As I often say to e, "Guess where I'm not!" We got the plane ready and were prepared to go to UT when the weather shop reported forecast severe icing at the base. We're not allowed to go somewhere for severe, so we started looking for a new place to go. The AC, who did this trip primarily to visit relatives in UT, wasn't taking no for an answer. He called the forecaster at the base directly to see if they had anything different to say about the weather. The forecaster there said that there was no longer a danger of severe icing and that they were retracting the earlier forecast.
Based on this info we got everything ready to go to UT, but right before we walked out the door the AC decided to go back to the local weather shop to have them remove severe icing from out forecast. During this time a new forecaster came on duty in UT and re-stated the severe ice warning. In disgust, the AC told us to plan something else.
Since we'd been shut out of San Diego days earlier, we decided to try there. The Nav got us into the Courtyard in the Gaslamp district. It's not the Marriott Marina I'd hoped he was booking, but it's pretty nice. The building is an old bank built in 1928 that still has the original vault doors below. The rooms are small but comfortable enough, and the internet access is free. Don't waste any money on the bar, though. When we asked the bartender about the posted happy hour specials, he seemed clueless and then offered that the domestic swill (Miller Lite, Bud bottles) was offered for the low, low price of $4.50.
I tried to talk the crew into the Strip Club, not a skin joint but a place where you cook your own steak. They sounded interested on the flight in but then balked at the nearly 6-block walk from the hotel. They preferred to find a sports bar right down the street where we could watch Monday Night Football. We walked over to the Yard House, where they told us there would be a 45 minute wait but then paged us 5 minutes later when we were about to leave.
The Yard House has a fairly impressive selection of beers, by which I mean they have more taps than any bar in the world. The website says between 130 and 250 taps (they can't count?). I'd guess we were somewhere in the 200 range. Oddly enough the 200-ish great-tasting draught beers from around the world were about $2 less than the low-end domestic bottles back at the Marriott. The food was on the expensive side but pretty good. I got the waiter-recommended ginger-crusted salmon on top of wasabi mashed potatoes. It was hard to see at first because the whole thing was covered in fried carrot strings, but it tasted great.
By the time we finished dinner the Pack were already down 24-3, and everyone was tired from being on the road so long and the fact that it was already 11 Eastern time. We walked back to the hotel and now have about 12 hours until showtime in the morning. I thought I'd stay up a while, but it's 9:30 here (12:30 for my body) and I'm ready for bed.
