Wednesday December 31, 2003 - Landed in Toronto

The Orange alert was still in effect. Thus we had to unlock all our luggage before checking them in. Everything went smoothly. I tried to use the flexibility of my ticket to get upgraded but all flights were full, according to the clerk.

Saw Scott at the airport one last time and had breakfast with him before he got on his plane to Denver and I got on mine to Chicago. I was sitting next to a French-Canadian couple from Montreal and they were here because they have a daughter in San Diego. We all waved goodbye to San Diego together. The sky was clear so I could get one last glimpse of the skyline, of Mission Bay, Coronado, the 5, the 805, the 163, oh so many highways...

There will be a lot of things to miss for sure: Jamba Juice, In & Out Burger, Brookstone, UTC, the Edwards 18, La Jolla Shores, the difference the Sun makes, the Qualcomm weight room, police take-downs, Manila Mesa, lil Noah, big Mike, FNF, Fr. Dillard, the CCD children, 1997 Hyundai Accent, Taquitos, Mini-mahi combo,....the list goes on and I'll probably add to it as I think of more...

The flight itself went very quickly. The inflight movie was Pirates of the Caribbean followed by 10 minutes of Frasier. Before we knew it we landed in Chicago for a quick stopover.

The flight to Toronto was in a much smaller plane but I noticed that there was an empty seat in First Class. Didn't the clerk at SAN say everything was booked? Oh well, maybe I can't get upgraded THAT far up. The flight took less than an hour. I got to watch the sunset from above the clouds and then saw the approaching lights of Toronto. It looked like a bright array of coloured dots in a sea of darkness. I couldn't distinguish between the lake and the land it was all so dark but you could tell that it was Toronto.

It'll probably take a few days for it to all sink in. I'm done with Qualcomm. I won't get to play with the kids anymore. Driving will be different.

There will still be photographs to update in my gallery but this concludes my journal entries for my California Adventures trip.