Saturday is Not Chad's Best Day

California: the land of sun, current drought, high fire danger, and traffic jams. Apparently, the draught decided to end for a few days as we woke up to the gentle sound of rain. There was absolutely no one out on the streets and the traffic was what I consider an average day in Minnesota. Chad and I are foodies and we like to have the best meal we can possibly get while in each place we visit. According to Chad, I have been deemed the Navigator and it is my job to find these awesome locations. But, since my mind does not think like Chad’s, none of the results I produce are up to his standards. It also doesn’t help that Chad never voices his thoughts and magically assumes I know what he is thinking. No Chad, my gift isn’t telepathy. To make matters worse, it was Saturday. Apparently on Saturdays, Chad falls into a sour mood and claims that this is his worst day of the week. Sundays are better days and his mood will become happier again. This is what I get for traveling in close quarters with someone; you get to know everything about them.

After multiple minutes of frustration and not finding a place online with ‘amazing’ reviews, we settled on a place to eat close to the ocean in Pacific Beach, Truckstop. If a waffle smothered in sugary goodness didn’t cheer him up, it was going to be a long day. And it was.

Fueled on sugar, I was more than ready to see the ocean. I grabbed Chad’s arm and skipped all the way to the boardwalk. Well, it was me skipping and Chad forcefully restraining from the skipping motion. The ocean was wonderful and everything I imaged it would be. There was an ice cream shack sporting a mural of painted fish and a giant shark where people could take pictures. The shops on the strip haven’t opened and there were only a few people on the beach. But, if you weren’t careful a jogger will knock you down when walking across the boardwalk. It was a little chilly but still warmer than Minnesota, so I shook off my cowgirl boots, rolled up my black running tights and threw off the socks to go play in the water. Grumpy Chad hung back and calmly took in the crashing waves. It was partly cloudy with an occasional beam of sun glinting across the water. To break Chad’s mood, I tried to cheer him up with a romantic kiss on the beach.

He didn’t think this was very funny. Seeing this action wasn’t appreciated, I made it my goal for the day to be a cheesy romantic to bother him even more. If he was going to be a sour puss, I might as well make him as miserable as possible with my annoying actions and eventually he would have to perk up. Ha, what logic that was. Way to go Katie.

Surfs up dude

Chad was fascinated with the surfers resting on their boards in the water. He watched from the beach for the longest time and said we couldn’t leave until he saw a really good ride. There must have been a newbie surfer in our view because he would fall just after standing up on the wave. We were going to be there forever if that one surfer determined our day’s events. Coaxing Chad as if he were a stubborn ox, I lead him up the board walk out onto the giant pier. Big mistake. I thought the pier would allow us to see the massive waves up-close, and it did, but it also exposed the other side of the ocean. This side hosted black dots of surfers for as long as the eye could see and the surfers were at all different skill levels.

“I just want to see one good run,” said Chad, with his head in his hands and elbows resting on the old wood pier. I left him there and continued on my own adventure to the end of the pier and caught sight of a tamed pelican sitting on a wood pillar. There were people of all colors, backgrounds and locations mingling around me. I loved the diversity and would purposefully position myself next to different groups of people to over hear their accents or stories they were sharing. I was just starting to create scenarios for some of the families (ex. Where they had come from, where they were going, what the kid with the sucker in his mouth was complaining about…) and Chad wandered over. Really Chad, now you are ready? The rest of the morning at the ocean was filled with occasional teasing, silence and taking in the beautiful force of the crashing waves.

Zoooooooooo

Apparently, the San Diego Zoo is the zoo to go to. Uh huh, and if the more expensive something is the more value it holds. We paid $50 some dollars per ticket (the cheapest deal) to go to the zoo. Chad and I (more me than Chad) were going to see every gosh darn thing this zoo had to offer. Semi sober from being grumpy, Chad was uber thrilled to go to a place where there would be a ton of people (not). The crummy, no sun weather was turning out to be working in our favor because the zoo was hardly busy according to a lady I spoke with while Chad used the restroom. She was there the day before when the weather was nice and she said the zoo was buzzing with people. Today, she said, was very slow and there were hardly any people. This excited me because then Chad wouldn’t be as frustrated and I could enjoy quickly moving from exhibit to exhibit without dodging small children or strollers. To our horror once getting inside the gates, there were people everywhere rushing around and giant double decker tour buses cruising by with loud speakers describing the park to the passengers. So much for a “slow” day. I couldn’t image a busy day at this zoo. Maybe a busy day at the San Diego Zoo could be relatable to a normal day at the Minnesota State Fair with walls of people traveling the isles between the animal exhibits. Ew. Our zoo ticket came with a ride on the bus, so we hopped on right away and zoomed around the entire zoo. Our driver explained facts about the animals we passed, gave us the history of when the animals joined the zoo and told us about eating habits. This tour was helpful because we got to see everything in the zoo, learned the behind the scenes care for specific species and more about the purposes of the park. My favorite part of the zoo was the rainforest because we were able to walk through a path that hosted many varieties of plants which eventually lead to a giant bird cage. Having driven through a lot of land that does not have very many green trees or water, I was reminded Minnesota. Oh, seeing the rhinos and the hippos were pretty great too. Chad is a super fan of reptiles, especially snakes (not). We ventured to the reptile house and examined all of the different species of snakes, frogs and salamanders. Some of those suckers were pretty big and I wouldn’t want to run into them either. Having the glass between life and death was comforting. We both agreed that we didn’t want to come across these specimens anywhere else.

Rain Rain Rain

Dinner was supposed to be outdoors under cabanas at a Mexican restaurant in the very old, original part of San Diego, Old Town, with Chad’s friend AJ, AJ’s sister and their four friends. The rain sprinkled at first when we arrived and the place was packed. The waiters, dressed in old Spanish style suits, were running around opening canopies and the waitresses, dressed in old style Spanish dresses with lace, delivered food as fast as they could.

We all filled up on chips and salsa while waiting for our server to return to take our orders. Most of us settled for appetizers for our meals and we left waddling out to the parking lot. It was practically pouring by now and I was thankful we ate indoors. The brave souls who still ate at their outside tables seemed drenched and very chilled. Welcome to San Diego, a wet beach town. Chad’s mood did cheer up and it was really nice to be in a location for an entire day without driving. While being constantly around someone and having no breaks, it was nice to have quiet time when visiting the beach or while walking around exploring. The trip so far has hosted very little disagreements, no arguments to speak of and it seems like we are enjoying each other’s company.