Daybreak in San Diego – the sun was sparkling on the harbour water and a speedboat whizzed along past the North Island Naval Air Station.

Post a hearty breakfast Operation Rental Car Pick Up got under way.

The hotel shuttle bus was taken back to the airport, where passengers were disgorged on the upper roadway deck level. “Just head down the escalator over there,” the very helpful bus driver advised, “and the bus to the Rental Car Center stops just at the bottom.”

Here’s a tip for fellow travellers – when going down an escalator with a suitcase, have the suitcase on the step behind you and not in front. The escalator conveyed the Captain to the bottom, where he, distracted by the sight of a waiting Airport Car Rental Center bus, failed to pick up the suitcase swiftly enough and promptly crashed down onto it… (in his opinion ‘via a perfectly executed judo forward break fall’).  Domino-like Boatwif followed, landing on top of the Captain, though managing to hoik her bag away from the pile… Rescuers materialised quickly to get the Captain on his feet and to clear the space at the bottom of the escalator. No bruises or broken bones were sustained – but a crucial lesson was learned!

Onto the bus then to the Rental car Center, the bus passing through secured gates onto the perimeter track that runs round the end of the airport runway. In swift time the booking was secured and the car located. Wow, a Minnesota licence plate.

It’s a scary business driving a rental car on the “wrong side of the road”, even if the route is vaguely familiar. San Diego rises steeply from the airport so there is the challenge early on of multiple sets of traffic lights, steep hill starts and a railway line to cross. Boatwif sat, saying nothing, fingers clenched too tight even to raise the camera…

The car had been driven a good ten miles up the Interstate 5 before Boatwif could make the first camera click: there near La Jolla was the shining white edifice of the California Temple - The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (known colloquially as a Mormon Church). You marvel at the gleaming whiteness of the structure when it is so close to the freeway…  

Call it bad habit or call it tradition - but a restorative coffee at The Pannikin was needed.

Its simple wooden building, once a railway station, is just beside the North Highway 101. It is absolutely not a classic American diner.

You can sit outside at road level or on the deck, or (preferred) sit inside, and listen for the little birds that sit on the rafters or come crumb searching at your feet.

Art pieces or textiles are always on display; there is often earnest one-to-one business discussion going on and usually one or two solo laptop workers. 

The cake on display is colourful and no doubt calorie-laden, while downstairs a huge machine grinds coffee beans fresh each day. 

Revitalised by good coffee, the onward journey continued up the coast. There’s always a pause at South Carlsbad State Beach.

The tide was high, but down below elementary school children seemed to be doing a PE class. Courts were marked out on the sand and a type of dodgeball was being played…

Onward again, and then early afternoon there was the first sighting of the rugged hills that surround San Marcos. 

A dairy on Mission Hills is a reminder of how this city of about 95,000 population (2020 census) grew from a 1950s population of about 2,500.

The first few days of a family visit are crammed with familiar sightings, the Sprinter light railway westbound towards Oceanside

and familiar outings – a lunch at Ruby’s diner  in Carlsbad, coffee and books at Barnes and Noble bookstore in Escondido and a visit downtown to USS Midway, the aircraft carrier on permanent display in San Diego.

The carrier has been a floating museum since 2004, after 47 years of US Navy service. An excellent 15 minute film (Voices of Midway) provided a reminder of why the Battle of Midway was a key event in the Pacific in Word War 2*.

While on the hanger deck Boatwif enquired of Cal Guy Snr: “How many times do you think you’ll have been here now?”

“Aaw, about nine or ten times, I suppose,” he replied. And as he spoke a memory flashed back of him as a toddler in a stroller on board the vast flight deck…

If studying up close and clambering into historic naval aircraft is your thing, this is a great place to be. 

High over the deck looms the ship’s bridge and aircraft control tower. Signal flags stream from the control tower – but there were other “adornments” on deck too

– Santa in a sleigh, reindeer pulling aircraft, snowflakes attached to lighting stands…

 These it seems are part of on board holiday events, such as Jingle Jets when 750,000 lights are used to illuminate the carrier… For Boatwif the views from the flight deck are spectacular:

– south to the graceful Coronado Bridge,

a carrier just back from active duty (the USS Theodore Roosevelt) anchored at North Island,

the stunning city skyline,

the 25 foot Sailor kissing a Nurse sculpture in a park right beside Midway.

”Better mind your head,” advised one of the volunteer Midway staff as the group began to explore the lower decks. Cal Guy Snr, very tall now, avoided a few head bangs, while Cal Guy Jnr squeezed onto a middle bunk in the sailors’ quarters.

What a hot, noisy, cramped environment it was. The carrier had fulfilled its role as a floating city, where sea water was purified, where crews of about 4,500 were fed, clothed and cared for,

where spare parts were manufactured,

where day and night aircraft had flown off the flight deck on training and combat missions.

Duty driver for the day was Cal Guy Snr – it was good to let someone else take the strain of afternoon city congestion and several stationary stretches of northbound freeway traffic…       

On reflection the 2024 California trip was shaping up pretty well!