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Our world cruise ship boards January 9 in Los Angeles. Two hours south of LA is San Diego, the home of one of our oldest and dearest friends. Craig, Russell and Gail shared a rental house for years in the 1980s. Craig was Russell’s singing partner and best man at our wedding. Craig is also a fellow enrichment lecturer for Viking cruises.
So we were thrilled when Craig and his wife Liz offered to host us for three nights in San Diego. Craig would then drive us up to Los Angeles in time to board ship.
That was before COVID.
With both of us possibly exposed, we decided to stay in a San Diego hotel for at least the first two nights. We would try to socialize with Craig as much as we could in outside, open-air environments.
We thought we might get to see Craig for a few hours each day. Instead, Craig put together a full agenda of activities to fill the entire three days.
On January 6, Craig picked us up from San Diego airport, took us to his home in Oaks North for a patio lunch, then checked us into our hotel. We had a delicious dinner on the patio at Abnormal Brewery.
On January 7, we all rode e-bikes on an 18-mile excursion to the Hamburger Factory in Poway for brunch/lunch. That afternoon, Craig took us on a Costco run to pick up last-minute supplies for our four-month cruise. (The advantage of this arrangement is that we are no longer bound by airplane luggage restrictions. We can bring as much aboard the cruise ship as we can fit in Craig’s car!)
Best of all, January 7 marked three days since Gail was exposed to COVID. We took COVID tests and were both negative. We cancelled the second hotel night and moved our stuff to Craig’s guest room (which was the original plan). For dinner, we enjoyed Liz’s cooking. (Moussaka! Yum!)
On January 8, we had a leisurely morning. For lunch, we drove up to Del Mar and had a gigantic amount of food at South of Nick’s Mexican Kitchen. (We figure we aren’t going to get a lot of “spicy” or “crunchy” for the next four months.) This was followed by a gigantic amount of ice cream at Salt & Straw. (Viking ships have gelato, but not ice cream.) We took a scenic drive through La Jolla and up to Mount Soledad National Veterans Memorial, where there is a spectacular view of the Southern California coastline.
Dinner was more home cooking (Steak! Yum!), followed by packing. This evening, Russell received his lecture schedule for the next week. Tomorrow morning we will drive north to San Pedro (outside of Los Angeles). We are ready to board the Viking Neptune and begin our cruise!
