Well, my work event has come and gone; boy, am I relieved! We worked very hard on this event for over a year and it was a long, arduous weekend, but it seemed to go well. Thank heavens. And the weather was again simply glorious. Well, most of the time. You know how they say it never rains in California? When we were there: it did.
I got to La Jolla early on Monday, three days before the official start of our conference. I went out with two work chums to get everything ready (unpacking boxes, meeting with hotel staff, stuff like that). I was very fortunate to get a gorgeous corner hotel room, which meant I had a lovely (and very large) terrace. I made sure to sit out there A LOT. It had a beautiful view of the golf course, and the ocean beyond, which was very restorative, especially when work got frantic. I loved that view. That first day, we only got a few minutes by the pool, but we did have time to go back to George's on the Cove and have a delicious dinner. Our reservation was a little after sunset, so we didn't get spectacular scenery, but it was lovely all the same. The amazing sunset meal came later in the trip. I again found the spaghetti with clams delicious and the peanut butter ice box cake was so rich and yummy. I also had a fantastic margarita. In fact, I may have had a margarita every night during this trip. Let me think on that...
Tuesday, I got my work chums to indulge me and go to Harry's Coffee Shop. One of my travel magazines called the diner one of the best in the U.S., so I wanted to check it out. It's a little past the main cove drag next to an attractively named shop (lol). Harry's is a real old-fashioned coffee shop, filled with tourists and regulars alike. Our waitress was so sweet and it was clear she'd be working there quite a while. It was hard to decide what I wanted (hello, they had bacon pancakes, which I almost got), but I settled on the breakfast burrito. Good heavens, it was ENORMOUS! And the tortilla was fried. It was a hugely filling dish, very yummy with the hash browns inside the burrito. It was so good, but I couldn't finish it. Especially since I knew we were having lunch with our conference planner later in the afternoon.
Oh, I forgot to mention: before breakfast, I wandered over to the Torrey Pines golf course - I wanted to get a souvenir for my dad, who loves to golf. It's a short but pretty walk over to the golf course from the hotel. And the golf course is stunning, as I expected. There happened to be a youth golf tournament that day, so I watched some kids practicing their putting and I saw a couple of kids officially tee off, which was fun. I also enjoyed walking through the pro shop. I hope my dad likes the stuff I got him.
I did get a couple of hours by the pool on Tuesday after breakfast, before our lunch meeting, so that was very nice. I didn't actually get in the pool, though, because I didn't want to get overtired before meetings. But it was so great to just sit by the pool, read my book, and not be bothered for a bit. That was one of the few quiet moments of the whole week. For lunch, I shared those delicious crab nachos I had been dreaming about for months with our conference planner. SO good. Tuesday night was a get-together for some west coast peeps on the hotel's terrace overlooking the pool. There was a very small turnout, but it was a lovely night. Brian, our dedicated bartender for the evening, was a trip. He mixed me several delicious margaritas (he even made me one to go when the get-together was over). There was fun conversation, tasty drinks and flatbread pizzas. I wish more people had been able to come, but it was a good time all the same.
The rest of our office crowd arrived on Wednesday, so it was busy busy busy. We had a breakfast working meeting with our conference planner and then got seriously started on putting everything together for the conference opening on Thursday. But Wednesday night was a treat - we went to Pacific Coast Grill for a staff dinner. It took WAY too long to get there, and the food wasn't as spectacular as I had hoped, but my blood orange margarita was superlative and the views were spectacular. We sat on the terrace, the ocean just yards away from us. The sunset was glorious and it was nice to sit outside and relax before the coming onslaught.
I'm happy to report that although there were bumps behind the scenes, I think everything went smoothly for the participants and everyone seemed to have a good time and maybe even learned a little something. I enjoyed meeting so many people, but I wish I had found the time to actually sit in on some of the sessions. Oh well. When you're reporting to the guy in charge, there's not much time for anything but work. And I guess it's nobody's fault but my own that I'm such a perfectionist that I had to keep my eye on everything going on.
After telling our members that the weather would be spectacular in La Jolla (it mainly was, don't get me wrong), it did POUR the rain on Saturday, off and on - we had to move our morning yoga and garden lunch inside, but that's a minor complaint. I still had a couple of friends over to drink wine on my terrace Saturday night. Sunday, though, when it would've been my main time to sit by the pool, it also POURED. As in monsoon. I did get about two hours of sun before the rains came, so I won't complain, but boy was I the teensiest bit disappointed that the only time we experienced rain there was during the official event. Oh well.
So Sunday night was spent in my quiet room, ordering room service and (mainly) watching Food Network. That was actually pretty nice. I talked to my sister and nephew on the phone, read my book, watched cable, took a nap (or two), and tried not to be driven crazy by the dripping noise off my terrace doors. My room actually had a leak at both terrace doors, the carpets were wet and I couldn't really go outside, but again, minor complaints. I spent a lot of time out there before Sunday, so...oh well.
Traveling back to NY on Monday was a bit of a pain - my flight to LAX was delayed so long that I would've missed my connecting flight to JFK, so they put me on a flight to Detroit instead. The agent (who was very nice) told me she gave me a lovely seat by the window. She didn't mention that lovely window seat was the very last seat on the plane and in front of the bathroom. Ew. At least the flight wasn't overly long AND I had my own tv screen. I watched a Hugh Grant film,
The Rewrite, and then
Into the Woods. They definitely made the trip seem faster. The layover in Detroit was a quick one, but I made it home in one piece, though it took a lot longer than it should've. There was traffic in the airspace, so we had to hover over JFK for awhile, then we landed way far away from the gate, so we taxied for about a half hour. The gate was then approximately 100 miles from the baggage area (give or take a few miles - let's just say I had plenty of time to eat a Shackburger from Shake Shack as I walked there) and once I got to baggage claim, I saw that my bag wasn't there. I went into the baggage office and they told me my bag would arrive in about four hours. I said, I don't have to wait for it, do I? He said no, they'd deliver it. So that was a good thing (it arrived safe and sound on Tuesday afternoon). When I saw the taxi line outside the baggage office, I decided to take the AirTrain out of JFK to the subway, since I didn't have my big suitcase. It was probably the right choice, but it did seem to take forever. I got back to my apartment about four hours later than I should've, but at least it made going to sleep pretty easy that night. I'm still jetlagged and tired, four days later. Hopefully, I can get all caught up over the weekend.
All in all, it was a good trip. I didn't really get to do any touristy things, like see the seals or go to San Diego proper, but even with all the work (and there was a lot), I still feel like I relaxed a bit and had a good time periodically throughout. I got to spend time with a dear friend from grad school who was a conference participant, and I always love spending time with some of my work chums. I guess you can't ask for anything more than that. I hope I get to go back to La Jolla someday. If rain is planned, I'm going to stay away from that drippy terrace room, though.
I feel as if it's been forever since I've seen a show! I'm happy to report I couldn't stop myself and succumbed to the siren song of TDF and will be seeing something next week. Whew!
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| the kit the baggage office gave me, since all my toiletries were in my lost bag :) |
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