San Diego

Well, we've had an interesting week and an especially interesting last 24 hours. Leah and I flew out to San Diego last Sunday for CPC (Children's Pastors' Conference), and we have really had a great time. Since the conference didn't really get going until Monday afternoon, we were able to spend morning Monday on a short tour of the city. We went to Old Town San Diego which is where the town was originally founded. It's kind of like a period deal where the shopkeepers dress in 17^th century clothing, but it's also kind of like San Antonio Lite with all of the Mexican shops and eateries. After that we strolled along the bay in Seaport Village and ended up on the Midway.

The Midway is a 1940s era aircraft carrier that is now a museum. The ship was commissioned after World War II and named for the battle of Midway and it was decommissioned after the first Gulf War. It was very cool to tour the ship and see the way aircraft carriers work. You would not believe how large the are until you actually walk around on one. Across the bay from the Midway we also saw the Ronald Reagan which is a modern carrier that just happened to be docked in the bay. It was on the other side, so we couldn't even approach it, but it was still pretty cool.

Most of the rest of our week was spent at the conference. We learned a lot and met a ton of people, but we were really ready to come home this morning. As many of you probably already know, though, Dallas just happened to receive our annual winter storm this week and was especially hit hard today. Pretty much here's how things went for us:

Thankfully, I always set my reservations with American to notify me of any changes by texting my phone, so as we prepared to walk out the door for breakfast, I got a message that our 1:50pm flight had been cancelled. Immediately, I called American to get changed. First we changed to the 2:50pm flight, but before that was even done, it also got cancelled. Finally, the lady got us on the 11:20am flight, but we would have to hurry to get to the airport on time.

We hustled to the airport and just as we approached the gate (bags already checked and having already gone through the security checkpoint), the 11:20am flight was cancelled. Luckily we had happened to meet up with another children's pastor from Grapevine (another city in the metroplex), so we visited while standing in line to see what would happen. When we got to the desk we were informed that there was only one flight left for Dallas; the 2:55pm. We went and ahead and got booked on the 1:50pm for the next day and got on the standby list for the 2:55pm. By the time we got organized to go and get our luggage, though, the 2:55pm was also cancelled and the word was that DFW and Chicago were completely shut down.

I don't know how many other airports got shut down, but I know there were a ton of people on phones trying to find rooms. We jumped on the internet and found a Holiday Inn not too far away that had a shuttle and booked two rooms; one for us and one for our friends from Grapevine. After finding our luggage again and catching the shuttle, we had the whole rest of a day to kill, so we all walked around and visited for the rest of the afternoon and evening. We took the ferry across the bay to Coronado Island and saw the Coronado Hotel and the beach.

It was really pretty neat and we stayed over there until dinner. Now, we are back in our room trying to get some rest before tomorrow and hoping that the 1:50pm tomorrow leaves on time with us in seats.

Check out some pics from our trip on my dropshots page. It's too much of a pain now to put the thumbnails on here, so just use the link.