The day after my birthday was thick with more of the same beaching activities before one of my Academy classmates joined us for dinner. Because it is Fall and we had pumpkin to use, I made one of my favorite autumn dinners, Creamy Pumpkin Prosciutto Rigatoni. It was lovely to catch up with my friend on decades of life and we vowed to reconnect again soon.

The following mid-morning, Papa and Grammy joined us after having spent much of the wee hours driving. One of the main sights right in downtown San Diego is the USS MIDWAY and we thought that would be a great thing to take in. This was an easy sell for Papa who had repaid his NROTC Scholarship to Penn State as a Navy Surface Warfare Officer (SWO) and easy-going Grammy agreed.

On our way to the carrier, I saw this:

Only in San Diego…

We met at the imposing MIDWAY and, after a round of hugs, trundled off to see the museum. This incredible ship was commissioned just eight days after WWII’s conclusion and remained the largest warship afloat until 1955. We were going to walk around, touch, and experience Naval History – how cool is that?!

Try as I might, I couldn’t get the kids to get as excited about seeing the carrier as I was. Maybe it was the extreme heat that threatened to melt our shoes to the flight deck and the docked vessel we were aboard relied on movement for ventilation.  Or possibly it was the omnipresent smell of naval aviation (somehow all aircraft of a certain vintage reach the same malodorous bouquet…).  Or perhaps it was the scent I closely and unfavorably associate with my only eleven days of being haze grey and underway while on a midshipman cruise (and revisiting that particular aroma aboard a pier-side museum is close enough for me, thank you).  Or, really, any combination thereof might have served to put a damper on their enthusiasm, as noted once we moved passed the flight simulators on the hangar deck when they seemed less than gung ho about the day’s enterprise.

Papa, however, was thrilled, as was I.  Steps into the museum, he found pictures of his former ship, the USS BRINKLEY BASS (DD-887) that was part of a display parked next to one of the aircraft that was used to evacuate thousands of Vietnamese children following the fall of Saigon in Operation Babylift.

While Papa read more about what his ship had been up to since his departure, Flight and Grammy observed the kids popping in and out of stationary cockpit simulators.

I was sucked into learning more about Operation Babylift as a dear friend from my recruiting days was one of those rescued.   After Papa’s cruise down memory lane, I saw that his step got a little jauntier as we continued to bathe in the smell of the Surface Navy.

From the hangar deck we climbed to the Flight deck and looked at many retired aircraft.

In case you don’t speak Keeper, that look reads, “I’m so stoked to be here, Mom.”

Ditto for the girls.

Papa asked me what the things on the edges of the tail fins were on this fine Navy missile:

I told him he should ask someone who taught the Fundamentals of Navy Weapons Systems at the Naval Academy, because I didn’t know. Now, if you asked me what a Mk-46 torpedo looks like, I’d… I’d tell you… I’d probably still have to Google it, so distant is my time from the mighty P-3C that said prime mental real estate has long since been reallocated, probably twice.

While on the flight deck, I did learn something beyond “Call the Ball,” which I remembered only from watching Top Gun countless times in high school. When a “Shooter” (see below) goes to launch a jet at night, the signal to launch is two arcing taps to the deck with a flashlight.

“Why two, you ask?” I didn’t, but the docent briefing us did and immediately followed up with, “Well, what if the Shooter dropped his or her flashlight? With two taps there’s no ambiguity on a launch.” Yikes, I could see how only one tap as a signal could easily make flight ops go horribly wrong, especially considering my own tendency to suffer from the dropsies.  I pondered those implications as I meandered aft.  Clearly visible from the receiving end of the flight deck was a fine example of 90,000 tons of diplomacy still in operation.

Pretty cool to see her parked across the harbor from the fantail of her more diminutive foremother as she readied to get underway…

At last we made it to the tower where Firebolt easily assumed the Air Boss chair (no surprise there).

And, equally unsurprising, WoodSprite took no time sliding into the MiniBoss seat. And then they swapped seats…

On the bridge, the girls took turns at the helm and we made our way back down to the hangar deck by way of a couple of ready rooms (where aviators enjoy downtime between missions).

As our kids let us know they were done (see above), my knees simultaneously proclaimed, “Great googlie mooglie are there a lot of ladders (stairs) aboard this boat!”

