This was one of the few times where I deliberately double-booked for the same day. I did so because I wanted the CHOC Walk Disneyland t-shirt. All I had to do was make a donation of $125 since I contributed early. The required amount would later become $150. I needed to pick up my items in Costa Mesa, so I decided to drive into work even though I work from home on Fridays. At the usual time for me to take my lunch break, I drove down to my favorite spot in Costa Mesa for lunch. I had lunch once more at the Miyabi-Tei booth inside the Mitsuwa Marketplace food court.
Race update
Lucky order #88
Bento special
After I was done with my meal, I drove over to the Ancillary Studios per the instructions that were emailed to us. It was just north of South Coast Plaza so it was easy to find with plenty of parking. I then drove home and worked the rest of my day at home.
Check-in at Ancillary Studios
Participant packet
Shirt
Back of shirt
Magic Key hat
Saturday 8/19
Even though the news was overhyping hurricane Hilary, I still decided to head down to San Diego as if the race was going to proceed as scheduled. Besides, at this point, I couldn't cancel anything that I had booked for this trip. I got up early for my drive down to the Anaheim Regional Transportation Intermodal Center (ARTIC) to catch the Greyhound/Flix bus. Normally, I would take the Amtrak, but I just didn't want to deal with the uncertainties that had arisen from the recent landslides in the San Clemente area. The cost and travel time was about the same. According to the Visit Anaheim website, I was required to fill out a form in order to park my car overnight in parking lot B. In anticipation of heavy rainfall and high winds, I found an uncovered spot so that nature can wash my car while it was parked there. I then headed over to bus bay 10 to wait for the bus. The bus was a few minutes late and parked in bay 11 instead. My assigned seat was pretty dirty with crumbs and empty drink containers. As we got going down the freeway, a passenger went to the front to talk to the driver. Whatever he said had the driver exit the 5 freeway at Santa Ana Blvd to make an unscheduled stop to drop him off. The driver then had to navigate through some very narrow streets before getting back onto the freeway. Other than that, the only stop we had was at Old Town San Diego where the majority of the passengers exited. There were only a few fellow passengers that got off with me at the Seaport Village stop.
ARTIC
Bay 10 for Greyhound/Flix bus
It was slightly different than being dropped off at the Santa Fe Deport, but the walk over to the Sheraton San Diego Hotel & Marina on Harbor Island was roughly the same. Per the usual, it was a hot and humid walk. The walk was under 3 miles, but it felt more like 6 miles since I was carrying my bags. After reaching the hotel and using their restroom, I saw that the Spurs v. Man United match was on one of the TVs in the lounge. I decided to catch the first half before heading over to the race expo out in the back lot.
Spurs v. Man United
Once I went inside the expo, I bumped into 2 familiar faces, Ryan and Amador. After picking up my race bib and shirt, I found my friend Karen who was volunteering at the booth were they were selling stuff from prior years at a bargain price. We were all hoping for the race to take place, but we weren't exactly holding our breaths.
Race shirt
Back of race shirt
Tote bag
Magic chocolate bar
Magic chocolate bar
Columbia Sportswear Company Employee Store
My friends volunteering
After leaving the expo, I then headed over to the Middletown station to catch a MTS trolley ride up to the Westfield UTC in La Jolla. Since my Pronto app needed to be updated in order for it to work, I decided to just buy a paper ticket from one of the kiosks. Instead of getting off at the Nobel Drive station, I got off at the UTC station which was the end of the blue line. I was surprised at the size of this outdoor mall. It's been a few decades, but I can sort of remember the general layout, but it had grown quite a bit since I was last here! I made my way over to Ramen Nagi to check it out. I was hoping that I could skip the lines and get a seat at the counter since I was dining solo, but even solo diners needed to get into the queue. I joined the queue at about 12:30 pm. The wait was about 50 minutes. One of the servers told me that the line was actually shorter today due to the warmer weather. It wasn't too bad of a wait since I ended up having a nice conversation with a couple from Coronado and their son. This ramen shop is famous in Tokyo and was created by Ramen Master Chef Satoshi Ikuta. Glad to know that they have several locations here in the States with all 5 locations in California! While waiting in the queue, we were given an order sheet to customize our bowl of ramen. If it's your first time, don't fret, they'll be happy to explain the procedure to you. On that sheet, you can choose your ramen flavor, strength of tare (salt), richness in oil, garlic, pork, vegetable (green onions or cabbage), Nagi sauce (spicy), noodle width, noodle firmness, as well as any additional items such as ajitama, seaweed, or any other extras. I got the original king with kakuni, firm thin noodles, add ajitama and seaweed. I also ordered their karaage which wasn't currently on their menu. The delicious bowl of ramen was a hakata style ramen in tonkotsu broth. It definitely reminded me of the ramen that I had when I was in Tokyo. I didn't really care for the karaage. It was okay, but it was a bit too oily for my taste and I've had better elsewhere. Since I was dining solo, they had me sitting at one of the counter seats. Indoor dining was quite limited in space, but they do have outdoor seating. I will definitely be back here as often as possible whenever I come back to San Diego. I want to try their other flavors.
