San Diego Experience

Yesterday we went to San Diego to re-connect with a friend that I worked with 28 years ago in Orlando Florida. We went there in 1983/84 when Dick went through mid-life crisis when he was in his 40's. His so called "best friend" that he went to college with decided to take advantage of getting the right to build British hovercraft, which is a pleasure boat seating two people, that rides on top of the water. He talked Dick into going into business with him and they truly started from scratch. They had to find a big plant where they could manufacture these boats, and all the things that go with starting a new business kept the two of them busy for quite a while. Unfortunately Dick only had a 10% interest so he didn't have a whole lot to say. The whole mess was a bad decision that I may blog about later, but it is a long story. I just wanted to explain why we were in Florida to begin with. We were there 11 months and during this time I was the sole bread winner. We bought a home thinking we would be there for a long time. Dick didn't take any salary, so it was up to me. We also had a daughter in college that we had to send money to each month.





I got a job working for a CPA company and Ivette Rivera was the girl I met in that office. She was from Puerto Rico. We really hit it off even though she was lots younger than I, having recently graduated from college with a degree in Accounting. I was 54 so there was at least 20 or 22 years difference in our ages. That didn't seem to matter though as we really got along well.

I got an Email from her recently telling me she was going to be in San Diego this week, starting on Sunday. She was here for a conference that her company sent her to. She is a CPA now and tomorrow she gets her certificate for financial planning. Since she has been living in Puerto Rico for the last 20 years, needless to say we haven't been able to see each other although she has invited us to come and see her for many of the last few years. That is why we were so eager to see her in San Diego. The convention was in downtown S.D. and neither Dick nor I had ever been there. We had been in Oldtown San Diego, but this was like a maiden journey to a place we had never been before. We were so happy to have our GPS. She was staying at the Hyatt Manchester, which is a beautiful hotel with two very high towers. She was on the 5th floor so we got a beautiful picture of the harbor from her window.

Ivette was staying in the Seaport Tower . The other tower is called Harbor Tower. These two towers are more than the length of a football field from one to the other, which gives you the idea of how far it was between the two towers. Unfortunately, I had to do so much walking. There wasn't any place I could sit between towers so just had to do it without so much as a minutes rest. When Ivette arrived on the airport shuttle, she went up to her room and then she came looking for us. It was so great to see her again. She took us up to her room and wouldn't you know, hers was the last room on the floor so we had to walk about 50 yards to get to her room. We visited until it was time to get something to eat. We decided that it would be best to eat in or near the hotel as we didn't want to take the car out of the garage. Dick had been looking the place over before Ivette got there and he found a village that had pretty much started out one of the doors to the Hotel, so we walked all the way through it. It would have been fun to browse, but my feet and legs were bothering me so much. I wished I had brought my wheel chair, because it was all cobble stone and it really made it harder for me to walk. Fortunately there were many places to sit down though so it was okay. We had dinner in a very nice restaurant. Then we bought warm cookies right out of the oven on our walk back to the hotel. We went up to Ivettes room and visited a bit more and left about 8:30p.m. so that we wouldn't get home so late and Ivette could get some sleep. We actually made pretty good time and got home about 11:00 so that wasn't too bad. The shocker was that for the six hours our car sat in the parking garage, it cost us $28.00

We figured with all the walking we did, I had walked the length of a football field 8 times plus the circle around the village. I'm so glad we did that circle though because on the other side was the harbor and there were a lot of ships and sail boats, such a pretty sight. I wish we had taken more pictures. Dick left the camera in the car so we had to take these with the I -phone, but I think they turned out better than the camera, so next time we go somewhere, I will definitely take more pictures. I did this earlier tonight because I really needed Dick to help me with the pictures. He let me do it, so maybe next time I can do it myself......just maybe though, because I still may need Dick.