Retreat to Coronado Island, Ca for the weekend...

A few weeks ago, March 3rd to be exact, happened to mark the end of my 3rd year of marriage to the lovely angel, I have the pleasant pleasure to call my wife. Unfortunately, for her I am a one-upper when it comes to gifts. It's good when she receives them, but I feel as though sometimes she feels badly as my gifts tend to be a bit more extravagant. I absolutely love to give her the best gifts I can afford and sometimes even manage to acquire those that I can't. So, on this particular occasion of our anniversary, Kindal, in an Ambien induced moment of misjudgment, decided she was going to deliver my gift on the eve prior to the actual day of our marriage, three years to the prior. I unwrapped my gift and to my delight I was the recipient of an electric razor. I honestly, was pleased to have received the gift as I would never spend that much money on such a thing. This wasn't just an ordinary electric razor, this was a $250 smooth face delivering machine. I already had in my possession a razor, but this was by far superior to the $50 razor that took forever to render me a somewhat presentable face.

Kindal had been begging me to get out of town for a bit. She didn't care where, just out. A hotel in Prescott or Sedona for the weekend would have certainly sufficed, however, we had been to Coronado Ca before when my manager at the time let me use his beach home for a week. Now, I certainly couldn't replicate the beach home, but I managed to book us 3 nights at the Glorietta Bay Inn.

I love to see her face light up and when she opened the box of running shoes I gave her it did no such thing. Although, when she opened the card, which by the way, I never give her, and the printout of the tickets and resort fell to the floor, her little face lit up as if she had swallowed a flashlight and it somehow got turned on.

My work was done! I live to make her happy, and I clearly did. She was counting down the minutes and when the time finally came she was more than ready to head to the airport at 7:00a.m. on Thursday.

I started out this trip as I do every trip with two magazines and a cup of coffee. I generally, attempt to purchase a financial magazine as well as some sort of a leisure magazine. Men's Journal is by far the best, and luckily I hadn't read this month's. A candy bar for good measure and before I know it we're in the air. I am usually not too keen on flying, but it was pretty early still and I hadn't quite received my eight hours of sleep so I was quite tired still; too tired to be overly worried of aeronautics and the state of the plane.

The plane landed rather uneventfully and we rushed off to baggage claim. Kindal ran to the info desk to ask whether there was a "Coronado Shuttle" as I waited for my bag (she checked hers). I waited and a handle barred mustache-ier struck up a conversation with me.

"What, are you following us here? You were waiting at the bus stop at the long term parking with us huh?", said the fellow whom we also saw on our plane.

"Yup.", I replied. "Just wait 'til yo get home and were on your front porch."

After a moment of awkwardness as he pondered whether I was joking or not he began, "Oh, we don't live here. Were vacationing. Were staying on the...". At that point everything he began started to bore me significantly and isn't worth the time to write. He began telling me about where he was staying, what he was doing, where he lives back home and any other detail he could include in hopes to impress me with his wealth or whatever he was attempting.

Kindal rejoined us, entered the small talk for a moment and we were off to hail a cab. The info desk said "negative" on the shuttle, but a cab was only $10.

Well, if nothing else, we proved the info desk attendant a liar as the cab with tip was $35. Rather annoying, but what to do?

We pulled up to our former mansion turned Glorietta Bay Inn and it was quite the site. Kindal was very happy as we were checking in I was quite pleased with my choice. The front desk worker gave us directions to our room "go down the hallway, to the right of the stairs then take a left and go outside. After you get outside you will see your room number on the left. Your on the second floor."

We obliged the woman and followed her directions. Upon exiting the main mansion I realized we were in an addition to the hotel built well after the original mansion that resembled any two storied motel in the country. Disappointed was I and began to huff a bit as we approached the room. Kindal reassured me everything was fine...and it was. We opened the room and although small, it was very nice. The room consisted of a king size bed in the middle with a club chair on the left side and a small table on the other side. Opposite the bed was a dresser with a 32" flat panel TV with a DVD player attached. To the left was a work station with a high speed ethernet cable as well as a lamp. Again, small but quaint. It even had a lovely balcony that overlooked the parking lot and some other buildings. Okay, so I'm being a bit ridiculous with that last comment, but it was nice to sit out there for a bit or leave the sliding door open and allow the cool, slightly brisk breeze enter our room and offer us the refreshing, comforting air on our skin.