Middletown station
Joined the queue
Order sheet
Almost there!
Seat at the counter
Original king with kakuni, firm thin noodles, add ajitama and seaweed
Noodle pull
Karaage 唐揚げ
After I paid my bill, I headed back to the MTS station to catch a ride back down to Downtown San Diego to check into my timeshare rental property at the WorldMark San Diego Balboa Park. When I boarded the train on track 2, I noticed a funny WiFi name, UC Study to Death. :)
Per the usual, I exited the trolley at City College station. It's not a very nice station as it's quite filthy and overrun by the unhoused. I checked into my unit #305. A visit with the concierge had me committing to an owner update once again over at the Mission Valley property. Since I knew that the race would most likely be canceled, I went along with it. To compensate me for my time, they were going to credit my account back 2000 credits as well as give me a $50 Tango gift card. Even though I thought he had told me that the update was scheduled for 2 pm, I received a text that my Uber ride was scheduled for 12:45 pm. Maybe I heard him wrong. Oh well, probably better to be early than late.
UTC station
Nice WiFi name! :)
Check-in care package
I was pretty wiped out from my romp around town. After putting my bags down, I passed out for a couple of hours on the couch. Shortly after 6 pm, I placed my order for dinner on the McDonald's app and walked across the street to pick up my food. Since I had a larger than usual lunch, I decided to order less food for dinner. I ordered a McDouble which qualified me for a free order of medium fries, a reward from the Padres winning their game yesterday against the D-Backs. Not too long after finishing my dinner, I received an email notifying me that the race was canceled. Governor Newsom was in town and declared a state of emergency due to the impending arrival of Hurricane Hilary. Well, at least the race was canceled long before I even laid out my flat runner. For the rest of the evening, I pretty much vegged out and watched whatever was on the Disney Channel.
McDouble and free medium French fries
Race canceled :(
Disney's Hailey's On It!
I was going to use this race to gauge where I was at with my fitness before the upcoming REVEL Big Cottonwood in a couple of weeks. Also with all of the walking that I've done lately in hot weather, I wanted to see if this race would be a bit easier than recent years. Oh well, I've completed enough marathons to know what to do even if I show up really out of shape.
Sunday 8/20
For breakfast, I ate most of what was in the care package. Then for lunch, per the usual, I went across the street to get food at McDonald's. I used the BOGO deal on the mobile app to get 2 Quarter Pounders with cheese.
BOGO deal for QPC x2
At about 12:40 pm, I went downstairs to wait for my Uber ride over to the Mission Valley property for my owner update. I received a text with the driver's info. It was for a black Nissan Sentra. Well, one did arrive, but the plates didn't match the info that I was given. It turned out that the car was recently purchased so the info that I was provided were the temporary plates.
Well, my scheduled time was indeed for 2 pm, not 1 pm. They were more than glad to accommodate for my early arrival. I ended up purchasing 12,000 credits to get me to 65,000 credits which qualified me for platinum level. That means no more having to pay for housekeeping which is great since I prefer taking more frequent shorter trips versus fewer longer trips. Prior to reaching platinum, 1 trip costs 1 housekeeping token regardless of the length of the trip. Owners were given 1 housekeeping token per every 10,000 credits that we own. They also sweetened the deal a bit by giving me 150,000 Wyndham reward points. I had until the end of the year to do make this purchase and get grandfathered into this benefit, but I probably would not have gone through with it had I waited. It was a good chunk of money, but finally, I can start telling them that I'm done upgrading my ownership and to leave me the heck alone! For my Uber ride back to Balboa Park, it was in a Tesla. It was raining cats and dogs! It was a warm rain, so it reminded me a lot of Hawaii. One of the employees walked me out to the car with their larger umbrella which saved me from having to open up mine.
Later that evening, I went across the street to pick up dinner once again at McDonald's. I didn't really want to eat just McNuggets, but it was hard to pass up the mobile app deal for 20 pcs McNuggets for only $5! For my dipping sauces, I went with sweet & sour which were themed for the upcoming Loki season 2.
20 pcs McNuggets for $5
Monday 8/21
I went across the street to get breakfast at McDonald's one last time for this trip. There wasn't any good deals left on the mobile app, so I ordered a Sausage McMuffin with Egg breakfast meal. I upgraded it to a large coffee for 40 cents more. I caught some of the World Athletics Championships in Budapest as I got ready for my trip home.
Sausage McMuffin with Egg breakfast meal
World Athletics Championships Budapest 2023
After checking out of my unit at about 11:15 am, I started my walk up to Balboa Park to catch my Greyhound/Flix bus ride home. The original itinerary was for 11:40 am. However, in a couple of emails, it had a departure time of 12:10 pm. Even though I was stuck behind a couple of slow walkers that were also heading up to the park, I arrived at the bus stop in time even for the original time. For the drive up, we had 2 stops before reaching the ARTIC in Anaheim. We stopped at Old Town and UC San Diego Health La Jolla. When I arrived at the ARTIC, I found my car to be pretty dang clean!
Greyhound/Flix bus stop at Balboa Park
ARTIC parking lot B
