Ever since our first experiment with AirBnB (where we snagged a New York City...
Contrary to the wisdom of school children everywhere, London Bridge didn’t fall down. It was disassembled in 1967, shipped to the U.S. and reassembled in Arizona.
If you asked us before we set out to predict the most memorable moments of our then-pending trip we’d likely have described the destinations we were particularly excited to visit. Three years later, we’d say the things we’ve done, rather than those we saw, are the ones that made the most lasting impressions.
That’s mostly because some of those things changed us in important ways. It would be clichéd to say that they expanded our horizons, so I won’t. What I will say is that when we pushed against our comfort zone we found that, time and again, it yielded. But it did more than just give way. It grew and created space for other things we had never previously considered. The more we pushed, the more became possible.
For all our travels there are still places I hesitate to go. Shopping malls, with their dreadful combination of crowds and consumerism, generally top that list. Westfield Horton Plaza in San Diego is an exception.
Covering six and one half blocks and seven stories of the city’s historic Gas Lamp District, Horton is remarkable for its complete lack of in-your face store fronts. We toured a large section of the complex and still can’t tell you what shops are there; our attention instead riveted to the twisting and elaborately colored architecture of the place.
The more we see animals in the wild the less we enjoy seeing them in cages. Even the wonderfully clean and professionally administered San Diego Zoo left us feeling a bit sad when we originally visited it seven years ago. Now that we’re back in the area, we have no plans to return.
Nor do we intend to visit SeaWorld even though it sits just six short miles from our San Diego campground. Ubiquitous advertisements beckoning us with images of trained dolphins and whales literally jumping through hoops for humans only reinforce our disinterest in a theme park constructed around captured creatures. Fortunately, we found an alternative.