permanent midnight

Like this trip's beginning, its ending started out stressful and is ending happily. If I have to go back to a 28F Seattle from a 60F San Diego, I might as well do it in the exit row on a nearly-empty flight. If I'm going to leave in a rush, have to go through secondary in security, rip my favorite shorts, and generally feel like crawling into a hole most of the day, by gum I'm going to have the easiest flight home of my life. So far so good.

Yesterday we went back to Sea World since we had 2-day passes and little else to do. We saw the polar bears and walruses, penguins and turtles, and listened to lots more muzak. Then we went to Old Town in San Diego for more delicious Mexican food, except about 50% more expensive than the night before.

Bizarrely, we went back there today on our way to the airport to kill an hour shopping. I wasn't much into it.

Which brings me back to now, sitting in the exit row, comfortably typing away at 34,000 feet and feeling the slight delerium of too little food and water recently, after too much food for most of the week. The trip has been an embarassment of riches, one that's caused Whitney and I to look at each other on occasion and say "we're in California/Mexico/a hot tub. We're awesome."

So in case you were wondering, yes, we do say that to each other. This wasn't the first time.

The number one thing I've missed on this trip is my own bed. I can't wait to climb into it for 10 uninterrupted hours. Of course, my house was left a mess, I have to work on Monday, and after 6 weeks of running, 3 weeks of frozen February will have me grayer than wet sidewalk, but everything in time. There is good in the leaving and the coming home.

I need a few days of sleep. This has been, contrary to the nature of a holiday, a few days rather light on sleep. The lovely weather has me completely convinced it's June, but sadly it will fade tomorrow. Knowing this would happen, we packed the first few days here full of theme parks. Today was Sea World.

I did Marine World Africa USA (tm) many years ago, and this has kind of the same vibe, lots of open space and wandering between outdoor tanks. It's a park that's slow to reveal its cool bits. You have to dig past the horrible piped-in muzak and everything-up-to-11 entertainment. Anheuser-Busch Entertainment - not exactly the NSF - owns and operates the park, so bizarre beer and clydesdale placements abound. Not a word is spoken about where they get their animals, how they're treated, why they're on display, etc. As a conservationist, and a scientist, it was somewhat alarming. To say nothing of the Shamu show, which actually made my stomach flip with disgust at the overdone and meaningless "joining two worlds" theme. Not only was the content of the show ridiculous, but there wasn't much actual showmanship. The smaller shows with the dolphins and seals had lots of actual performance by the trainers, with ad-libbing and missed cues. Much more interesting. And so much money! I hope those animals get treated as good as their performance theaters do. Huge rotating video screens, lights and hi-def cameras, waterfalls and enormous pools, etc. etc. etc. This is not a starving-for-grants sea life research facility.

But. That being said, there's lots of touching and splashing and seeing to do. I got to pet dolphins, and shake hands with some sea rays, and watch a guy get spit on by a walrus. We had a lot of fun, but sometimes I felt like it was in spite of the environment. And as mom so accurately posed, "sure, your dreams can come true, but was it Shamu's dream to live in a pool?"

We might go back - we have two-day passes - on Friday and hit the roller coaster and arctic exhibits, but we'll see. Tomorrow we'll be moving to Pacific Palisades for a couple days, then Thursday is Ensenada. I'm looking forward to a change of scenery, bed, and pace.

Getting to San Diego was more difficult than it should've been. Friday night, I didn't much want to leave, and got it in my head that the hassle of this trip would be a lot more tolerable with a DS in tow. I figured I'd pop over to Fred Meyer Saturday morning and pick one up before we left. Saturday morning comes, I mosey down to the stoe, no DS. Fine, I'll drive up to Best Buy. It'll be cutting it close, but I want a DS. They didn't have one either. Coincidence! I cry. Across the street at Gamestop, they had the boxes, and thus the illiusion of stock, but no DSes. What a waste of everyone's time. By this point I was 20 minutes late and utterly livid. My family had been waiting 10 minutes for me back at the house, and was very confused and annoyed when I finally showed. I hurried them into helping me pack, in no shape to explain what just happened.

After such an enormously bad start, the rest of the rather uneventful trip felt much worse than it should've. When we finally got some decent food in San Diego, things improved.

Today was much better. Church in the morning, a little food shopping at a huge and wonderful Trader Joe's, a little beach, sleep and sunshine do the body good.

Tomorrow is Disneyland, then Sea World, then Pacific Palisades, then Ensenada. Tonight, food and sleep and books. Amen.