Day 10 – San Diego

We found out that Clare spent Fourth of July at Mission Beach, and watched the Big Bay Boom fireworks show from just a little further down the waterfront from our spot on the USS Midway. 

She has four – FOUR! – days of leave for the holiday weekend. So, this morning Dad and I met Clare and two of her friends, Faith and Austin, for breakfast at Richard Walker’s Pancake House near the downtown Gaslamp District. The midshipmen are staying at Naval Base San Diego, a few tram stops to the south of downtown. I had googled “best pancakes in San Diego,” and this place was at the top of the list, hailed as a “breakfast institution.” We arrived at 9:30 a.m. to find a line of people out the door and down the sidewalk. After a 45-minute wait, we were finally seated, and the servers piled our table with pancakes and waffles and Dutch babies. I had so much fun chatting with Clare and her friends that I completely forgot to take a photo. Faith went to Culver and is friends with Bella W. from Lafayette. Austin was born in Bay Area and finished high school in Taiwan, where his family lives now. 

After breakfast, Faith went off to spend time with her aunt and uncle. Austin drove up to Los Angeles with a friend. So, Clare spent the afternoon with us! After spending the entire day at the beach yesterday, she was sporting an extreme sunburn, and she wasn’t interested in doing anything very active. We drove up to La Jolla to the Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve, claimed a picnic table on top of the bluffs, and watched the paragliders circle and soar above the waves. 

Dad and I enjoyed the chance to catch up with her, and to hear how her first two weeks of PROTRAMID have gone. She spent a week “blowing stuff up” with the Marines at Camp Pendleton, and a few days exploring surface warships. Aviation week starts on Monday, and she’ll do a week of submarines after that. 

 

For dinner, we all got a little dressed up, then we walked from our hotel a few blocks to Old Venice, a wonderful Italian Bistro recommended to us by our friend Mr. Gothard.