After a short moment on our comfortable bed we decided we were going to walk the main street and reacquaint ourselves with our beloved island. We took a left out of our room and crossed the street which brought us to "Bino", which had a plethora of crepes on the menu, some hearty and some not so much. We were certain we'd enjoy that eatery prior to our departure.

Walking up and down the quaint "strip" for the lack of a better term, though it is more of a Boardwalk that's not on the ocean we saw many a coffee shop, book store, restaurant, and other quaint shops where one could grab a souvenir for a friend or a paddle board to take in to the frigid waters a few hundred yards away.

After sometime wondering aimlessly we decided it was time to grab something to eat and decided on Miguels Mexican fare. Kindal and I walked through a small courtyard of shops and abruptly came to an outside patio of Miguels which bordered a pool and some sort of lodging quarters of a nearby hotel. Apparently, the cheese sauce served with the chips and salsa is the talk of the town, although, I must admit, was a bit of a let down along with the meal as a whole. The menu looked good and when the food came out I was quite delighted to feast on what lay before me. I ordered the chicken enchiladas, which is what I order at every Mexican restaurant I ever go to, and it was quite bland. It wasn't bad, just not exceptional. I finished both enchiladas and wasn't too stuffed for once and we paid our bill and made our way back to the hotel.

At the hotel we were lounging around for the evening and went to the front desk to rent a DVD, which we were assuming would run $10-$15 as we were in a hotel. Surprisingly, they cost was only $5 and they had a very extensive selection. We didn't see anything we were too interested in so we just hung out in our room and eventually fell asleep with the breeze on us.

When I heard the yelling of an annoying child outside the door as I awoke, needless to say, I was less than pleased. There was this little snot of a kid that managed to bring our vacation from an A+ to an A- all by himself. Everywhere we went at the hotel he was there yelling, screaming and sending thoughts of drowning a small child through my head.

"Mama! Papa! Come in the pool! Come in the pool! I need someone in here!", he would yell while at the pool.

Stomp, stomp, stomp, would his feet make while going up and down the stairs. If I would get away with it I would have lined his family up and slapped the child across his face telling his parents that the child needs one of those at least once a day until he is of legal age.

The next few days consisted of great relaxation as there's just something about the cool ocean breeze that invigorates the soul. We frequented the coffee in the hotel throughout the day as it was some of the best I have ever had at a public establishment. We also rented bikes from a shop across the street which was very affordable: $20 for the whole day. Kayaking was enjoyed on our trip, and although Kindal wasn't too keen on the hard work involved with it I had fun during the wet excursion. Her poor thumbs were quite blistered after the affair.

We ate at Bino, where we had delicious crepes. Kindal had nutella and banana and I had berries with whipped cream. A tasty combination of blueberries, strawberries and red and black berries with a vanilla sauce drizzled atop. The diner was on our list of places to eat at and I went out of my usual ordering and went for a Hawaiian chicken sandwich, that consisted of chicken, teriyaki sauce, swiss cheese, pineapple and pickles. Kindal only ate some mozzarella sticks. We also ate Ice Cream Sundae's that were as good as ever at MooTime Ice Cream. The food was quite good at most places we ventured in to which is a great plus Coronado has over Hawaii. Unless you like spam and Poi, there's not too much in Hawaii for the culinary enthusiast.

The only poor decision we made was spending $25 on candy at Dolce, the candy store that was very high priced and with a bit of a limited selection of candies that Kindal and I would consume.

All in all it was a great weekend. Kindal and I got to spend time together that is all too rare with me going out of town a lot and being so engaged in the gym. Sadly, we hailed a cab, and after I grabbed one last cup of coffee, we were off to the airport to begin our short journey home.

No sooner than we get in line for security at the airport, Kindal nudges me and says, "You're not going to believe who's behind us." To my dismay, I looked back and saw "handle bar stash Joe" behind me. "Are you guys still following us?", he squawked and didn't stop until we got off of our bus dropping us at our car in the parking lot. He told us everything he could possibly have to try and impress us with his trip and his life and general.

Well, back to reality.