Dinner In The City

For the most part, we each have a routine we follow when it comes to day-to-day living. We get up, get ready for the day, work, come home, eat dinner, fill a few leftover hours with chores, TV viewing or hobbies, and go to bed.  It's a solid schedule; it may vary a bit here and there, but humans are creatures of habit and rarely do we stray away from the program. But every once in a while it's fun to take the routine and throw it a curve.

For example - dinner on a Tuesday.

With preseason football going on, I don't have a lot of time to spend with Nick. We've probably seen each other an hour or two at most each night see last few weeks.  And we do what we have to do - the money isn't going to just show up on our doorstep, but I miss seeing my husband!  So when his day off rolled around and we started talking about trying to catch up...an interesting idea was lobbed at me.

Dinner...in San Diego??  Well...um. Sure?  But it's 2 hours away.  Can we pull it off?  Traffic might be disgusting. What do we do with the dog?  It's a "school night"...should we really do this?  So many questions in my brain. So many things that could go wrong.

And then the answer....

Why the hell not?

So 4 hours later we were at the train station and off to our dinner adventure.

Yup. Train. We decided to not even use the car. After all, why drive?  SoCal traffic is a nightmare anyway, and why not do something that seemed to fall in line with our crazy Dinner In San Diego night out theme. So we took the train!

Traveling by rail can be amazing.  I've driven up and down interstate 5 countless times, but you get a new perspective from the window seat of a train.  I felt like I was walking right along side the ocean as we flew past wave after wave.

I got to see some of the inner landscape not accessible by car:

And traffic had to stop for us....not the other way around:

hello, traffic!

Plus both Nick and I both were able to relax on the trip...not one of us watching the scenery as the other shakes his fist at the annoying rental car who can't figure out how cruise control works.  We were able to enjoy some music, read a bit, talk and laugh with no road to watch...no hassles. What's not to love?

Two hours later we rolled into he station in Downtown San Diego.

And caught a car to one of our favorite restaurants, Island Prime.

So for the next couple of hours I had a chance to catch up on all the happenings in Nick's life over the past couple of weeks, enjoy a FABULOUS meal, unwind and relax in one of my favorite cities around. We gave a small toast to Tuesday, because...why not?

We watched the sun say goodnight to the end of another long, hot summer day:

And we sat on a bench and enjoyed the sight of the city coming alive for a night out.

Unfortunately, almost as quickly as we arrived we had to leave.

As the train pulled out of the station and started north into the night, I couldn't help but look at Nick and smile. I started the morning with the same daily routine, and it would end the same way; but the surprise and spontaneity of the in-between hours reminded me that not every day is the same, and that it's important to grab the opportunities as they come up.  I know how easy it is for me to get stuck in a day-to-day routine, and realized just how lucky I am to have someone who challenges me to step outside the norm and make the most of each day.

Who knows what today could bring?  After all, it's Wednesday.

Anything is possible.