Preparing to go ashore at last, we found ourselves back on the Aloha Deck.

Kidding, that’s from The Love Boat.  It was really the Poop Deck.

HA! Holy cow, the Poop Deck’s not a real name either.

Actually, it is.

Unless it’s not.

Indeed the Poop Deck truly is a Naval Architecture term – it’s French, look it up – one that my inner seven-year old enjoyed sharing with our kids, especially when I was gleefully rewarded with many giggles.  But, as that’s nowhere near where could debark, most fortunately that was not where we found ourselves.  I marveled not for the first time of the day, “Man, is this boat enormous!”  Had I not had arrows pointing me towards the exit and kind docents gesturing the way out, I’d probably still be walking around the MIDWAY.

After a most enjoyable visit to the aircraft carrier, we headed back to the cottage for more beach time.

Aside from others’ entertainment witnessing my standard sinus cavity rinses as I got thrashed about in the surf, the most delightful sight was, despite his lack of sleep, Papa’s excitement at seeing yet another Navy warship pull around Point Loma to favor us with front row seats for their conning operations – or whatever it is they do on those pointy, grey things.

Since the P-3C is far too large to fly off a carrier (thank goodness), Flight and I take great delight in trading gentle barbs with Papa who insists we were never in the real Navy.   As I headed back to the ocean for more thrashing boogieboarding, I vowed that, despite having thoroughly enjoyed visiting the carrier today, I’d use my time in the ocean to rinse the pervasive ship smell out of my hair.  Don’t tell him I said so, but I think that Papa’s probably right…

There will be absolutely nothing negative in this post.  Coronado, for lack of a better verb, rocked.

I realized at some point that I have swum in the Pacific Ocean almost every day for a month.  I have a suntan, and not from “laying out.”  I feel great.  More than great.

Our stay in Coronado was something I had looked forward to for a long time – the Coronado Beach Cottages are situated on Naval Air Station North Island’s beachfront, right next to the Navy Lodge, which, if you disregard the fence and security measures which separate the base from the rest of Coronado, is itself technically next to the iconic Hotel Del Coronado (the “Hotel Del”), where people spend thousands of dollars a night to loll about in a beachy haze.  It is a gorgeous stretch of sand and water, and reservations for the Beach Cottages fill up almost immediately, and for good reason.  It far exceeded my already high expectations.

Quick aerial view for those not familiar with San Diego.  Coronado, though island-like and in the middle of San Diego Bay, is not technically an island as it’s connected by a very thin strip of land from a point near the border with Mexico.  Once upon a time late 1800s it was more or less just a ritzy resort area centered on the Hotel Del, and later (WWI time frame) Naval Air Station North Island, then known as Naval Air Station San Diego.  But after the bridge was built, the development followed quickly, resulting in a charming beach community that manages to maintain its own character amidst San Diego’s sprawl.

My instinct to book a cottage at the end of October turned out to have been correct, though fortuitously so.  We managed to hit a heat wave that brought over 100-degree temperatures to San Diego’s beaches.  That may sound like a common thing for Southern California, and indeed it is if you happen to be inland, but on the actual beach with water temps in the high-60s at most, air temperatures over 100 are not only quite rare, but also entirely palatable due to the cool water at your doorstep and the cool evenings enabled by the near-zero humidity.  Even more palatable when you’re staying in an air-conditioned cottage right on the sand.

It’s difficult to describe the feeling of SPACE we felt when we first walked in.  It was about 1000 ft² maximum, but Tacco and I had our own bedroom with a door we could close, there was a full sized bathroom and shower, a dishwasher (are you kidding me?) and a washer/dryer that we could use anytime we wanted, without feeding it quarters.  We had a living room and full kitchen.  Our back porch with the outside shower sported an unobstructed view of the sand and the ocean, as well as Point Loma on our West side and the Hotel Del, the last of California’s coastline, and the coastal mountains of Mexico in the distance on our South and East side.

We wasted no time commencing beach ops.  Having spent the last few weeks on Southern California beaches, we knew exactly what to do.  The beach itself turned out to be very similar to Carpinteria in its shallow sandiness (i.e. kid friendliness).  And the surf was, for our purposes, pretty much perfect.  Steep, easy to catch waves that broke far enough out to make them rideable, and just big enough to be sporty but not big enough to be especially dangerous.  I discovered, to my great pleasure, that Keeper’s San Elijo frustration had been quickly forgotten, and we spent hours catching waves together, with Woodsprite frolicking happily in the shallower water.

