How I Spent My Winter Vacation - Part Four

February 10 was my last full day in San Diego. My plans for the day had changed rapidly. Originally I was to meet Judy and Lisa, two women I knew from our mutual love of Owen/Cristina, in the morning. Lisa was taking the train from LA and Judy would pick up both of us and we'd eat. But then Judy's kids got sick and so did she.

So Lisa and I tried to figure out how to meet up - and I tried to figure out what to do with the rest of my day. When Judy started feeling better, it became more complicated. Part of me wanted to see more of San Diego, but honestly, I had been doing a lot of walking and exploring and didn't really feel up to figuring out the bus system. I could have rented a car, but the California freeway system looks pretty complex and intimidating.

Judy felt better so we eventually settled on meeting for supper. I decided I would make things simpler by not exploring San Diego. Polina suggested that I walk to the Mission Trails Regional Park nearby, and that turned out to be a great idea.

So I walked half an hour to the park. I found the environment very interesting - most of my life has been lived in northern climates. (I checked Google Maps - San Diego is actually the farthest south I have even travelled).


The park has a visitor's centre. A volunteer encouraged me to follow a path around the centre, which he said he could do in 45 minutes and he was "an old guy". He also assured me it was safe for a lone woman to be walking on and suggested I visit the Grinding Rocks.

He also gave me a guide to native plant life around the centre. This is made in the tradition of the Kumeyaay and was on the grounds.

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How I Spent My Winter Vacation - Part Three

February 9 was another beautiful day in San Diego. By this point, I'd forgotten what bitter cold feels like. We went to a restaurant with a gluten-free menu - 's daughter is celiac and was thrilled to have another GF person visiting. The GF cinnamon roll pancakes were awesome. Before heading out to the zoo, I took pictures of clover. Because I was in love with all the greenness of San Diego.

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How I Spent My Winter Vacation - Part Two

The original reason to go to San Diego was the Mermaid Marathon. I thought it would be a good reason to get up and start moving after surgery in the fall. I chose the 5K race because I wasn't sure how much stamina I'd recover by race time.

What makes it a "mermaid" marathon is that 99% of the entrants were female, from a grand and wise mermaid in robes to lots of giggling mini-mermaids.

Since P lured me to San Diego for the marathon, she walked it with me. Starting early in the morning.


Surrounded by women in colourful tutus and mermaid leggings, we felt a little underdressed. :-) I did tie-dye my t-shirt for the race.

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How I Spent My Winter Vacation - Part One

This is how it will go - I'll post a recap of each day, with photos to illustrate, but I won't post all of the photos from each day at once. I will post the others one at a time, later, so I can still share them but not overwhelm one post with too many.

Note: the Jedi camera doesn't want to turn on, I tried it with two fully charged battery packs. I'll take it into a shop - it may be as simple as the date/time battery needing to be replaced. My point is, all of my photos were either taken with my Lumix or my cell phone.

I arrived in San Diego on February 6. My first flight, from Calgary to Los Angeles, was great. I watched Gravity then chatted with the older couple seated next to me. They were going to sightsee for a day, then board a cruise ship that would take them through the Panama Canal to Florida.

LAX is huge. And overwhelming. With the kindness of helpful people, I found my terminal for my next flight. When I went in search of my gate, I got whisked into a shuttle bus and was driven across across the airport to a smaller terminal with one fast food restaurant and no WiFi. #firstworldproblems.

My next flight was in partnership with WestJet. It was an American Eagle flight and cramped. My seatmate and I agreed that we should pull the window shade down and try to nap. This was definitely an economy flight.

P was at the San Diego airport, with her kids, Victoria and Andrew. I've known P for so long online that it wasn't weird settling into her minivan and talking as we drove through San Diego. San Diego is beautiful, by the way.

The next morning, everyone was at work or school. I had breakfast with a beautiful view of her backyard, and canyons and hills. And a hummingbird hovering around these flowers.

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Days 37-42

Tired after a long day of travel and crashing on a guest bed.


Enjoying watching the sun set with a friend.


La Jolla.


Another day where I forgot to take a selfie until I was ready for bed. Also, SPF60 wasn't sufficient for my pale Canadian skin.


Visiting the Mission Trails Regional Park. This was taken before I hiked a hot 5K and possibly brushed up against poison oak.


After one cancelled flight and a shuttle ride to LAX, I'm homeward bound.

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Homeward Bound Boo Yeah!

This morning, I was at the San Diego airport and a little nervous about the status of my flight. I was scheduled to fly to LAX, have a four hour layover, then board a plane to Calgary. RECAP.

 My flight got cancelled due to fog. BOO!

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Ukrainian pavillion - Folklorama 2013

Sir Paul McCartney was the reason I decided to go to Winnipeg. But he was far from being the only entertainer. Every year, Winnipeg hosts Folklorama. Different pavillions are staged throughout the city for two weeks, highlighting some of the different cultures of the residents. Basically, there's food, entertainment and information. I happened to arrive right in the middle. My brother and sister-in-law go every year, and it was really fun and rewarding.

The first one we went to was the "Spirit of Ukraine". Since we're half-Ukrainian. The food and entertainment was awesome.

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Photos

The fallen tree by Angela Boyko

Also available on SmugMug


The innocent look by Angela Boyko

Also available on SmugMug

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Mandalay Bay Aquarium

Yeah, I know, I'm way past due on posting Las Vegas pictures. Sometimes there are just so many to go through!

Once we had set the date, my sister and I started thinking of what we wanted to do in Las Vegas. I decided to look up aquariums, and discovered there was one at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino. That went on my To Do list. Mary-Anne likes mermaids and aquariums too, so that's where we went on Tuesday morning.

I'd never ridden a monorail before, but we ended up taking two to get to the hotel. It was quite a hike through the hotel but we persevered and got there.

Well worth the trip.


The first levels of the aquarium had reptiles and some fish.


Komodo dragon.














Whoever thought of putting tunnels through aquariums is a genius.




Imagine this being part of your work day - diving through an aquarium.






There was a touch tank. These guys are rubbery.


Mary-Anne said this was a Star Wars creature. It does remind me of the Millenium Falcon.


Lionfish! It was hanging like this, I did not forget to rotate the photo.








In the latter part, there was a huge shark reek in a tank. I decided that when I win the lottery, I will build an impressive aquarium, and it will be built in such a way to make the fish very easy to photograph, without glare on the glass.






I had a lot of fun playing with my bounce flash and trying to get great pictures. There was another tunnel through the reef.




We saw other people trying to get photos with sharks in the backgorund. Mary-Anne suggested that she sit in the tunnel and I just experiment and see what I got. She never looked behind her, she just looked around.

She had no idea this was there.


My favourite.


I really, really loved this experience.


Of course we stopped in the gift shop. I had to have this glass seahorse. The clerks wrapped it in many layers of bubble wrap for the flight home, and it arrived perfectly intact.

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Vegas baby - Flamingo Hotel Wildlife Habitat

Outside the hotel was a wildlife habitat. Of course there were flamingos!















Mary-Anne's favourite colour is purple.

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