2025 Los Angeles and San Diego Trip
(3/20/2025 - 3/24/2025)
2025 Los Angeles and San Diego Trip(3/20/2025 - 3/24/2025)
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On Thursday, March 24, 2025, Katherine and Brian first travelled to Los Angeles to visit Katherine's family, then we drove to San Diego for Kendall's bridal shower. Remember you can click on any photo below for the highest quality original version that exists. Here was our itinerary:
- Thu, Mar 20 - fly to LAX (Los Angeles) arriving at 7pm
- Fri, Mar 21 - stay at Rolling Hills
- Sat, Mar 22 - drive to San Diego (2 hours, 121 miles), buy watch at
South Coast Plaza
- Sun, Mar 23 - Kendall's bridal shower, Brian depart San Diego at 9am on Alaska (operated
by AlaskaSkyWest)
- Mon, Mar 24 - Katherine depart San Diego at 6:47pm on Alaska Airlines, arrive Austin
at 11:45pm.
A Tiny Bit of Background:
Kendall MacDonald is getting
married. Katherine and I have known Kendall since before she was born.
About 10 years ago,
Kendall had an internship working for me. We met up with
Kendall (and her
parents) in Hawaii a few times,
like this photo. This trip is for Katherine to attend Kendall's bridal
shower.
Pictures mostly in time order. Below we are parked in the "Blue Parking Area" at Austin Airport. I take these photos to remember where we parked. :-)
The picture below is taken as we departed Austin, I thought our airplane's shadow (see below) was interesting.
One last photo as we depart Austin, our house is pictured below! The dam featured in the center of the photo is the "Tom Miller Dam". The large body of water is technical called "Colorado River" but with the dam the part below the damn in the piture becomes "Town Lake" or "Lady Bird Lake".
Sunrise around 6:30am the next day in Los Angeles (Katherine's parents technically live in "Rolling Hills Estates"). I thought the vertical smoke/condensation plumes were interesting.
A few minutes later, Katherine's father Yong (용) goes out to work on his garden (see the far right center of the photo).
One of the "projects" for this trip was installing the Tuzio Blenheim Hated Towel Warmer in the guest bathroom where we stay when we visit. The on/off switch is the far left LCD screen next to the light switches for the bathroom. The towel warmer connects to WiFi, LOL. But there isn't any reason to actually use WiFi to control it.
This is a Kohler Viron 4 Spray Magnetic Showerhead. The lower part is only held in place by a light magnet. We got the wrong color which doesn't quite match the bathroom.
Korean breakfast before we drive to San Diego. On my plate are fishcakes, and Korean stuffed peppers (gochujun). Ki (기) is Katherine's mother and is putting down more homemade kimchi. The whole thing is like the best breakfast of all time. Yong (용) is Katherine's father on his phone cut off to the left.
Below is a picture of the ocean on our drive down to San Diego.
We went to an outdoor dinner that same night in San Diego at the "Stone Brewing World and Gardens" at Liberty Station.
This huge 4 foot tall logo is right inside the front door. The logo is called the "Stone Brewing Gargoyle". I have always liked their logo, I suspect the original Stone Brewery founders were metal music genre listeners, and I'm glad they never changed the logo to be more "corporate".
A table full of out of town guests. Facing away from the camera is Art Boone. From front to back along the left is: Patti, Fiona, Samantha Liebman (Matron of Honor). At the head of the table facing the photo is: Lisa Mallet (Bridesmaid). From front to back along the right side of the table is Beate Mordasini, Kendall, and Kyle. Kendall and Kyle are getting married in June: https://www.zola.com/wedding/picunko You can see some of the people at this table here: https://www.zola.com/wedding/picunko/wedding_party
Same table, different angle for faces.
At the other table is: Van, Lia (bride's mother), my chair with a jacket on it (Brian), and Katherine on the far right.
Below is a picture of Lia with her daughter Kendall. This was a candid photo moment, but I really like the photo.
And one moment later another candid photo, LOL.
Every so often, maybe once every 30 minutes, an airplane taking off from San Diego airport would fly overhead loudly. The pause in conversations at this location is called a "Point Loma Pause". Everybody is so used to this loud noise occurring that conversations just pause for a few seconds until the airplane passes, then the conversation resumes. I like it, airplanes are cool. I fly in them all the time.
There is a duck that spends a lot of time in the "fire pool" here at Stone Brewing. I think the staff here named the duck: ??unknown??
Later that night, after the gathering, Katherine and I go to our hotel room at the Kona Kai Resort. I wrote this TripAdvisor review about it: https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g60750-d82443-r999512508-Kona_Kai_San_Diego_Resort-San_Diego_California.html Summarized: the rooms are fine, the hotel staff cannot operate a hotel to save their lives.
A photo of our room number and shows how they failed to fill out the "WiFi" information on this card key sleeve. This is a tiny thing not worth mentioning other than the fact that everything went totally and completely wrong with the "checking in experience". You have to call the front desk to get the Wifi information like which WiFi to join and which password. Not a big deal, not fatal, just "odd" really. Room 278 was totally FINE other than the screwup that the lock on the door left the room wide open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That was totally solved by the physical deadbolt, and the physical "flip guard" which prevents the door from opening while people are inside.
A picture from our hotel balcony at night.
We booked a room at Kona Kai which was a "Bedroom Suite". If you go here: https://www.resortkonakai.com/shelter-island-suites/ and scroll down to "Water View One Bedroom Suite" is the general idea of what we booked.
Only Katherine (female) was invited to the Kendall bridal shower. I was only here for fun, and to drop Katherine off. The day of the actual bridal shower I took Uber to the airport at 5:30am and flew home leaving Katherine. Here are three photos I didn't take of the actual bridal shower. The first one below is: Sam, Kendall, and Fiona.
A picture of Kendall at her bridal shower.
From left to right below: Catherine Boone (Kendall's aunt), Lia (Kendall's mother), Kendall, Fiona (Kendall's sister), and Patti Boone (Kendall's grandmother).
Timewarp back to the morning before the bridal shower, in the picture below I'm waiting for my Uber (before the bridal shower which I skipped) to drive me 2 miles to the San Diego airport.
My final photo is just the most boring photo of all time where I am waiting at the airline gate to fly home to Austin.
That's it, all done! Stop reading!
This is not for you! Stop reading! I'm old, I forget
things, this helps me remember for next time.
That's it! That's all the pictures. All done!