Operating without a wallet and identification on a military base required some extra planning, but we managed it without too much difficulty, and I was able to replace my military ID almost immediately.

My parents flew down and joined us on day 2, which was another coup.  They flew into Long Beach so that they could take advantage of space available flying on JetBlue, rented a car, and then met us at the USS Midway museum in downtown San Diego, where we spent a few hours exploring and introducing the kids to life on an aircraft carrier.

I say “introducing the kids” but actually… shamefully, or proudly, I haven’t decided which yet, I realized that despite 23 years serving as a naval aviator, my first step onto the Midway was my first step onto an aircraft carrier.  Part of my decision to fly P-3s rather than carrier-based aircraft was what I perceived at the time to be a quality of life choice – I wanted no part of “The Boat” as we later put it.  “The Boat” was our blanket term in the P-3 community for basically anything grey and floating.

Though my Naval career far exceeded what I could’ve imagined on just about every axis when I first joined, I have fired up the what-if machine at times and tried to picture what my life would’ve looked like had I flown the pointy-nosed jets off of the carriers.  Touring the Midway made me wish there was a way to have checked that box without giving up everything else I was able to do.  Which there wasn’t of course, but the tour made for a fun and somewhat nostalgic afternoon.

The rest of our stay in Coronado was basically like a “greatest hits” of the beach days over the last month.  Keeper and I did a swim and body surf session that spanned the sunset.  We had likely our best family dining out experience yet at Stone Brewery’s Liberty Station restaurant (Liberty Station is the old Marine Corps Recruit Depot, which has been re-purposed from a Boot Camp site to a ridiculously charming food-shop-residential area).  We celebrated Tacco’s birthday.  And we relaxed.  Lots of relaxing.

One consequence of our morphing plans brought on by our house’s failure to sell was the prospect of another month in the West.  Originally San Diego was to be the point at which we turned the corner and headed back to the East, with the plan being to reach the Florida Keys, then park Davista for the remainder of the Winter at a military base somewhere in Florida.  Our leisurely stay in Coronado gave us plenty of time to game out several other options.  We landed on a plan that would allow us to spend Thanksgiving in Grass Valley (Sierra Nevada foothills) with my brother-in-law’s parents and the extended family on my side.  Basically our intention now is to head back to Southern California and take advantage of a heavily discounted 3-day pass for military folks at Disneyland, as well as to spend a bit more time visiting with friends there.  I’ll also fly another work trip out of Long Beach, which is a relatively easy commute. We’ll then venture out into the desert and see Joshua Tree, Las Vegas, possibly Zion National Park (weather permitting), and maybe Death Valley prior to coming back across the mountains in California.  Though I would very much like to drive up Route 395 along the dramatic east side of the Sierras, many of the higher passes are already closed, and even the lower ones, of which we would have to cross several, are at 8000’ plus and getting early season snow.  As comfortable as I’m getting with Davista, snowy roads aren’t something I’m ready to subject myself or my family to.

I think I mentioned at some point feeling a mixed sense of relief about flying back to our house in Maryland for the Winter.  I no longer have that – I would very much like to keep doing what we’re doing and not break it up.  We’ve been looking for ways to manage staying on the road, but it has become obvious that we really don’t have a viable choice, and will need to leave Davista on the West Coast and at least base out of our Annapolis house for a few months.  Seal Beach Naval Weapons Station looks like an excellent Winter home for Davista though.  It’s right near Long Beach airport, so I could potentially bid a layover or two and check on her.

The kids are still looking forward to heading back to Maryland, but they seem to be getting more comfortable with our lifestyle as well.  Firebolt in particular seems to be getting over her “this just doesn’t feel right” sentiment – I have an inkling that she’ll be the first of the three to want to return to the traveling life after a couple months.

The bottom line is that we’re in a good space, no, a great space.  Even with all the uncertainty.  Basically Coronado was a fitting book end to the beach phase of our journey.  Any frustrations I was still tangling with melted away.  If we could stay, I would, but of course that’s not what this is all about!