San Diego Trip...Day 2

Sunday morning we got up and drove down to Old Town San Diego where we got on the Old Town Trolley for a tour around the city.  I've done the trolley tour a couple times before, once with my roommates back in the day and again with Marsha and some friends, and I thought the boys would have fun on it.

The first stop on the trolley tour was at the USS Midway aircraft carrier ship.  This was the highlight of the trip for Randy.  He wanted to go last time we were here but we ran out of time.  It was really interesting wandering around seeing a little bit of what life would be like on this city in the ocean.  It was cramped space for us and I can't imagine what it would be like with 4,000 people on board.  I couldn't help but think about my grandpa Simkins who was on a similar ship when he was serving in the Army in the South Pacific during WWII.

Boarding the USS Midway

The boys were pretty fascinated with the ship and asked a lot of questions about things.  They had a "Junior Pilot" program for the kids where they could go through the ship answering questions as they went and they got a Junior Pilot wings pin when they completed it.  They thought that was pretty neat.

Alex in the cockpit of a fighter plane

My little fighter pilot, Halen

On the top deck runway

On the overlook plank at the front of the ship about 50 ft above the water

Once we got our fill of the USS Midway, we hopped back on the trolley and toured around through a few more stops before getting off at Coronado Island.  We had promised the boys we would take them to the beach since we hadn't been to one since we were in Myrtle Beach, SC a couple years ago but we took longer than expected at the Midway so we made due with what time we had left.  We walked from the trolley stop to what the Travel Channel voted as the #1 beach in America just behind the famous Hotel Del Coronado.  We only had about a half hour to play before catching the last trolley back to our car but that was enough for us.  The water was pretty cold and Mia didn't like being there at all.  I don't know if it was the noise of the waves or what but she cried most of the time.  The boys had fun and ended up getting their pants pretty wet. Ü

Daddy tried to show her it was ok but she didn't believe him

I wanted a cute "from behind" pic but this was the best I could get
since Mia was crying hysterically and trying to get away

After we got back to the van, we were starving so we headed to dinner.  We saw that the Hard Rock Café had a kids eat free thing going on and we've had a gift card for over 5 years that we've never been able to use so that's where we went.

Our waiter gave Mia a couple drink stirrers and she had a ton of fun
drumming on the table. Ü

After dinner, we checked into our hotel and thought we'd go out to the pool for a while before going to bed.  But the water was freezing cold so Mia and I decided to sit and watch the boys be brave.  They swam until they were pretty numb and cold then they warmed up in the hot tub for a minute before heading off to bed.  Chalk it up to another fun day in sunny San Diego.