TRAVELS WITH COCO PART THREE - SPEECHLESS IN SANDIEGO

First a note, and that is next time you visitwww.fromthecockpit.com please notice the international flag icons at the top. We receiveso many international emails we thought it wastime to branch out into other languages. Just click on any flag and the website will convert itself into the language of that flag's country. At least, I hope it does. I'm not up on my Chinese and some of the other languages, so unless and until we get some feedback, we'll have to go on the assumption the translation is close.

Okay, now where were we at the close of my lastUpdate? I believe I was talking once again about food at the end of Part Two of the Travels With Coco series. Time to move on.
We had a couple of appointments to keep in San Diego. The first was with Mark Burgess, CEO of www.SanDiego.com . These are the folks that hostthat takeoff and landing video into and out of San Diego Airport that you see on the home pageof my site www.fromthecockpit.com . I wrote a piece for San Diego.com some time ago, and we're working with Mark on some future business deals which I'll explain to my readers when we start putting our plans into effect. There are two photos of Mark on page 5 of our San Diego RoadTrip album at www.fromthecockpit.com/Gallery, or just click here:http://www.fromthecockpit.com/Gallery/thumbnails.php?album=36&page=5

Tuesday, July 11th was my Dad's 89th birthday,and Al The Chef whipped up some of his famous BBQribs. You'll find the recipe he uses in our recipes section here:http://fromthecockpit.com/B_B_Q_Ribs.html Outof this world delicious.
My Dad likes single malt Scotch so Al and I gave him a bottle for his birthday. You can see my Dad's reaction here:http://www.fromthecockpit.com/Gallery/displayimage.php?album=36&pos=54

Tuesday afternoon, while Al The Chef was slaving away in the kitchen with Coco The Pomeranian looking on, I went to nearby Ocean Beach for a swim. The Pacific Ocean, no matter how warm it gets, is frigid when compared with the water in Hawaii, Florida or the Caribbean. But this is where I grew up and I plunged right in for some serious body-surfing. Well, not that serious, but definitely fun. At about 71 degrees the water felt icy at first, but after a few minutes it was very, pleasant.

The next day, Wednesday, we visited Jerry Warnke, a United pilot who retired in 1984, just before I was hired. If you've read "The World At My Feet"then you may recall Jerry was my flight instructor when I obtained my DC-10 type(captain's) rating along with my turbojet flight engineer rating. I did this before I was eventually hired by United in order to give my qualifications a good boost. Although I had some solid, multi-engine time under my belt by then, women were still not regarded as desirable by the airlines. I wrote about this in some detail in my book. (Be sure to visit the gift area of mysite for the best deal on both my books if youhaven't yet and wish to do so. There will soon be a charge for international shipping so if you're overseas and want the books, ordering sooner will be less expensive than ordering later. You'll see a link at the very bottom ofthis Update.)

I couldn't believe I hadn't seen my friend and mentor for 26 years (I attended United Airlines training in 1980) and didn't know what to expect. Jerry has had some close calls health-wise but his smiling face looked exactly the way I remembered it.

Al The Web Guy and I visited Jerry and his lovely wife Jean in their Pacific Beach home, were treated to lunch at a nearby Greek café, then visited Mt. Soledad, originally dedicated as a Korean War memorial, just a few minutes' drive from their house. We saw Jerry's picture on the memorial wall. His daughters and grandchildren had surprised him with a plaque and he posed by his photo and inscription. To see Jerry and Jean along with some other photos, including the ones taken at Mt. Soledad, click on the link below. This will take you directly to page 6 of our San Diego Road Tripalbum:http://www.fromthecockpit.com/Gallery/thumbnails.php?album=36&page=6

Here's a question for you, and it has to do with this week's title "Speechless in San Diego." When's a pilot not a pilot? When she's a little hoarse. Okay, I apologize for that. Old joke, somewhat modified but not improved.

My Dad had been coughing off and on since even before we arrived but seemed okay otherwise. My brother Lorin had just gotten over laryngitis and apparently his wife Maria had it, too. I wasn't there nearly long enough to actually catch it from anyone there, but Monday evening, the night before my Dad's birthday, I felt a sore throat coming on. I decided to ignore it, but got more and more hoarse as time when on. The day we visited the Warnke's it was pretty bad and by the time we left San Diego on Thursday, my voice was pretty much gone.

Driving from Denver to San Diego we took the southern route through Cortez, Colorado, New Mexico, Prescott, Arizona and Blythe, California, and took three days to do it.
We took a more northerly route on the drive home and overnighted just once, in St. George, Utah. Although I have relatives in Las Vegas, we had such a long drive to accomplish in just two days we drove right past it without stopping. You can see photos taken along our route home in the San Diego Road Trip album. It was a long drive, and a very quiet one, as it turns out.
So, it was a good trip, uneventful, and I took so long to tell you about it that I'm already on my way back to San Diego on Wednesday of this week to help celebrate my Mom's birthday. Al's cooking was such a hit that he's made some dishes that we've frozen and I'll carry out with me to serve. It's that good. This time I'll fly, however, and Al The Chef and Coco The Pomeranian will have to hold down the fort until I get back in a few days.

And with that,
Until Next Time,
Maintain Airspeed,

Cap'n Meryl

www.flyingfearless.com