San Diego Day 5

If I didn't know it before (and I did), I am becoming my mother.

Each night, I re-read the sections in the tour books about the upcoming days events and carry these books like they are my lifelines. I then can see nearby attractions if one is closed or didn't take much time. Jim and I are very much vacationing like my family did when I was growing up - purposeful - some history, mostly educational, and small amounts of downtime - in such a way that is all very relaxing. It seems that Jim, through this trip, has caught the vacation bug - for this I am grateful.

Today, we started at Mission Basilica San Diego de AlCala. This was the first mission established by a partnership of the Fransicians and the Government of Mexico. Colonization and teaching people about Jesus go so well together - please note my sarcaism. It is also one of the first times that adobe was used - hence adobe sometimes being referred to as the Mission style. The main thing I found interesting was the active congreagation that still worships there - what is it like to have a musuem all around you during daily church life?

Before we left the hostel - which I can't rave about enough - I had looked for information about the local LDS church (aka Mormon Church) because it is amazingly beautiful - I wondered if tours are avaliable, they are not. However, this particular church has been in California news due to their role in Prop 8 - or at least their percieved role in Prop 8. We might go another day to see the grounds and the constant protesters that are currently there. (If we had gone, it would have been at this time of day - after the Mission and before...)

The other night we took a short drive over the amazing bridge to Coronado, but today we drove it again to stay awhile - driving the strip of land that separates the bay from the ocean all the way to IB - I have learned that most of the beaches go by intitials. Imperial Beach is a cute little place that has made surfboards into park benches and has a fishing pier that tons of people where fishing off of this morning. We enjoyed watching surfers and enjoyed lunch on the pier (Thanks Alex for recommending it).

As we went inland, we were just in time for the daily tour of the Olympic Training Center outside San Diego. It was really neat to think about people training for all the different sports full time there. They have room for 140 people to live full time there - you must be ranked internationally in your sport to be there. They approximate that the cost is $75,000 a person for a year - as it is free for the athlete. The person who was taking us around, who I kept asking questions (maybe I should have started this entry with I am turning into my dad....), was the stereotype of a dumb jock all the way. I know a lot of smart atheletes - maybe you all should at least apply to give the tours!

We then headed to a mall looking to take in a movie - which we ended up not. Then we headed back to Old Town to take in more of that from Sunday. Then we found supper at the People's Co-op (a little slice of Krista heaven - bulk soybeans and everything!!!!) and headed home to enjoy that meal and another cupcake that Jim reported on yesterday. (We bought 6 - today, I had lemon squared - really good.)

We are finally adjusting to the time zone - this is the first night I may actually see 10 pm awake.