My most favorite memory

I thought I would start my vacation recap with my most favorite memory of the whole trip: Saturday's fire on the beach.

I'm not sure I can really explain why this night means so much to me. Maybe it's because we can't exactly have this experience around here. Maybe it's because it was so peaceful listening to the little waves lap the beach. Maybe because the lights shining from the surrounding houses/buildings were just beautiful. Maybe it's because of the male/female ducks who waddled up to us. The male stood watch while the female ate the chicken we threw at them. Or maybe because it was just me and Ray. No one else. Just hanging out together. But no matter the reason, I loved, loved, loved this night.

Right outside our backdoor were these fire pits spread down the length of the beach. We spotted them the night before when we could smell that distinctive someone-has-a-fire-smell. Off-handedly I said, "Maybe we should do that tomorrow night." There was no response from Ray.

The next day, we were in the gift shop getting some directions and some maps, when we spotted a stack of firewood. Still, we didn't really think much of it. We drove to Coronado (more to come later), and parked right in front of a grocery store. We went inside to get something to drink, when we spotted more firewood, and that's when Ray said, "Hey, maybe on our way back, we can grab some pre-made food (like a whole chicken) and some beer and hang out on the beach tonight." Done. We were going to go downtown to a Mexican restaurant, but for some reason, this just sounded more enticing to me.

So, several hours later, we returned to the grocery store, bought a whole rotisserie chicken, some chips, beer, and firewood, and headed back to our room.

But it was still early, so we decided to take a dip in the hot tub. After an hour or so, it was getting dark, and we thought it might be good to stake our claim on a fire pit. There weren't too many burning the night before, so we weren't worried about getting one. Well, we thought wrong. Every single fire pit was taken. Ray was really bummed. He said, "It figures. We've been planning this all day..." I didn't realize how much he had been looking forward to this too. We saw one family with young kids whose fire was dying and we didn't see any extra wood laying around, so we kind of stalked them until they started cleaning up. That's when we pounced and snagged our pit. Poor Ray had to go back to our room and carry our food, beer, blanket, table, and other stuff back to our spot all by himself. But, man, was it worth it!! We sat there for a couple of hours just relaxing, eating, and chatting.

The ferry boat below had a prom going on...

Just a few somewhat edited pictures of our view (they would have been better with a tripod, but since I didn't check my luggage, I couldn't bring one).

So, that about sums up my most favorite memory of the trip...our last night there was peaceful, relaxing, and memorable.