another, plus a nice selection of breakfasts including bacon, eggs and toast, so needless to say we ate very well and probably put on a few temporary pounds.
In between meals, we had lots of discussions on various topics and watched football and other programs together, sometimes in their home theater.
Our "featured movie presentation" proved to be Sun Valley Serenade, a 1941 romcom musical set in what at the time was a brand new, state-of-the-art ski resort featuring the world's first chair lifts. I'm not sure why this flick showed up on my youtube feed, but it turned out to be a big hit with our family.
Our brother-in-law Brooks skied at Sun Valley as a boy, years after this movie was made. He said much had remained unchanged, even decades later. He pointed out sundry elements he remembered or how they had changed. Single chairs (like we rode in Capri) shown in the movie had been replaced with more familiar double chairs by the time he skied there.
Brooks' grandfather worked for the railroad, so he knew all about the founding of this ski destination, which was built by the railroad to take advantage of their tracks cutting through the incredible mountain terrain.
Starring 10-time world champion figure skater Sonja Henie, it added our granddaughter Emma's passion for ice skating, though she was not with us. Darlene liked the movie so much, she watched again the day after we left with her friend Heidi, who had previously joined join us for our Christmas Day feast. I've known Heidi since she and Darlene were giggling ingenues.
We also took long walks along the marina, taking advantage of that great California weather that even politicians can't screw up, though if they could make a buck doing that they would, probably.
El Niño, which resulted in less early season snow in Big Sky brought big waves to San Diego, and our nephew Brooks took his inflatable boat around the point to surf daily to take full advantage of that.
Julie's sister Jacque also lives in San Diego. Jacque came over to join us on one of our walks around the marina, stopping for a photo a the Kona Kai where she married her husband Mike, who was working.
Jacque drove Julie and me over to newly gentrified and very cool downtown La Mesa to meet her daughter Kendra and her terrific kids Claire, Koda and Cam at Surfrider Pizza, where we shared a meal and had a nice visit. When our two-hour parking meter (just 50 Cents) expired, Jacque insisted on driving us back, which again made it very easy for us.
Julie's best friend Christy drove over from Scripps Ranch to meet us at Stone Brewing World Bistro & Garden in nearby Liberty Station.
Her son Jessie, his wife Danielle and their sweet daughters joined us too for a fun visit over drinks. I had the Delicious Flight, which includes three good pours of Stone's best IPAs.
We loved our four-night stay at Darlene and Brooks' house in San Diego, but not wanting to be like fish that lingers too long, we were ready to head up to spend time with our new grandson and his loving parents.
Our nephew Brooks took us to the historic Santa Fe Train Station to embark on the second phase of our trip. After we booked our train tickets, Amtrak scheduled some kind of maintenance, so instead of going all the way to Union Station, our train ride ended in Fullerton, where we boarded an Amtrak-chartered bus.
We thought about skipping the bus to simply take an Uber all the way to Santa Monica from Fullerton, but we decided to stick with the program, riding the bus to Union Station where we caught a Lyft the rest of the way.
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