Memorial Day Weekend in San Diego

My San Diego overnights are typically short, arriving in the evening and departing early in the morning. During this last four-day trip, I finally had a San Diego overnight of respectable length. Nicole even decided to join me by taking the short hop from LAX on American... in first class. Pretty swanky twenty minute flight for her. I was flying for Delta and coming in from Las Vegas, where I have been running shuttle flights for the last few weeks. I'm not too keen on that airport or its clientele, but that's for another blog post.






We both arrived around noon, and after checking in to the hotel, we began walking around downtown. It's about half a mile from the hotel to the bay, where we found large crowds.

We walked by the USS Midway and all the various charter boats and fishing vessels before reaching this statue entitled, "The Unconditional Surrender." Look, clearly she's not into it. I feel like I read that the photo that inspired this statue was actually staged, which makes it more confusing. She knew there was going to be a picture taken and still was like, "No, I can't even pretend. Not into sailors. Just not feeling this at all. Is it over yet?"


Anyway, from there we cut back in near the gas lamp district, where we encountered more crowds and slow walkers. We walked by the Padres stadium and then back out to the bay. We used the bathrooms at a Hilton near the convention center (sometimes a good bathroom is hard to come by) before relaxing for a bit at a nearby park.

There were various workout stations throughout the park including balance beams, pull up bars, and hanging rings. I impressed Nicole with my Olympic caliber performance at each station. We slowly worked our way back to the hotel, which was a little over a mile away at this point. We stopped briefly at a rooftop bar called Altitude on top of one of the hotels. We didn't stay long. We took in the view and called it good enough. Some of the folks on the roof were quite loud and obnoxious, and we are basically old people who are no longer amused by such things.

We got dinner later on in Little Italy. I had fish n' chips. If that seems off, it's because Little Italy was packed. Waiting two hours to get a table was far less desirable than going to a pub owned by some kiwis. You see, people feel obligated to eat Italian food in Little Italy, but as the area is not yet called Little Auckland, we lucked out. Tomorrow is Memorial Day and both Nicole and I are hoping for an easy nonrev experience back to LA. I'll be heading back from SLC since my deadhead isn't for almost four hours after we are scheduled to land. Hopefully it all goes smoothly.

Wheelin' & Dealin' in Reno

Yes I am still here. I didn't have many overnights in April or May and also took 3 weeks vacation in between, so there hasn't been anything to really blog about. I just received my line award for next month and despite entering virtually all of the same parameters as last month, I ended up with all 4-day trips when I prefer to have locals (one-day trips). I cannot make any sense of the bidding software. Anyway, here I am in Reno, the biggest little city in the world... or so I'm told. We are put up in the Grand Sierra Resort & Casino.

I have been here probably six times before, but never for any significant length of time since they were standups. This was my first real overnight. When I got on the hotel shuttle, a Southwest crew joined us. I thought one of the pilots looked very familiar and sure enough it was my sim partner from Atlanta almost two years ago. As vast as the world of aviation is, it is still a relatively small community. At a wedding reception of 200 guests, how many are commercial pilots? One? Zero? It was good to catch up for a bit before checking in.

The rooms are pretty nice, though it does sort of smell like it used to be a smoking room during the 80s until they decided to change hotel policy. The following morning, I bypassed the slot machines on the ground floor and walked downtown. There was some kind of old car show going on. I was expecting downtown Reno to be dead on a Saturday morning, but it turned out to be quite bustling. I had to wait about 15 minutes to get McDonald's. While the cars were a nice touch, I mostly came to see the sign.

It was a mostly older crowd checking out the old cars, which I guess makes sense. There was a live band playing music from the 50s and 60s nearby. A news van was broadcasting old radio spots from the 70s, including a Honda one that was created by a company I used to work for before I quit my job to go fly planes. I personally logged the tape and digitized it for the company's archives, so it was kind of trippy to hear it being broadcast. "Follow the leeeeeeeader, he's on a Hondaaaaaaaaa!"

I can think of a lot of folks who would have really enjoyed the old car show. Alas, I am not much of a car guy. While I keep trying to tell people that the Hyundai Elantra is the gentleman's car, it seems to fall on deaf ears. Plus, I have now been to Cuba, so old cars are old hat. Har! After perusing the cars for a bit, I walked the two miles back to the hotel to get changed and ready to fly. There will be a lot of overnights next month, so probably a lot of blogging as well. Brace yourself.