San Diego, home of the very lucky

There and back again.
A tale by Anna Ingraham.
So we've been to San Diego now.
And part of me wishes we had not come back. Pretty much all of me did yesterday, but then I wouldn't get to see Hannah and Leah today, so you know. However it is going to be necessary for all of my friends to move there, because I can not go on living here after I've been THERE! It's so, so, so, so, gorgeous! It was like having a week of summer in the middle of february! Amazing!
So, Thursday morning around 3:30 dad woke me up and said we would have to leave a little early because of the weather. It was being utterly disgusting out and snowing/slushing, and we had to drive to portland in it. Well we got there fine, got through security without any mishaps, and sat down to wait for our six am flight. Of course it got delayed, so we sat around some more and grew increasingly worried, because we were going to miss our detroit flight. We finally left Portland but sure enough when we landed in Detroit, our flight was gone. We got rerouted, but in order to do so we had to go BACK to Atlanta and then to San Diego, another hour and 40 minutes on the plane and layover. We weren't thrilled, but we were all pretty excited so it didn't matter that much. We had lunch in Atlanta, ran to get to our plane again, and then were finally on the way to San Diego.
I kind of like flying. When we went to Arizona two years ago and I flew for the first time, it was weird, in that the planes were more... normal feeling then I expected, just like a bus. But I'm kind of used to them by now and taking off is fun and flying above the clouds is so cool. I said to dad it's kind of nice to know even on the worst gloomy day of the year it's still blue up there. Of course it isn't really, it does get less pretty, but it's a nice thought. ;)
We finally got there, around 5 pm, and got our car (a pretty blue van), and finally to the hotel. It was beautiful and not even remotely cloudy, like it had been in Maine (of course), and Detroit, and it was probably around 60 degrees and there were people walking and wearing SHORTS and it was just beautiful. We were exhausted so we went to bed around eight (and if Leah were reading this she would have a heart attack hehehe.). Then Friday our three day period of pure relaxation began. We went to the conference place, which is totally gorgeous, then to Cabrilla Monument, which is totally gorgeous, then back to the conference place, (yes, still totally gorgeous.) We helped Dad set up and hung out on the lawn, and were very, very hyper, and then there was the reception which was a lot of fun. There were little sandwiches and a chocolate fountain, (and I mean who can say no to that?!), and everyone walked around and talked and ate, and it felt like one of those Christmas parties you always see in movies. And we were hyper so that helped. We talked to quite a few interesting people, including the renowned (in the birding world that is), Ken Kauffmen, and his wife Kim. She was really, really nice, and wanted us to go on her web site because she has a club for young birders in Ohio, where they live. I keep forgetting to look it up though. Bad me.
Saturday, we hung out at The Mariner (where the festival was), and went walking some and laid down by the water for two whole hours just listening to music. It was perfect. The banquet was that night and that was really cool. Ken Kauffmen did the lecture, on '13 Different Ways to Look at a Sparrow.' It was really funny and interesting, mostly because he is just an interesting guy, but I knew it was going to be good as soon as he started off with "I'm going to tell you about 13 Different ways to look at a sparrow, and I know, what could be more boring then that?"
And Clay Taylor, one of the vendors at the festival immediately shouted out "14 different ways!" It was hilarious and the entire room cracked up, and Ken stood there with this funny grin on his face and when we finally quieted was just like. "Well. That's gonna be the best line of the night."
Turns out the lecture wasn't boring at all (of course). Ken told this hilarious story about learning to bird as a boy, where he was trying to identify a sparrow and kept running into the house to look at the bird book, and running back out to look at the bird, and he showed pictures along with the story, and every time he ran back out of the house it was a different bird. He pulled it off very nicely. And then he got really sweet when he talked about how sparrows can effect people's lives, because he met his second wife (Kim), when she was the only one interested in the olive sparrow (if I remember right), on a field trip of his. "And it has a really great song," he said, "Sweet Kimberly, Kimberly, Kimberly. That's a great song." You could really tell he meant it, too. :)
