The Rest of November.

In mid-November Nick was kind enough to let me have a getaway.  I met my BFF, Stephanie in San Diego.

I keep thinking I want to do a series of posts dedicated to my tricks for budget-friendly travel, because I feel like I have it down to an art.  But I barely have time to blog about my every-day stuff...

 

Back in the spring of 2014, Alaska Airlines announced that it would be offering more flights out of Salt Lake International.  To promote this change, they offered a $50 credit to individuals that signed up for their frequent flier program.

I took advantage of it, and when it came time to book my San Diego flight, I scored it the roundtrip ticket for $100!

I'm pretty savvy when it comes to booking rental cars too, so our rental car for this trip was $13/day.

On top of that, I used Nick's Club Carlson points to book the hotel room.

It was a great trip for minimal cost.

 

Stephanie flew in to San Diego, from Seattle.  Since, that's where she is living now.  And her flight landed at exactly the same time that mine did.

We met up in the airport, and picked up our rental car.

 

Our first stop was at Phil's BBQ.

There is a reason it is famous.  The food was divine!  And the portions were huge:

After dinner, we checked in to our hotel.  We stayed at the Radisson Hotel San Diego, which actually turned out to be in Rancho Bernardo.  Not ideal, in the fact that it added a 15 minute drive to our commute; every time we wanted to go somewhere.  But it was in a safe neighborhood, and the breakfast was amazing!  The room itself, was in dire need of updating...  But I suppose I am overly-picky about that, considering that I'm used to Marriott standards.

We settled in to our room, and both Stephanie and I pulled out our books.  It was something that both of us had been looking forward to.  Uninterrupted reading time!
I took the Maze Runner series with me.  I finished all four books on this short trip.  And, IMO, they were better than the Divergent series.
We lost track of time.  Luckily, I glanced at the clock just in time to realize that we were going to be late for the mani/pedi appointment I had booked for us.  So, we hightailed it to the spa.

I found the nail salon on Yelp (of course).  And it was high-class.  Everything that the reviews said it would be.  The best part was the price: $30 total, for both services.

After being pampered, Stephanie and I wandered over to a grocery store called, Baron's.  It was very cool.  Sort of like a Whole Foods, with the prices of Trader Joe's.  I wish they had one in UT!


We went back to the hotel room, and did some more reading.  Of course.  And hit the hay.
Then, I forced Stephanie to get up really early, and we drove to the Marriott Marquis (now that, is a nice hotel!) to run a race.
It was a 5k along the harbor, sponsored by PM&R (a rehabilitation group).

I had already learned that I loved running at sea level, from our Hawaii trip.  So, I really wanted to push myself, and see what kind of time I could bring in, running at a low elevation again.
I crossed the finish line at just over 26 minutes.  That's a PR, for me.

We went back to the hotel, cleaned up, and (what else?!) read our books for a few hours; after the race.  Around lunchtime, we went to Balboa Park.  We had lunch, al fresco, at Panama 66.  The french fries were really yummy.
And then we went to the San Diego Museum of Art.  Heaven, for me!

Coincidentally, and fantastically! The Broadway musical, Wicked, was showing in San Diego while we were there.  Stephanie had never seen it, and I was excited to see it again.  The only "affordable" tickets left, were for seats in the nosebleeds.  But the San Diego Civic Theatre's seats all had decent views of the stage.

I had made dinner reservations for us at a seafood restaurant, C Level.  But realized, at intermission, that we probably wouldn't be on time.  Yelp to the rescue, again.  I used my Yelp app to book us a table at seafood restaurant that was just steps away from the theater.  We ended up having dinner at, Spike Africa's Fresh Fish Grill & Bar.  It was a complete yuppie spot.  But the seafood was fresh, and cooked very well.  That's all that matters.  Plus, I got a free dessert, for checking in there, on Yelp.

We returned to the hotel, and got ready for bed.  I really wanted to read some more!  But I had a massive eye-strain headache.  Between squinting to read about paintings at the art museum, and straining to see the stage at the musical; my eyes had, had enough.

It wasn't the end of the world, though.  I took some Tylenol PM; and got a good nights rest.
We had a totally lazy morning.  Breakfast, and reading.
Then, we checked out of the hotel and went to Old Town San Diego.  We shopped, toured, and ate.

The picture (above) was one we took in Balboa Park.  But pretend it's from Old Town.
Stephanie and I really stuffed ourselves on this trip.
We knew we needed to eat lunch in Old Town, because we wouldn't have time to get anything else before we left.  We settled on eating at, Café Coyote.
I am sure the food is really good there.  But Stephanie and I barely picked at our plates.  Too much eating.

