MacGuyver Gourmet on Vacay!

So I ‘cooked’ my wife breakfast in the bathroom sink on Monday. High on the 28th floor of this Bayfront hotel in San Diego, California, it was the only option I could think of at the time. See, we are staying at a very nice place, but without a microwave or even a mini-fridge, our food options are limited.

Sure we could buy every meal at one of the many restaurants around. Or I could have ordered her room service, like I did this morning. However with almost a week to stay here, that $30.00 plate of two eggs would have added up real quick!

Since I was out walking with little JoJo in her stroller, and we cruised to the grocery store, I bought some bagels and cheese and a package of pre-cooked frozen sausages. Back at the room, as my wife was waking up, I told her that breakfast would be ready soon. I had put the brown round pucks into a ziplock baggie and laid them in the bathroom sink. With the water on full-hot, the sausages thawed out and even warmed up. Sous-Vide MacGuyver style, Yum!

We dined on a sandwich that was quite the opposite of the setting. It was basic and cooked in the bathroom. But these are the things I will probably remember about our trip.

We are in a stunningly beautiful setting this week. San Diego has weather that is almost unbelievable. Every minute outside is perfect for tee shirt and shorts. The people are friendly, and everyone you work with says ‘Have a beautiful day!’ Ha, how could you not!

Last Saturday and Sunday, I blasted across the open West, cruising many times between 85-90mph. The roads where open and the speed limits high. I made it down here in two long days of driving from home in Princeton, Kay-Ess. I loved the scenery, the freedom and the mission, to come see my ladies, here in sunny San Diego.

Why is it that the hiccups and the snafu’s are the items that stand out to me in memory about these fun vacation experiences? Why is it that the hotel room is just as much adventure for our little Joella, as the Zoo, or the activity of Mission Beach? As people, we must be wired to forget the comfortable, the neutral, the ‘good’ moments in time. The wide grey band of dandy happenings on this trip are like a card catalog that I have to search through to remember already. The best moments seems to come from the worst circumstances, if you can call anything here ‘worst’?

I tend toward the times that we had to ‘make do’ or improvise and get creative with our plans and activities. I am curious about what it would be like to vacation with money as no object. We could get a car to take us wherever we wanted to go. We could eat out for every meal and shop till we drop at every store we saw. It would be nice to just valet an Italian sportscar, instead of picking our way through the tight parking in my dog-stinky 96 4Runner…

But really, I cannot make myself believe that without any challenges or mini-adversities that we would enjoy ourselves that much more. We did spend a day at the beach, an a couple more would be fine, but after that, what fun is there just lying around all the time? We would want to stir up some mischief somewhere, right?

As of this afternoon, I will begin my journey back to Kansas. I might leave in just a couple hours. Right now, I have no idea which direction I am taking exactly. East seems like a good bet.

Having everything perfectly planned out, isn’t my idea of fun, and so I’ll pick up the dog and maybe then decide to which highway we will start motoring back in our road-ready 250,000 mile SUV.

The return mission is just like the first. See some country, drive like the dickens, and get home safe to see my girls, any which way I can. That is the perfectly un-predictable plan, I can appreciate, even when leaving such a spectacular place like sunny Southern California.

Until next week, my friends… ‘Have a Beautiful Day!’

Sincerely,

Aaron Nichols


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