Friday's FIVE!

My California Cousins, Mark and Bob

Bruce and his brother Matt, first time together in 15 years!

Temecula ~ Wine Country

Kayaking in the Pacific

Humpback Whale ~ Splash after breaching 4 times!

Bruce and I have just experienced a wonderful trip to San Diego, California... We did so many wonderful things - and this Friday's FIVE! is a tribute to five of the highlights of our trip!

We enjoy so many of the same things...and have such a wonderful time together. The objective of this trip was to see whales while kayaking in the pacific as it is whale migration season...

The highlights of our trip include:

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1. A visit with my California Cousins... I stayed in Ocean Beach in 1973 with my cousin, Mark...and this time, Bruce and I rented a cottage in Ocean Beach...it was a wonderful little cottage less than a block from the ocean. It was so good to see my cousins again.... We were able to have dinner with them two times during our visit. I'm so fortunate to have a relationship with my cousins that live 2000 miles away.

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2. A visit with Bruce's brother, Matt, his wife Maria and his girls, Lauren and Angela. It was wonderful to meet Matt and his family...and it was wonderful to see Bruce visiting with his brother. It was the first time they had seen each other in 15 years!! We were able to have dinner together at Downtown Disney ~ it was a great visit.

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3. The vineyards in Temecula were a pleasant suprize and not something we had orginally planned to do - however, the weather on that day was too cool for kayaking....so we make the drive to the beautiful country and had such a great time tasting wine!! Our favorite winery was a friendly place family oriented place, Wilson Creek http://www.wilsoncreekwinery.com/

Winery. We enjoyed all the wines ~ and are looking forward to the deliveries of our wine purchases....including Wilson Wineries famous Almond Champagne!

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4. Our objective for the trip was to paddle during whale watching season... We paddled for about 4 hours with a guide all around LaJolla. We saw many, many sea lions, harbor seals and leopard sharks. The kelp forests were amazing... it was a an eventful paddle and we had a great time! All of the sights significantly reduced the disappointed fo the no-show of the whales.

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5. Because the whales were a no-show during the LaJolla paddle - we decided to take a harbor cruise ... a 'whale-watching' cruise. It was such an exciting event! We were several miles off shore when we saw a huge humpback whale breach ... FOUR times!!! After witnessing the humpback - we were treating to glimpes of 4 gray whales.... it was a wonderful.... truly awesome experience. I was thrilled to be able to check off a box on my 'bucket-list' by seeing the whales in the pacific!

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Honorable Mention

We also went to Disneyland, We toured the Midway, a retired Aircraft Carrier, We went to the San Diego zoo and saw the Panda Bears and we visited San Diego Wild Animal park. The evenings were spent at sunset cliffs watching the sun go down over Ocean Beach...and eating fish tacos and enjoying each other at many of the shops in Ocean Beach before settling in for the night in our bungalow... it was a great trip!