We got back late Friday afternoon from our trip. Lucky for me that Kelly did all the driving on the way back as I hadn't slept much the whole time we were in CA and could not have driven for six hours and managed the rush hour traffic that we hit when we arrived in the Phoenix area. We took turns driving on the way out and while in CA, and she got up early the first morning, grabbed the car keys I left on the dining table with a grocery list and $100 bill and went to get all the groceries we needed for the 3 days at the condo.

The first night we arrived, we called Gary's brother and he and his wife came over to the condo. Their hotel was only about 1/2 mile away. We visited for a bit and then decided to go out and walk the pier over the beach that was just outside the back of our timeshare building. Gary enjoyed that even though it got a bit chilly at times. He laughed at the sea gulls diving for food on the pier and we watched some fishermen pull in small tuna and the birds dive bombing them. lol At the end of the pier was a nice hamburger restaurant, 50s and 60s theme, so we stopped and had burgers and fries for dinner that night.

On Wednesday morning, we got Gary up around 9 a.m., made pancakes, eggs and turkey bacon for breakfast and when his brother and sis-in-law got over to our condo, we all headed out to the beach for a "short" walk, according to George. Both Gary's brother and sis-in-law are tall people so to keep up with them walking, I had to sprint. I know I slowed them down quite a bit, as my walking at home usually consists of trips from one end of the house to the other or walking from the farthest space from the grocery store door on a good day, or the handicap parking space on a bad day. By the time we walked that "short" walk along the beach (George pushed Gary in the wheelchair), and over to the small lighthouse they wanted to see where there was a small shopping center for sourveniers - I swear we had walked 2.5 miles. We rested a few times along the way, but on the way back I wasn't sure I would make it without my bad knee giving out. George sat with Gary by a picnic table on the beach, since we couldn't see any lifeguards anywhere to get us a beach wheelchair for him, while Ginger, Kelly and I took off our shoes and walked in the ocean. Kelly took a picture of me standing in the water but as I backed up for her to get a better picture of the waves, I got hit by a good one and it washed up to my rear end, so I walked the rest of the way back with wet pants. Gary napped for a few hours that afternoon and then we cooked spaghetti with meatballs, and had salad and garlic bread for dinner at our place. We even had a dutch apple pie for dessert, as I'm sure I walked off at least one piece of that pie! lol Went to bed with stiff legs, but rubbed down with Pain Wizard so didn't even feel it by the time we got up next morning.

Thursday morning we headed off to San Diego for a day at Sea World and met up with his brother there. Again, it was sprint, sprint, sprint from one show to another with a stop between the last two shows for a quick lunch, then off to see the Shamu the whale show. By the time we saw all the shows that were on our agenda, it was time to hit the road back north to Oceanside before rush hour started. We did hit a bit of rush hour traffic getting out of San Diego, but Kelly was driving, so I didn't have to worry about it. She was more familiar with the area as she had traveled there many times, had rollerbladed some 30 miles and done marathons in that area in past years. The brother and sis-in-law came over later for leftover spaghetti so we could eat up the last of the groceries before we had to leave on Friday morning and we visited for a few hours before saying our goodbyes. They were going to fly back to Seattle on Fri. morning and we planned to get out early on the road to home. After they left, we wanted to keep Gary up long enough for his dinner to settle before putting him to bed, so we sat out on the balcony of the condo. There were large crowds of people coming and going from the park across the way where there was a concert with a rock band, so we thought it would be funny to drop money from the balcony and then sit back and watch who picked it up. lol I came up with about six - one dollar bills and Kelly had three. We made them into paper airplanes and launched them one at a time off the balcony as we saw another group of people approaching. Gary laughed so hard I was afraid he would pee himself. Kelly and I giggled like school girls, but we had more fun and it cost us less than a trip to a casino.

Friday morning Kelly and I were up at 5:30 and cleaned up the last of the coffee, dumped out the leftover groceries, took out the trashes and packed up our stuff before we got Gary up and ready to go. We didn't bother to try showering him since he was still half asleep, but washed him up good with a wash cloth and gave him some juice before we settled him into the front seat, reclined him and let him go back to sleep until we stopped at a Dennys for breakfast. The ride home seemed to go much faster than the ride there. Our only incident was when Kelly had to go off to the left shoulder of the road and get back on before losing control in the gravel when some idiot cut us off and nearly hit us. She was alert enough to see him coming toward us and moved out of the way and managed to keep control of the vehicle to avoid us getting hit. I think the guy was dozing at the wheel, but it was a frightening moment for us. We're home and back to the same old routine again. I'm up early with the dogs and doing laundry from the trip and Gary had me up 3 times during the night to hold the urinal for him, and now he's sleeping in.

Sarah