Great West Adventure - Day 7 - Permission to Board

There was no plan in the works for today other than to drive back to Phoenix at some point. Small portion of the day, only 6.5 hours… Surprisingly, though, it seemed relaxed since we didn’t have an itinerary. So we started out the day like we did any other day on vacation, we ate at a local breakfast establishment. This time we found a local favorite, Panera Bread. Excellent bagels and sandwiches - oh who am I kidding, we just wanted something fast.

The only thing we wanted to make sure we did on this day, other than drive back to Phoenix, was to go to and see Coronado Island. On the way, though, we found the Midway Museum, a decommissioned naval aircraft carrier. Wow, am I glad we stopped! It was fascinating! Of course, Quin was a little less than impressed, but I really liked it… Ethan was even able to earn his Junior Aviator wings by listening to the free audio tour and answering a page full of questions about the topics.

After several hours on the Midway, we found our way across the Coronado Bridge to Coronado Island where we parked on a local road, walked through the commerce district, and found Miguel’s Cocina, which I found an interesting confluence of English and Spanish. Regardless, the food was quite good. Their special touch was given to the pre-meal chips and salsa where they provided an additional portion cup of cheese dip for your chips. Quin immediately commandeered the cheese dip until it was gone. He ran out half way through a chip and was quite disappointed to the point of crying and screaming until Jenny introduced him to the Salsa. That kid REALLY likes to dip things!

After lunch we found our way to the beach where we got our feet wet in what seemed like 55 degree water - seriously, it couldn’t have been much warmer than that! The beach was gorgeous and large and the kids really enjoyed it. We only wish we would have had a couple of hours to spend there so the kids could play more.

Unfortunately, we had to call it quits in California - I wanted to beat rush hour traffic out of town, and we didn’t want to get back to Phoenix too late in the evening, so we packed up around 3:30 and took the arduous trip back to grandpa and grandma’s house outside of Phoenix. We arrived around 10:00, not bad considering we stopped several times for bio breaks and food. Jenny quickly deposited a large load of clothes into the washing machine and we tried to wrestle the kids into bed so they wouldn’t be too ornery the next day. Jenny and I followed quickly behind them - vacation is tiring!!!