up, up and away

Sunday was one of those days when I decided that the kids and I needed to get out into the world. My kids have mixed reactions to this type of day. Everybody likes an outing, but once the idea is dropped the challenge quickly becomes mighty. Not why, but where? When? For how long? It is very easy for me to become frustrated with the negotiations and tempted to throw in the proverbial towel, but I am nothing if not a man on a mission. Well. You know what I mean.

Here are some of the ideas that were optioned, in no particular order:

Canyon hike
Beach
Ice skating
Cliffs
Pool
Bike ride
Coronado
Go Carts

Here is the consensus reached on each:

No.
No.
Maybe.
No.
No.
No.
No.
No.

Sigh. So, ice skating! We agreed to leave in 30 minutes, then each retreated to our private corner of the house to lament. I should mention that these were pre-Charger game hours, and Dad was not part of the escape plans. He had a lot of worrying work to do before the game. 

When the time we had agreed upon arrived, we all sort of shuffled in and sighed. No one wanted to go ice skating. Who wants to go ice skating? It was like 80 degrees out. Ice skating is stupid unless it's cold. I offered an out.... do you guys want to take a scenic drive then go for FroYo? Ooooohh, the yesses.

I had an idea in mind, and off we went. I didn't tell them where we were going, and the really cool thing is that conversation turned to all the times we'd surprised them with destinations they really liked. We got into a deep talk about when SeaWorld was the surprise, because that one year we had season passes we went quite frequently. We talked about the blackfish vs ocean research debate and agreed that our SeaWorld days are behind us.

Someone asked: "so where are we going?"
I replied: "SeaWorld!"

hahahahhahaahah

Our actual destination was somewhere I have never been, in all of my 25 years as a resident of San Diego. But they wanted scenic, and scenic is what we got.

Oh, did you think I'd have photos of the scenery?

You're so cute.

Mount Soledad! It's a spectacularly gorgeous mountaintop spot best known for controversial state vs religion argument. Isn't that dumb? I mean it's a spectacularly gorgeous mountain top spot! Sigh. As I said to the kids, you don't have to claim Jesus as your savior and saint to appreciate the beauty of this:

:

anyway.

It was lovely and fun and windy, and a great way to spend our day. We all noticed the guy sitting under a 10x10 with posters about a book signing and a table covered with books and artifacts. We all saw him, and we're all the same because none of us could stand the fact that the guy was siting there alone and ignored. I was like, oh brother, we're gonna have to buy that damn book aren't we. They were like yup. So we did, and we talked with the guy for a while. His book was the publication of his journals from Vietnam. The artifacts where things he'd brought back with him. We bought his book thinking that we'd send it to Bill's dad, and he signed it for us. My boy put it in his backpack though.

And as we drove off, we saw that the guy was smiling.

Later that night while watching the 11:00 news, I saw that guy being interviewed about the significance of the Veteran's Memorial atop Mt. Soledad, on Pearl Harbor Day.  He was still smiling.