Sunday was the tiniest bit boring, but it was still beautiful and dinner made up for any testy parts of the day. (We were getting a little tired of each other by then, I think. ;) ) We went to the Mexican place really close to our hotel, and the food was DELICIOUS. Best mexican I've had in a long time. It was hilarious, because we had started eating and were all quiet you know, and then dad said "it's a REALLY good chili," and Erin said "It's a REALLY good enchilada," and I said "It's a REALLY good burrito," and Kelia said "It's a REALLY good thing I have a napkin!" It's probably one of those you had to be there moments, but we laughed for just about five minutes. Then dad surprised us by actually ordering the fried ice cream, which we had all been wondering about, and it was absolutely perfect. They must have hard frozen a ball of ice cream, then fried it really quick in a really light, thin batter, that was all sugar and cinnamon-ey, and put it in its little bowl of the same fried batter... yuuuuum!
Monday we went to the san Diego Wild Animal Park! It was awesome and definitely the nicest zoo type place I've ever been to. The spaces for the animals were so big and nice, and the bird aviaries were amazing, and the tram ride was fun, and the frequent flyers bird show we went to was so cool. It started off with birds coming out, choreographed to music, and then we got to see a bunch of different kinds, including an african gray parrot which delighted us by talking and making sound affects. I'm not sure which animal display was my favorite, but the giraffes totally rocked, as did the elephants... and the cheetahs... and the rhinos... and... well you get the point. :P
Tuesday was a little disappointing because dad had to work and we had been hoping to go to the aquarium but his conference call went long so we couldn't. At least we got to go to Cabrillo monument again, which was even nicer that time because it was a clearer day and you could see all over san diego. So we mostly watched TV that day (w00t Monk, Scrubs, Friends, and all that good stuff!) I decided I was pretty much ready to go home, but that was probably just because I was slightly bored, for when Wednesday rolled around and we actually had to leave the hotel and the sunny 70 degree weather, I seriously rethought that. Meaning, WAIT! I DIDN'T MEAN IT! NOOOOO! And threatening to sing a song from August Rush to san diego, (yes, the whole city), along the lines of "some day we'll be together."
Ahaha.
It was very depressing.
I did not want to leave, AT ALL.
But we had to of course, and so we set off on our final adventure, home.
Oh wait! Not quite! We had one more adventure to go!
Yes, when we got to portland and found our car, buried in a weeks worth of horrible Maine february, it refused to go anywhere. It was very stuck on a patch of ice, it's tires just spinning and spinning and not gaining any traction whatsoever. I can only be extremely grateful it was 38 and not 22 or even 7 like it had been in detroit, because we did not have our winter coats and we would have FROZEN. As it was we survived, even as Dad had Erin rev the car while he pushed (thank God she was in the front seat at the time and not me! O_O), and then finally had to get help from a maintenance person. After he plowed around and stuff we discovered now... THE CAR WOULDN'T START.
Yes. Lovely.
Fortunately it was just the battery and we were able to jump start the car, and then put sand under the wheels and FINALLY get it moving. It was kind of fun rocking it back and forth when it was trying to go at last... it reminded me of the part in POTC-AWE when they tip the boat. :P
Now it's so hard to believe it's only been less the a week since we got home! It feels like at least a couple of weeks ago, in fact the whole trip feels almost like a dream. It went by so fast and was so awesome... Sigh. DEFINITELY, want to go again.
Since then we've been recuperating (it took awhile, surprisingly enough, I actually slept to 10:30 thursday morning! :O), and just started school properly again today. Over the weekend I got to see Leah and Hannah, which was awesome, but sad because I won't see Leah again for forever. We went sledding and despite my complaints about the cold and snow ("I WANT CA!!!!" etc. :P), it was a lot of fun. Now I have to get ready for starting teaching the end of feb. I'm extremely scared but that's not surprising, and I think (THINK) I will be ready. Eeek. I'm also going to send my short story soon, once Sarah gives me the last word on it! So now I guess I just have to worry about writing this scene/story in a GUYS POV. Really, Lauren. No brothers! No guy friends! (well, no good ones anyway.) How am I supposed to do this??!!
And speaking of that girl - gracious woman, please fix Zach before you break ALL our hearts!!!

And that is IT for now guys. Whew. I guess I should go work on that story... *grumblegrumble* Laters! :P

<3
Anna

P.S. I apologize for the bad spelling - the spell checkers not working again and it won't let me copy and paste (blasted safari). Also, I wrote this over a couple of days so the time periods don't all line up but whateverrrr. I am so done with this post. Booyah.