You may recall our family had planned a mission trip to Mexico back in summer 2020. And you may recall that, like all things 2020, it was cancelled. Last summer was also very unsure, but this summer we decided Third Time's A Charm! We took off early on Friday morning to fly to San Diego where we'd spend a couple of days before boarding the bus to cross the border. Evie read up on all of the safety measures in the plane. Thankfully, she was all set in case we had an unexpected water landing.
After a very smooth direct flight, we arrived to sunny San Diego! The hotel shuttle picked us up and we were on our way to some great exploring of this new city.
Just a stone's throw away from our hotel was the USS Midway, a retired-aircraft-carrier-turned-museum. It looked incredible, so we knew we had to check it out.
We boarded this carrier, which in 1945 was commissioned as the largest ship in the WORLD, and began exploring the various decks.
The engine room on the lower deck was impressive!
There were so many cool planes to see on the hangar deck.
We took a break to eat at the cafe on board. It was lunch with a view!
The models showing one of the first aircraft carriers compared to the USS Ford built in 2018 was really impressive. These things are HUGE!
We eventually made our way to the flight deck up top. We had our audio tours with us and learned a lot as we toured the various exhibits/planes.
We listened to Paul, a retired Navy pilot, who taught us all about how to land on one of these carriers. He'd landed over 1000 times, and he was quick to tell you, "They were all PERFECT landings!" It really is impressive to think they can land a plane so quickly and precisely in the middle of the ocean.
We toured planes and choppers up here. Have I mentioned how enormous this ship is??
A couple of neat statues could be seen from up here. First, Evelyn helped the flight deck officer launch an aircraft (perhaps she's facing the wrong direction, though?). And then we had a nice view of the "Kissing Statue", depicting the iconic picture of a sailor and nurse celebrating the end of WWII.
We finished up top and headed back down to the lower decks. Evie and I got a view of what it may have looked like for the Navy pilots as they flew.
We saw and learned about the ready rooms, where the pilots would meet to receive briefings and missions.
And we saw the galley, where 4500 crew members would be served 13,000 meals every single day!
Calvin and Russ felt really tall in this area. When they stood up, their heads were practically touching the ceiling! David Robinson would have ended up with pretty serious back/neck problems had he stayed on one of these for very long when he was in the Navy!
We saw the sick bay, living quarters, and so much more on the USS Midway. It was an awesome experience to see all of this first-hand!
When we were done on the Midway, we walked along the Bay to see what else we could see, including a view of the entire Midway, and the Kissing Statue from ground level.
Then we played with the seagulls and admired the yachts parked in the bay.
It was a beautiful day for walking around San Diego!
We found some Kansas City barbeque, and apparently this place was the original Top Gun filming location!
It was finally time for us to check into our hotel, which was a very convenient location to everything we'd done so far.
From our balcony, we had a nice view of the bay looking one direction, and the pool in the other.
We relaxed poolside for a bit and then travel-agent Calvin told us it was time to head to Sunset Cliffs Natural Park to get some beach time!
This area was really beautiful!
Per usual on our family vacations, Calvin hiked on ahead of us to scope things out. Can you find him in the next couple of pictures?
We had a great afternoon/evening watching the surfers and enjoying our toes in the sand.
We were thankful to be able to FaceTime Violet while there. We love you, sweet girl!
At one point, Russ thought it would be a good idea to run across the huge mound of seaweed. I'm pretty sure he regretted that decision. I was expecting some leisurely walks along the beach, but it turned out that we also got some pretty good hiking in during our time at Sunset Cliffs.
The place isn't called "Sunset Cliffs" for nothing! As evening wore on, the area became more and more beautiful.
So pretty! There were several people out doing photo shoots during this time and this is also apparently a very popular place to propose as we saw a couple of set-ups for this as well.
Great choice to finish our day, Calvin!
We decided to grab some pizza to eat while we finished watching the sunset. As we started eating, we had about 10 minutes until the sun would be fully set, so I went ahead and got on the Uber app to get our driver called.
The estimated time for the Uber was 18 minutes, but I no more had the driver called when I got a notification that "Jason is 1 minute away" -- oops! We quickly boxed our pizza back up and hopped in the car. The most beautiful part of the sunset we ended up experiencing through the back window of the Uber car. The kids were nagging me that we spent all day waiting for the beautiful sunset and then we missed it! Oh well, that's just the way it goes sometimes! It was a fantastic day regardless.
We made it safely back to our hotel (Thanks, Jason!). . .
. . . and took in some of the night-time views around us. Then we all got a good night's sleep.
The next morning, we got some breakfast and snack foods at the local Rite-Aid and enjoyed the cool park next to the hotel as we ate.
Evie wasn't the only one playing at this park. . .
After eating and playing, Evie and I hit the pool while the boys went for a run.
When the boys got back, they cooled off in the pool also, while Evie and I got things packed up.
We hopped on the hotel shuttle to take us back to the airport. Here we met our group from Amor and loaded up the charter buses to head into Mexico!
We successfully crossed the border and made it to Mexico, ready for our mission trip!
What an adventure we'd already had, and it was just beginning!
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