12/27/80 Homeward bound

12/27/80 Saturday - We visited with Aunt Ruth again before heading the car back towards Illinois. On the trip home, we will spend the nights in a hotel instead of on the road!

12/26/80 Family time

12/26/80 Friday - Did our packing for the trip home, then went with the family out to a steak house for dinner and to see a movie. We will miss everyone here.

12/25/80 Merry Christmas from Uncle Randy!

12/25/80 Thursday - Enjoyed Christmas with the family!

And yes, Michael got his much-anticipated Nintendo! 

It came with the condition that he share it with his sister, but since she didn't care about Nintendo, that was not much of a hardship.

12/24/80 Point Loma

12/24/80 Wednesday Butch drove us out to La Jolla, which is out of our price range but pretty to see. We couldn't get too close.

Then he drove by Point Loma, which is even prettier.

Later we got all dressed up to attend Christmas Mass with Butch's family.

For dinner Butch got us all onto his ship, where they were serving a great Christmas dinner meal.

12/23/80 Tijuana again

12/23/80 Tuesday - Went to Tijuana for more shopping.  When you drive all the way from Illinois to California, you like to soak up the unusual.

Michael's fulsome description of Uncle Randy broke all records of flattery.  Even Michael was having trouble coming up with more complements, but he kept trying!

12/22/80 Sea World and Rubik's Cube

12/22/80 Monday - Sea World.  In those days they had advertised their Shamu show by having some poor schmuck walk around in a Shamu costume.  

The real thing was much better!

Of course, he expects to get paid for his show, and he does - by the handful.

There was an opportunity to touch one of these beautiful animals: that's not something I'm ever going to pass up!

Michael expanded his description of Uncle Randy to "rich, kind, generous and intelligent".  Bless his heart, he was working a Rubik's Cube and asked his intelligent Uncle Randy what the solution was. Randy thought quickly and said it would be better if Michael figured it out on his own.  Hmm, maybe Randy is pretty intelligent!

12/21/80 Las Vegas again

12/21/80 Sunday - Our second day in Las Vegas; still don't recall anything, but we must have had fun! On one of these trips we attended a taping of the game show "Gambit", hosted by Wink Martindale. Randy won a door prize, consisting of several good-quality shirts and socks, and I got Wink's autograph. I would have rather won a zillion dollars on the slots, but it's hard to do that by playing penny slots.

12/20/80 Las Vegas

12/20/80 Saturday - Our first trip to Las Vegas!  And I don't recall a single thing about it. 

12/19/80 Star of India

12/19/80 Friday - Just shopping in general.  Hard to believe, but there were some things we didn't find in Tijuana.  And we saw the Star of India, which was a very cool ship.

Michael started offering to do things for his "rich, kind and generous" Uncle Randy, in hopes for that Nitendo.

12/18/80 Tijuana again

12/18/80 Thursday - We went to Tijuana again, because you can never have too many onyx bookends.

Michael's description of his Uncle Randy was expanded to "rich, kind and generous".

12/17/80 Disneyland!

12/17/80 Wednesday - My first trip to Disneyland!  I don't recall what rides were running then, except for "Space Mountain", which I loved, and of course, "It's A Small World", which is always running.

Back at home Michael was still sweet-talking his "rich, kind" Uncle Randy about that Nintendo.

12/16/80 Knott's Berry Farm and Family visits

12/16/80 Tuesday - Randy and I visited Knott’s Berry Farm    

 and Movieland Wax Museum.

Then we went to visit Uncle Harry and Aunt Jean.  Uncle Harry is my mom's brother, although it's impossible for two people to be less alike. Mom is quiet and shy, while Harry treats everyone like his best friend. He has been blessed in his choice of wife because Aunt Jean is sweet, patient and loving.  He needs someone with all of that, just to put up/keep up with him!

Then we went to visit Aunt Ruth. She is one of my Mom's older sisters. After Mom graduated high school, she came out to Riverside to live with Ruth awhile. They both consider Ruth to be her second mom!

My favorite story about Aunt Ruth, who has the Booth's love of talking, occurred here.  I was out of the room for some reason and Randy was sitting in the living room, listening to Aunt Ruth.  He was really tired, and soon he just fell asleep.  After a while he woke up, and Aunt Ruth was still talking - she didn't even notice her audience was asleep!

Right about this time our nephew Michael started hinting how much he wanted a Nintendo, and was hoping his "kind" Uncle Randy would give him one for Christmas.

12/15/80 San Diego Zoo

12/15/80 Monday - Went to the San Diego Zoo.  We both like animals so this was a lot of fun.  I loved the big cats that Randy photographed so well.

One of the things that we found funny was that the Zoo had a special area where they made snow for children to play in it!  Back home in Illinois snow came around all by itself.

San Diego zoo was way ahead of other zoos in so many ways.  They were learning how to make better enclosures for their animals, so they weren't just sitting behind bars.  We hate seeing animals pace in a small cage, so here we were were able to appreciate the animals more.  They looked relaxed so we could relax. 

12/14/80 Swap-meet

12/14/80 Sunday - Butch took us to a huge swap-meet - our first!  Back in Illinois at that time we have never seen one of these. They sell a huge array of stuff, some of it new, most of it old. The old stuff is much more interesting. We know there are hidden treasures here, but they remained hidden from us!

Butch has a weird statue in his house. It's from the Philippines, but he thought maybe we could find one like it at the swap-meet. So glad we didn't!

12/13/80 First trip to Tijuana

12/13/80 Saturday - Went to a Christmas party on Butch’s ship, which was really interesting.  Afterwards we went to Tijuana for shopping and sight-seeing.  It was unlike anything we Mid-Westerners had seen before.  Lots of leather and onyx goods, and the shop owners kept following us through their store, asking us what we were looking for.  I quickly learned not to answer them or they would follow us out of the store and right down the street in an effort to make a sale.  The town was run down but very lively, and although we often felt annoyed, we always felt safe.

12/12/80 Road trip to San Diego

12/12/80 We wanted to visit family in San Diego, and it seemed like a good idea to drive there, from Illinois. The original plan was to take a few days to get there, staying in a hotel room at night. We wanted to take a ton of stuff with us: most of our clothes and a lot of Christmas presents for the family. Randy is a great packer - he got it all into our little hatch-back car. But then he wasn't comfortable leaving it parked outside a hotel overnight. So we drove straight through! We made it safe, but one of our enduring road-trip stories is from this trip. It was my turn to drive in the middle of the night through a New Mexico town and I kept hitting potholes. Randy had had enough - told me to just let him out of the car and leave him, right there, on the side of the road. When I said no, he suggested I get out! We eventually sorted it out, and for the rest of the trip, when it was my turn to drive, Randy pulled a blanket over his head and pretended to sleep. We both knew he wasn't sleeping, but it worked!

And today we drove into San Diego and met Randy's brother Butch and his great family - wife Lina and children Penny and Michael.  We all had lunch at a Philippine restaurant and then went shopping at Sea Port Village.