We left Old Town, and still had time to kill before we needed to be at the airport.  We started driving South, to check out the Las Americas Premium Outlet.
Yeah, so...  It was an outlet mall, literally, on the border.
The fence, separating Mexico, and the US was in the parking lot of the Outlet mall.  I hadn't been expecting that.
And the outlet mall wasn't that great.
We left, and I had a brief moment of anxiety, trying to find the on-ramp for the freeway.  The signs were confusing.  And the possibility of crossing the border unintentionally, was scary (especially because Stephanie's Driver's License was expired; and I wasn't sure how well that would go over, if we wandered too far south, and had to attempt to get back).

We made it back to the airport.  Stephanie's flight left an hour and a half before mine did.  So, we said our goodbye's; and went our separate ways.  I hunkered down near my gate and finished off the 4th Maze Runner book.
I do have to say, though, I really liked flying Alaska Air.  The crew members were friendly.  And the planes were decent.  On both legs of my flight, however, there were odd incidents...  On the way to San Diego two guys got in to a bizarre shouting match (two rows in front of me).  This lead to us being detained at the gate, upon arrival, so that the San Diego Harbor Police could take one of the weirdo's in to custody.
And on the way home, we had pulled away from the gate, and a lady had a major panic attack, about flying.  So, we had to return to the jetway, to let her off.  It ended up delaying our return flight by an hour!
No fun for me.  It was almost midnight by the time I made it to my car.
Speaking of which...  Long-term parking is the one aspect of travel (out of SLC) that I haven't perfected.  Diamond Airport Parking has the best rates.  But they suck.  Both of their lots.  I'm open to suggestions about other options.

The November weather in San Diego was glorious!
But Utah's November wasn't too shabby either.  The delightful temperature that we experienced in October, extended in to November as well!

Elsa was a busy girl during November!  While I was away, she and Nick went to a BYU football game.  That girl, is my football fan!  A four year old that will sit through a sporting event, who woulda' thunk!?

And then, a few days after I returned from San Diego, I took Elsa to see the Nutcracker ballet.
Several girls from our neighborhood do ballet at Clytie Adams studio, and they do a Nutcracker Ballet at Weber State University.

Elsa and I had dinner at the Pi, pizzeria, beforehand.  And then went to the ballet.
I had more fun watching Elsa's face, during the performance, than I did watching the actual ballet.  She was enraptured!
We ended up sitting in a section with a lot of our neighbors.  Elsa was seated next to an empty-nester couple that lives near us.  She kept turning to Bruce Shepard (the gentleman) and exclaiming, "We have this song!".  Elsa loved the music.  It was a magical night.

And before we knew it!  Thanksgiving was upon us.
I signed up to do the Turkey Leg 5K, again.  But I couldn't convince anyone else from my family to run it with me.
My across-the-street-neighbor told me that she was doing it, and invited me to run with them.  Which was nice.

Joy (the lovely lady in the middle- above-) is in her 60's; and is in better shape than I am.  She ran the dirty dash with me, a few months ago, too.
She had knee surgery six weeks ago.  And she could have still easily toasted me in this race. She was really gracious, and stayed with me.  I had a 28 minute finish time.  Meh.  It's not my favorite 5K course, so I'll call it a successful time.

Kari is Joy's daughter.  She and I are the teachers in the nursery, at church.  It's a lot of fun to have her as  my pal.

And maybe, I'll make a runner out of her, yet!

Thanksgiving is Nick's favorite holiday.
If it were up to me, I'd take an extended vacation from the end of November, through December (more on that in another post).
This year, things ended up being pretty low-key.
Nick's name was drawn as 1st alternate, to work on Thanksgiving day.  We weren't certain that he'd have the day off until that very morning.  It made planning a bit more difficult.
My brother, Brian, was in the same boat.  He didn't know if he'd have time off, until the last minute as well.

In the end, Nick and Brian didn't have to work.
We had the meal at my parent's house.  Heather was with her in-laws.  So it just ended up being 6 adults, and 4 kids in attendance.
I ordered a turkey from R&R BBQ, in SLC.
Delectable.
It was a smoked turkey.  And I've never tasted a better turkey.

 

It wasn't the typical golden-brown color, because it had been smoked.
And oh, so-easy!  I drove to the restaurant, and they had the turkey packaged, and ready to go.  They put it in the car for me.  I drove to my Mom's house and we served it right up.  So easy!
Nick made his famous, artery-clogging potatoes.
I made rolls (that Nick accidentally burned).  And cranberry compote.
And of course, pie.

I spent the next day shopping.  Online.  And procured nearly everything I needed for Christmas.  A good way to finish the month.