07-23-2024 Swim

Woke up a little early (<>) and got ready to go for a swim. I had finally gotten my new Westwood Club card sticker, and Heidi had also relaminated it for me. Swam for a total of 2250 yds, the first 2000 with standard protocol and the last 250 using my pull buoy and focusing on taking longer strokes, with only moderate success. Finished faster than I have swum in a while, even though my goggles were giving me a lot of trouble that caused me to stop and adjust them several times. I finally tightened them up, and this seemed to help. After the swim, I checked my email to see if I had gotten any replies about the SeaWorld tickets, and I got an email address from Frank to send my request. That one worked! So Ann and I got ready and drove over to Palomar Hospital in Escondido, taking the Highland Valley Rd route because the traffic on I-15 was stopped and the ramp was closed. In hindsight, it would probably have been quicker to drive back to RB Rd, but we weren't in a huge hurry, and the drive didn't have any traffic. Got to the hospital and got the tickets fairly quickly and very easily, then we were on our way. We drove down to SeaWorld, it was slow going through the line to get into the parking lot and to a parking space. Then we walked a fair distance to the entrance, no issues with the tickets. During the day, we saw the shows for the orcas, dolphins, and sea lions. All were pretty good. We walked by and through a number of animal exhibits, including ones for sharks, turtles, and rays. At 1:00 the park provided lunch for the Palomar attendees, there were quite a few of us. Lunch was decent, pasta, bread, salad, and dessert. It was a nice added touch, since the food at the park was pretty expensive. We didn't ride on any rides. Left the park after seeing the parade, which was about as hokey as you can get. Not sure why they even did that, it wasn't so entertaining. We left the park a little before 5 and drove down to Sorrento Valley to have dinner at Mom's (finally, for Ann). Calzone was good, the house salad not so much. Then it was home, where in the evening I cleaned my chain with several rinses of boiling hot water and then rewaxed it, leaving it to cool overnight after sitting in the wax for 30 minutes.